Accenture believes that sensor telemetry will extend the Internet's reach to cover nearly every physical object on earth-in real time.
[For example] The chemicals industry is currently investing in the development of fuel cells, but how can they price a product that might have a working life of, say, 10 years? Sensors offer the capability to measure a chemical reaction or the number of energy units consumed, enabling the supplier to charge by consumption, rather than a single initial payment.
A key part of any new technology-driven evolution is managing the challenges along the way.
Information flood...
Data ownership:
One of the burning questions will be: who owns or manages the data? Many sensor telemetry systems will create value chains with a number of potential stakeholders who will want to use the data. Across these chains, ownership, access, usage and revenue creation from the data must be agreed upon between parties. What roles should the product manufacturers, wireless companies or application service providers play?
~Gadszooks, imagine paying not only for the water your toilet uses but also everytime you sit on it or pull it's lever? How about being charged everytime your furnace or air-conditioner kicks on? Wireless toll charges for every bridge, on every highway? "Roaming charges" for all automobiles, out-of-state rates?
Sensors will "turn increasingly commoditized products (and publically funded infrastructures) into services". This will be the new "service economy" where the use of appliances and "public space" become billable.
The free market will be able to do away with public, open (free) space.
Some very large corporations, phone, cable and wireless internet providers, along with the law-makers and politicians who grant them licenses and affordances are going to make lots and lots of money.
See also ~comments here for a utopian version of sensor 'evolution'.
Posted by Cieciel at February 25, 2005 09:46 AM