TROTTING swiftly through the forest, a truffle hunter is travelling light.
His faithful pig鈥攖he truffle-sniffer of old鈥攊s still in its sty. In
its stead, our high-tech hunter is waving a pen-shaped contraption at the leaf
litter. The gadget鈥檚 electronic nose is sniffing for a telltale pungency, and
when at last it recognises pong de truffle, an alarm alerts him to a
valuable find.
This is just one of the many ideas that stream from the mind of the Swedish
entrepreneur and former neurophysiologist Christer F氓hraeus. These days
F氓hraeus鈥檚 forte is looking at the things people do, and dreaming up new ways to
do them鈥攑referably with profitable new technologies.
If you could take a look inside the pen-shaped gizmo, there wouldn鈥檛 be a
wire in sight, says F氓hraeus. Just a sensor and a chip not much bigger than an
aspirin tablet. The chip is a short-range radio transceiver that beams signals
to a cellphone in the hunter鈥檚 pocket. In turn, this is hooked up via the
Internet to a computer that continually compares the signal with that expected
of truffle.
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The future鈥檚 blue
If you think this set-up sounds like the ravings of a man who鈥檚 one herring
short of a smorgasbord, you鈥檇 be wrong. F氓hraeus is founder of a string of
wireless technology companies, including C-Technologies of Lund, and Anoto of
Stockholm. His truffle-hunting scenario is intended to show just how far out the
applications of this little chip will become. Its heart is a device called a
Bluetooth chip, and pundits are tipping it as The Next Big Thing.
F氓hraeus鈥檚 singular vision for Bluetooth is to help people on the move.
Anything from a PDA to a text translator will connect to the Net with the help
of the chip and a mobile phone. Further ahead, F氓hraeus thinks Bluetooth will
let us carry around all manner of sensors鈥攆or measuring air quality,
electromagnetic fields or whatever. All we need do is dream up applications for
them, he says.
Bluetooth was devised by Swedish telecoms company Ericsson, and has already
been adopted by more than two thousand companies, many of them household names.
Cahners In-Stat, an Arizona-based market research firm, predicts that by the end
of 2004 manufacturers will have turned out 1 billion Bluetooth devices. And
investment bank Merrill Lynch reckons double that number will be produced in
2005 alone. That鈥檚 one Bluetooth device for every two people on Earth in just
five years鈥� time.
Bluetooth鈥檚 main function is to let like-minded devices within a 10-metre
radius 鈥渢alk鈥� to each other鈥攁nd control one another. It imposes this order
by connecting them through a short-range digital wireless network. Ericsson
named the system after Harald Bluetooth, a 10th-century Danish king who brought
a semblance of order to battling Viking clans. It has a bit more ring to it than
鈥淏iz RF鈥�, which was Intel鈥檚 idea for the name, says Orjan Johansson, who heads
up the Bluetooth project at Ericsson鈥檚 Lund site.
For people on the move, Bluetooth is going to offer the freedom to make all
kinds of unlikely connections. Its 10-metre range puts portable devices such as
cellphones and PDAs in a kind of 鈥渂ubble鈥濃�攁 wireless sphere of influence.
Within the Bluetooth bubble, people will be able to do unheard-of things.
Take opening the front door. Why bother with a key when a buzz from your
Bluetooth mobile can unlock the door as you approach? The device will, of
course, have biometrically confirmed your identity with a fingerprint
recogniser.
And cash鈥攚ho needs it? Just beam funds from your bank account into a
till or vending machine with a digital squirt from your mobile. The
possibilities are vast. You could be connecting with just about any device you
pass, whether it be a laser printer or a toll booth.
Many companies see Bluetooth鈥檚 real value in the home. For starters, it could
do away with the tangles of cables that now link computer to printer, TV to VCR,
and seem to breed when you鈥檙e not looking. 鈥淣ormally, those kind of cables cost
around $10, so we鈥檝e engineered Bluetooth radio chips to cost less than
that apiece,鈥� says Johansson. The hope is that switching the $10 outlay
from cables to chips could be what makes the intelligent home a reality, say
Bluetooth advocates.
One of Bluetooth鈥檚 most vociferous supporters is E2-Home, an intriguing joint
venture set up by Ericsson and Electrolux. Its sunlit penthouse office in Solna,
on the outskirts of Stockholm, is an unlikely crucible of the future, looking
more like a kitchen showroom. But this is where a group of software engineers
and consumer psychologists are hoping to change the way we relate to our
homes.
If devices all round your home are going to become remote controlled, the
first thing you will need is a terminal from which to operate them. Ask most
people where the terminal should be sited and they鈥檒l say the TV in the living
room. But not E2. 鈥淭he kitchen is becoming more and more the centre of gravity
in homes today,鈥� argues Per Grunewald, E2鈥檚 president. 鈥淓lectrolux鈥檚 research
shows we now spend about 40 per cent of our non-sleeping time at home in the
kitchen. And that鈥檚 increasing in both the US and Europe. As it鈥檚 the room we
spend most of our waking time in, we鈥檝e chosen it as the base for new
蝉别谤惫颈肠别蝉.鈥�
So if the kitchen is to be the nerve centre, the best place to site the
control console is鈥攜ou guessed it鈥攐n the fridge. 鈥淭he fridge is
where you put your reminders on Post-it notes. You don鈥檛 put them on the TV,鈥�
says Grunewald. 鈥淭he fridge is where the kids come home and look for snacks, so
it鈥檚 a kind of natural place for messaging 蝉别谤惫颈肠别蝉.鈥�
To make the fridge the wireless control hub, Electrolux has developed the
Screen Fridge, with a colour touch-screen built into its door. E2 is busy
writing software for the fridge that will turn it into something that even a
child can use.
Above the fridge鈥檚 screen sits a Bluetooth antenna. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a kitchen-safe
transmitter,鈥� says Adam Fjaestad, E2鈥檚 consumer interface expert. 鈥淵ou can even
spray Mr Muscle on the Bluetooth transceiver, or splash coffee on it, and not
damage it. It鈥檚 sealed to water but not to radio waves.鈥� Tap the washing machine
icon on the screen, and up pops a remote control panel for the washer. You can
choose the wash cycle or change the water temperature.
Also above the screen is a small lens: it鈥檚 a camera that lets you record
video messages of the 鈥測our dinner鈥檚 in the dog鈥� variety. The picture and audio
quality are superb, though鈥攁s good as digital video. Each member of the
household has an icon which flashes when they鈥檝e left a message. These are the
electronic equivalent of the scribbled messages held in place with fridge
magnets.
So far, all the action takes place inside the home. But it needn鈥檛 end there.
Connect up the fridge terminal to the Net and something strange happens: you
will be able to control your domestic appliances from anywhere in the world, via
the Web. Video recorder, fan-assisted oven, dishwasher and electronic cat flap
will all be at your command. You鈥檒l be able to switch on the bedroom light or
record the latest episode of Friends with a command from your cellphone
or PC.
Turn this notion around, and you can use the terminal to perform all those
Web jobs you do鈥攕hopping at the electronic mall, writing e-mails, or
simply browsing the Web. 鈥淲e believe there are a lot of applications and
services that we can provide electronically that can make life more comfortable,
safer, convenient and time-saving,鈥� Grunewald says. 鈥淲e want to stop you doing
all the boring stuff.鈥�
If your idea of 鈥渂oring stuff鈥� includes the weekly supermarket trek, the
Screen Fridge can help here too. The fridge will be smart enough to know what
you have taken out and eaten, or what鈥檚 still mouldering inside, way past its
use-by date, and will e-mail a fresh order to the online supermarket. Another of
its tricks is finding recipes. Press a button on the screen and the fridge will
tell you what you can make with what鈥檚 left inside. True, it鈥檚 a little
underwhelming to be told that an ideal meal to make with an avocado is avocado
salad, but in time it should become a bit more imaginative.
Fjaestad admits that getting the futuristic fridge to know what it
contains鈥攁nd what has been taken out鈥攊s proving troublesome.
Scanning bar codes as you put food inside is too much of a hassle. One way
forward might be to persuade the food industry to abandon bar codes and move to
cheap radio-frequency tags that could be sensed as they went in and out of the
fridge.
Instant reaction
The Net connection is a key factor, too. Under E2鈥檚 scheme, homes will be
permanently online via a connection that can handle high data rates, such as an
asynchronous digital subscriber line (ADSL) or a 3G mobile link. 鈥淭his
definitely needs an always-on connection. The minimum connection technology will
be ADSL,鈥� says Grunewald. 鈥淎s soon as you push a button, the information should
be there. If you want to know today鈥檚 weather or traffic news on the Screen
Fridge or a wireless webpad in the kitchen, you want it now鈥攏ot later.鈥� To
experience a feeling of direct connection, the response has to come in around
200 milliseconds, says Grunewald. 鈥淚t cannot be like sitting at an Internet
browser and waiting and waiting and waiting.鈥�
To test whether people like all this, trials started last month in Copenhagen
and Stockholm. In 50 Copenhagen homes, psychologists will study consumer
behaviour, to help design what Grunewald calls the right 鈥渟oft user
interaction鈥�. 鈥淭hese families will have WAP telephones so they can communicate
with their home from anywhere,鈥� he says. 鈥淭hey can call their fridge and see
what鈥檚 in it.鈥�
The Stockholm experiment, based in five purpose-built concept houses, is
looking at what happens inside the home. From their fridges, the guinea pigs
will be able to control lighting, heating, robotic lawnmowers, alarm systems and
devices from washing machines to hi-fis. E2 is eager to find out which aspects
of their brave new homes people like the best and which will bomb.
There are also some technical aspects that still need watching. Bluetooth
chips work in the microwave band, at 2.4 gigahertz. It鈥檚 called the Industrial,
Scientific and Medical (ISM) band, and anybody is free to use it. So
interference from other devices could be a problem, especially as Bluetooth
signals are relatively weak鈥攍ess than one-thousandth the peak power of a
cellphone signal.
To get round this problem, Ericsson has taken some clever evasive action.
鈥淭he Bluetooth signal is 80 megahertz wide and changes frequency 1600 times a
second to avoid interference from other devices,鈥� says Johansson. Signals marred
by noise at one frequency will be re-sent at a different one. Still, nobody will
really know how Bluetooth copes with noisy environments until the chips are in
use. Assuming that it will all work, Ericsson is planning a 鈥渟on of Bluetooth鈥�
with a range of 100 metres. It could be only a few years before the video in the
living room is beaming images to a TV in the backyard.
One other technical challenge is keeping out hackers. E2 has designed
software security for its Screen Fridge. A shutter in the camera can block the
view鈥攋ust in case people worry that a hacker might be watching them. 鈥淭he
shutter is also physically connected to the microphone leads,鈥� says Fjaestad,
鈥渟o when the shutter鈥檚 down the microphone is off.鈥�
But hackers are notoriously persistent. They鈥檒l almost certainly try to
exploit the always-on link to the Net. 鈥淭he system has to be proof against
hackers,鈥� Grunewald says. 鈥淚t mustn鈥檛 let people hack in and mess around with
your house.鈥� That鈥檚 why E2 has joined a group that includes the likes of Sun
Microsystems, IBM and Nokia to develop secure standards for intelligent homes.
鈥淎fter all,鈥� Grunewald says, 鈥測ou don鈥檛 want a Melissa virus in your washing
尘补肠丑颈苍别.鈥�
