This article was taken from the February 2014 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
The internet was born as an open multiple hub-and-spoke network with no single point of failure. The underground data lines were buried deep to maintain connectivity in the event of a nuclear strike. Decades later this framework still serves as our backbone, yet more than half of the traffic on the internet today runs through wireless connections.
Can you imagine the internet today without wireless connectivity? Wi-Fi to our laptops has only been built into the hardware since 1999; just a few years later, in 2002, the first low-speed data-enabled phones arrived (fast like a dial-up modem). A decade after these first connected devices, LTE networks have brought our mobile devices true broadband speeds.
We've all come to rely on wireless services. Tablet sales are booming and our increasingly portable world hinges on Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and mobile networks to communicate device-to-device, along with up-and-coming technologies such as near field communication (NFC) and Bluetooth low energy (BTLE). The recent arrival of LTE Direct (LTE-D) will create further "discovery" opportunities between devices as they incorporate the technology.
We have innovated past wires buried in the ocean, but with progress comes new challenges. Most of these wireless radios require pairing or authentication to communicate with the other devices on the networks. (Extending the metaphor -- way too many fish in the sea.) I was intrigued by the friction created by this technology. Why couldn't we create valuable experiences from discovery of devices nearby, without the need to connect to them?
Various companies are proving that this approach is possible.
Apple very quietly announced iBeacons using BTLE this summer at its worldwide developer event by putting the term on a slide. No discussion or notes followed, but an announcement from Major League Baseball hints at its proposed use of the technology.
Its vision is that your mobile phone will wake up and react to beacons seen within the ballpark -- perhaps automating ordering at the food stand and sending special offers in the gift shop or information on the latest play while in your seat.
But as with any technology standard, BTLE beacons are not unique to Apple. They're commoditised chips sending out a string of invisible numbers like a barcode on a package that applications "see" and trigger events from. Many of the wearable technologies that are part of the hot "quantified self" movement support this protocol too. Devices such as the FitBit and Nike FuelBand SE also use BTLE and can trigger actions. Android has no such beacon technology, as the team from Google invested heavily in NFC to support proposed wallets and payment protocols.
These have not garnered wide adoption, even after three releases of the system.
This is an opportunity to automate all of our daily lives. Some day proximity networks will shine when you're out of range, or at a music festival where networks fail from over-capacity. With BTLE or LTE-D, devices will automatically go into peer-to-peer mode, communicating in an on-the-fly network created in an effort to restore connectivity, like the forefounders of the internet envisioned back in the day, albeit wirelessly and untethered.
Dave Mathews is founder and CEO of NewAer, Inc. a US company building software to leverage any radio wave that devices connect with, and make scripts for software developers, network providers or device manufacturers.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
