X- Internet

As the Internet expands, two new waves of innovation -- comprising what Forrester calls the X Internet -- are already eclipsing the Web: an executable Net that greatly improves the online experience and an extended Net that connects the real world.

An executable Net that supplants today's Web will move code to user PCs and cause devices to captivate consumers in ways static pages never could. Today's news, sports, and weather offered on static Web pages is essentially the same content presented on paper, making the online experience more like reading in a dusty library than participating in a new medium.

The extended Internet is reshaping technology's role in business through Internet devices and applications which sense, analyze, and control data, therefore providing more real-time information than ever before about what is going on in the real world.

The X Internet will not be a new invention, but rather the evolution of today's Internet of static Web pages and cumbersome e-commerce mechanisms into a Net that relies on executable software code to deliver more interactive experiences.

Executable Internet applications use downloaded code like Java and XML to enhance the user experience with pop-up menus, pick lists, graphics and simple calculations, according to a recent Forrester report entitled "The X Internet."

An easy way to understand how the X Internet will work is to imagine that a band wants to distribute a song over the Net. Rather than worrying about which audio player people want to use, an executable file will deliver the song and the audio player at the same time.

"With an executable, you can distribute movies the same way you distribute songs," Forrester research director and report author Carl Howe told NewsFactor Network. "It just makes the models work better."

Building the X-Net

The report also employs an example of a person building a house. With today's Internet, a builder would have to find, then try to follow, an article detailing how to frame a window. When it was time to install the bathroom, the would-be plumber would then have to find an article dealing with that topic.

Executable Internet applications would demonstrate to a builder, step-by-step, how to frame a window. When it came time to install the bathroom, the carpenter would simply be replaced by a plumber.

"Instead of reading a book, you have a conversation about the work you're trying to do," Howe wrote.

Forrester is also predicting the widespread adoption of another X Internet -- but this X stands for "extended." The extended Internet will include the widespread adoption of real-world appliances, like air conditioners or car tires, that communicate with owners or manufacturers via the Internet.

The extended Internet will come with the inclusion of cheap sensors in thousands of everyday products, an era that will begin around 2005, Forrester predicts.

Many people think the Internet and the Web are the same thing. They're not. The Internet is a piece of wire that goes from me to you and from me to 300 million other people in the world. The Web is software that I put on my end of the wire, and you put on your end -- allowing us to exchange information. While the Internet (the wire) evolves gradually, the software on the wire can change quickly. Before the Web, other software was clamped onto the Internet. WAIS, Gopher, and Usenet were the dominant systems, and there were companies that were doing commerce using those software models. I call this the "executable Internet," or X Internet, for short. X Internet offers several important advantages over the Web: 1) It rides Moore's Law -- the wide availability of cheap, powerful, low real-estate processing; 2) it leverages ever dear bandwidth -- once the connection is made, a small number of bits will be exchanged, unlike the Web where lots of pages are shuttled out to the client; and 3) X Internet will be far more peer-to-peer -- unlike the server-centric Web. This scenario could be marred by two threats: viruses and lack of standards. Once executables start to move fluidly through the Net, viruses will have perfect conditions to propagate. Standards, or rather the lack thereof, will block the quick arrival of X Internet. I can't see Microsoft, Sun, IBM, or other traditionalists setting the standards. The Web-killer's design will emerge from pure research, academe, or open source -- as did the Web.

What It Means -- No. 1: Web-centric companies get stuck holding the bag. They will wake up one day with hundreds of millions of dollars of legacy code on their hands. Yes, their brands will remain intact, but their technology will suddenly be very outmoded. Yahoo!, eBay, and AOL will find themselves competing with a new wave of commerce players that market, deliver, and service using the superior technology of X Internet. One of the upstarts will Amazon Amazon.

Wireless Networked Digital Devices

The proliferation of mobile computing devices including laptops, personal digital assistants (PDAs),and wearable computers has created a demand for wireless personal area networks (PANs).PANs allow proximal devices to share information and resources.The mobile nature of these devices places unique requirements on PANs,such as low power consumption, frequent make-and-break connections, resource discovery and utilization, and international regulations. This paper examines wireless technologies appropriate for PANs and reviews promising research in resource discovery and service utilization. We recognize the need for PDAs to be as manageable as mobile phones and also the restrictive screen area and input area in mobile phone. Thus the need for a new breed of computing devices to fit the bill for a PAN. The above devices become especially relevant for mobile users such as surgeons and jet plane mechanics who need both hands free and thus would need to have "wearable" computers.This paper first examines the technology used for wireless communication. Putting a radio in a digital device provides physical connectivity;however,to make the device useful in a larger context a networking infrastructure is required. The infrastructure allows devices o share data,applications,and resources such as printers, mass storage, and computation power. Defining a radio standard is a tractable problem as demonstrated by the solutions presented in this paper. Designing a network infrastructure is much more complex. The second half of the paper describes several research projects that try to address components of the networking infrastructure. Finally there are the questions that go beyond the scope of this paper, yet will have he greatest effect on the direction,capabilities,and future of this paradigm. Will these networking strategies be incompatible, like he various cellular phone systems in the United States, or will there be a standard upon which manufacturers and developers agree, like the GSM (global system for mobile communication)cellular phones in Europe? Communication demands compatibility, which is challenging in a heterogeneous marketplace. Yet by establishing and implementing compatible systems, manufacturers can offer more powerful and useful devices to their customers. Since these are, after all, digital devices living in a programmed digital world, compatibility and interoperation are possible.