White Spaces and the Road to Ambient Intelligence

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Though outdone by a separate (but welcomed) victory on November 4th, Google and its allies scored a few political points of their own on that fateful day last month.  In a 5-0 decision, the Federal Communications Commission voted to open up “white spaces” for general public use.

Non-techies, stick with me.  I promise this will be cool to you too.

First, what exactly are white spaces?  As you may recall from high school physics, radio waves exist on a spectrum of frequencies.  This spectrum is divided up for different uses: FM radio, television, military, airplane communication, satellite communication, cell phones, etc.

White space is the “snow” between the channels on your TV when you try to use the antenna.  They are unused frequencies in the spectrum that, as television broadcasters move away from airwave transmission to cable distribution, simply exist in the invisible ether serving no purpose.  And as Google and other tech companies have quickly figured out, these unused frequencies could be used to build the next generation of wireless data networks… as long as the regulatory bodies say its OK.  And last month, that’s exactly what they did.

OK, thanks for sticking with me, non-geeks.  I promised you relevance, so here it is.  From the section on the Free the Airwaves campaign site called “What are the benefits?”, here are three examples of how white spaces could be used:

Internet Access:  TV white spaces offer nothing less than the possibility of affordable, ubiquitous, high-speed Internet connections to all Americans, anywhere, at any time.

Education:  White spaces could provide America’s schools with affordable, mobile, high-speed Internet access. Teachers and students could be able to communicate and compete more effectively with their peers around the world. Videoconferencing could help enable distance learning for students in remote locations.

Public Safety:  Over the past several years, it has become clear that giving public safety agencies reliable, interoperable voice and data communications is a matter of national security. Today, though, first responders continue to suffer significant interoperability problems. Unused TV spectrum represents a new national technology platform that could improve communications for America’s police officers and firefighters. In emergencies, devices connected to these important airwaves could ensure reliable communications at emergency sites.

While those are the practical uses, there’s more.

Imagine a world that is blanketed with Wi-Fi.  Now look around at the objects around you.  Your coffee cup.  Your backback.  Your glasses.  Your wallet.  Imagine all of those things being connected to the web.  I know it sounds odd, but just take a few seconds and consider it.

Today, the internet is a medium mostly separated from “reality” because we must use an “internet-enabled” device to experience and manipulate it.  It’s an “internet of nodes”, so to speak.  First we were grounded to hard-wired terminals (desktop computers).  Then the creation of cell networks and wi-fi 1.0 allowed us to use mobile terminals (laptops, cell phones) to access it.  However, what if internet connectivity was truly ubiquitous — not just “readily accessible”, but literally all around us — what would that world be like?

What it would be like is described by the concept of the Internet of Things, where “dumb” objects like kitchen appliances, cars, articles of clothing, and even food containers would contain tiny identifying devices that would make the network aware of them and able to interact with them.  The objects could be tracked, and organized by the network.  No more lost keys or wallet or dog, for example.

Actually, “signals” from one object could trigger actions for another.  This is described as ambient intelligence, where networked devices communicate “to support people in carrying out their everyday life activities, tasks and rituals in an easy, natural way using information and intelligence that is hidden in the network connecting these devices.”  Remember those stories about guests at Bill Gates’ house wearing badges that would adjust temperature, lighting, and music to their preferences.  That’s what this is.  It’s not quite artificial intelligence, but it’s not far off the mark.

Obviously, there are risks for privacy (among other things) with this new technology.  And it is, honestly, just as frightening a vision as it is an inspiring one.  However you feel about it, though, it’s coming.  Get ready to see a whole new wave of innovation as the Internet seemingly escapes the confines of the node to pervade our world.

Image used under a Creative Commons license courtesy of Flickr user JasonRogers.