| [Johannesburg,
24 May 2005] - In about 20
years, conventional telecommunications will cease to exist and
ambient intelligence will take its place.
This is the prediction of British Telecoms (BT) futurist
Ian Pearson, addressing the Futurex 2005 conference in Sandton
via a live satellite link last week.
Pearson said the next global IT buzzword would be NBIC (nanotechnology,
biotechnology, information technology and cognitive science)
convergence, which essentially means ICT will be seamlessly
integrated into everything around us.
Photo: BT |
| Ten
years from now, telecoms companies won't need to
exist, says BT futurologist Ian Pearson. |
|
Backing his prediction was the fact that the European Union
was already spending three billion euros on
nanotechnology and one billion euros on NBIC specifically.
“And the Americans are going to spend a lot more than
that, and the Far Eastern countries will spend around the
same again. So this is not science fiction but ‘science
faction',” Pearson said.
Amid this new ambient intelligence environment,
communications could become virtually free, Pearson said.
He described how devices would soon create their own
networks from one smart device to another, linking to each
other across long distances.
This would eliminate the need for traditional telecoms
services and would be a serious threat to telecoms companies
unless they added services to this technology and made their
money that way.
Pearson said BT plans to launch a phone smart enough to
seamlessly switch to available networks without the user
having to do anything.
“Once we start doing this, we can use ‘symbiotic
networks' (ad hoc networks) that set up wireless networks
between devices, so one device links to the next available
one, and so on and so on until the network extends across
town, giving people free calls,” he said.
“Ten years from now, telecoms companies won't need to
exist, because the devices themselves can set up networks
and you can link the calls that way.
“We're already moving into a broadband network economy
with high-speed links within companies and to the
Internet.”
Outlining the future, Pearson said the next age would be
the world of ambient intelligence, after which we would
enter an age of simplicity.
Eventually, before 2025, people would be able to feel as
if they are in someone's office, feel their handshake or
feel their hug, from a distance, and telecoms will have gone
as far as it can, he said.
|
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