Looks like for the first time someone has come up with a logical way of
explaining the various phases the Internet has gone through and also dare to
predict the future of this pervasive network.
Presenting Sun's technology direction, its chief technology officer, Greg
Papadopoulos not only gave a glimpse of what Sun thinks of the Internet but also
attempted to logically sew together the various innovations the Internet has
seen.
According to Sun, the real Network of Networks will be the Internet of
"things". Now to understand this, imagine your shoe polish which has
IP communication-capable granules in it integrated seamlessly in the glistening
cream. The shoe polish knows how much to shine and how much to stick to the
shoes, an intelligence it will pick up from the leather the moment it comes into
contact with it. So goodbye shoe-shiners!
This may appear to be a figment of the wildest imagination, but Sun is
serious about it.
However, Papadopoulos says there's still time before such polish and leather
hit the stores. He says that before we get on to things that automatically
connect to one another, we have to build devices that connect to each other with
the help of embedded computers. In Papadopoulos' world, the Internet will pass
through three fundamental waves. We are witnessing the Internet of computers and
are about to witness the Internet of things that embed computers. Then follows
the mind-boggling world of the Internet of things (read micro-electronic
machines or MEMs). Papadopoulos doesn't stop at this. In the next column, he has
put a question mark. Give him a year and he may fill it up.
The Internet of things emerges out of Sun's very definition of Network
Computing which states: It is the decomposition and distribution of computing.
Now Papadopoulos encourages us to think as to what extent and how we can detach
and distribute computing control. If you let your imagination run wild, then the
entire globe will appear to be a network of billions of MEMs. And that's what
Sun and Papadopoulos want.
To prove it is not joking, Sun gave sneak preview of two of its futuristic
technologies, Internet Radio and Brazil. Internet Radio is Sun's solution to the
automotive industry to integrate Web services in cars while Brazil is an
experiment Sun is carrying out, which connects stand-alone devices from
refrigerators to coffee makers to the Web.
Who said Sun was all Java and Solaris? Take a look at the real Sun.