I hadn’t heard much about this in a few years so I did some digging and it looks like we’re on the verge of having some very interesting technology for networking.  Back before wireless routers became commonplace there was talk of using a house’s electrical wiring as a data network – after all the copper is already there, why not use it for signalling as well as power.  The problem is that all the stuff we plug into our electrical wires creates a lot of noise, so transmitting data packets at a reasonable speed is difficult (older standards were too slow to use for networking).

Well it looks like they’re managed to solve most of those problems.  There are systems now that operate at up to 200Mbps (Wireless-G maxes out at 20Mbps in best-case scenarios), and there are standards being worked out which will provide gigabit/second transmission rates.  The first chips for these new standards are expected to start rolling out later this year or early 2010.  The most exciting of these new standards, G.hn, is designed to work over power lines, phone lines, or coax (I suspect the transmission rates will vary depending on which line is being used).

The reason this is interesting to me is that it allows practically anything in your house to be networked; toasters, garage door openers, fridges, televisions, lights, security systems, speakers, HVAC systems, PV arrays, etc.  Anything that plugs in could be networked by simply adding another chip to it’s internal circuitry (I would guess these chips will cost less than $10 in bulk).  Think of the possibilities!  This allows control and monitoring, so not only can the lights turn themselves off when you leave the house, you could graph the exact energy consumption of every appliance in your house.  Coupled with demand pricing for electricity, this would enable enormous gains in energy efficiency.

Penn State seems to have just started a video series dealing with the emergence of geospatial information as a significant cultural force – it looks very interesting:

We live in the Global Location Age. “Where am I?” is being replaced by, “Where am I in relation to everything else?”

Penn State Public Broadcasting is developing the Geospatial Revolution Project, an integrated public media and outreach initiative about the world of digital mapping and how it is changing the way we think, behave, and interact.

The project will feature a web-based serial release of eight video episodes—each telling an intriguing geospatial story.

There’s a preview video on the site that’s worth a watch.

From LinuxDevices:

Marvell Semiconductor is shipping a hardware/software development kit suitable for always-on home automation devices and service gateways. Resembling a “wall-wart” power adapter, the SheevaPlug draws 5 Watts, comes with Linux, and boasts completely open hardware and software designs, Marvell says.

In typical use, the SheevaPlug draws about as much power as a night-light. Yet, with 512MB each of RAM and Flash, and a 1.2GHz CPU, the unobtrusive device approaches the computing power found in the servers of only a decade ago.

If only this had some type of wireless connectivity (although I guess you could put a wireless card in teh USB port).  I’m not sure what this could be useful for, but I’m sure there are plenty of options.

Google just released a service called Latitude, which enables people with certain types of cell phones to publish their physical location.  From Computerworld:

How does Latitude do that? Google is using technology that’s similar to that of Skyhook Wireless in its Latitude service. Like Skyhook, it is a software-only location solution that allows any mobile device with Wi-Fi, GPS or a cellular radio to determine its position with an accuracy of 10 to 20 meters. What sets XPS apart is that it uses land-based Wi-Fi access points, GPS satellites and cellular towers to determine location information.

In other words, Latitude can use any of the three kinds of signals — Wi-Fi, 2G/3G/4G mobile or GPS satellite — that a device can pick up to work out its location. By leveraging these wireless capabilities, the software can combine positioning data from satellites, carrier assistance servers and Wi-Fi base stations to significantly speed up positioning, or TTFF (time to first fix). TTFF for some devices can be up to a minute, but by using multiple reference sites, Latitude can reduce TTFF to a few seconds.

Basically, the software installs on your phone and  periodically checks to see where the phone is located, then send that information to Google.  Aside from the slightly creepy privacy implications, this seems like an interesting way for buildings to ‘know’ where their occupants are located (or their cellphones at least).

I could imagine houses closing the windows, turning off the lights, and dropping the temperature when nobody’s home, then reversing the cycle as the owner starts driving home from work.

I could also see some interesting urban dynamics research using this system if it were widely adopted and the data were public (again, my privacy nerve is twitching…)

Bruce Schneier just re-published a great essay on data and privacy worth a read.  Some excerpts:

Welcome to the future, where everything about you is saved. A future where your actions are recorded, your movements are tracked, and your conversations are no longer ephemeral. A future brought to you not by some 1984-like dystopia, but by the natural tendencies of computers to produce data.

Data is the pollution of the information age. It’s a natural byproduct of every computer-mediated interaction. It stays around forever, unless it’s disposed of. It is valuable when reused, but it must be done carefully. Otherwise, its after effects are toxic.

And just as 100 years ago people ignored pollution in our rush to build the Industrial Age, today we’re ignoring data in our rush to build the Information Age.

And all those cameras, now visible, will shrink to the point where you won’t even see them. Ephemeral conversation will all but disappear, and you’ll think it normal. Already your children live much more of their lives in public than you do. Your future has no privacy, not because of some police-state governmental tendencies or corporate malfeasance, but because computers naturally produce data.

While the privacy issue interests me, I think the large point here is that we’re creating a world with a much richer information landscape.  To date this information has been used mostly to either fight crime or hawk products.

The interaction of this information landscape and the physical landscape (ie architecture and urban planning) has not been investigated as much, aside from a few art projects with little impact on people’s daily lives.