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Article Excerpt
Right now you're using a 30-year old computing paradigm. It consists of a typewriter (and mouse) for input, a TV (and printer) for output, and a tape (or CD) for storage, all connected by wires. But a TV, tape recorder, and typewriter do not make up a computer. In Gordon Moore's famous 1965 Electronics magazine article, where he propounded what has become "Moore's Law" (chips get faster-and-faster-and-faster), there is, in fact, a drawing of a home computer. It is held by a salesman in a department store. It has no screen and no typewriter. It is, simply, a box.
A computer is intelligence mediated by software. Its input could be a sensor, and its output an alarm, while its storage could be a database updated locally. Why do we need wires between these devices? Why not just move the data wirelessly? When all this data is connected under the Internet protocol, it's also available to you from anywhere in the world, via any and every device you take with you on your way.
This is the world of "always-on"--applications depend on an always-on wireless network and the always-on connectivity of Internet broadband. The idea is that one-chip sensors pass data via radios to a server that can then calculate their meaning and take action. The chips are the clients, your PC is the server, and a wireless network is the computer.
Always-On vs Alzheimer's
Home entertainment is one of the easiest, and simplest such application to understand. This is the area Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, and others are targeting with their "home media server" concept. The PC stores all your music and (in time) your movies. The PC interface is used to control them, and a wireless network (Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or Ultra WideBand) is used to deliver them. In addition to these "brand name" solutions to that problem, there are also "new name"...
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