IPSO Smart Objects
October 12, 2011, IPSO Alliance, Santa Clara, CA–The IPSO Alliance had Bo Begole from PARC talk about changing business models and technologies that will change the way people interact with their worlds. These new models will cause more independent R&D companies to form to address the many changing requirements.
Once devices know your location, they can provide much more pervasive and context-aware services. All devices will support many protocols and will cooperate to manage the many devices, networks, information, to help keep in contact with friends and to-do lists. These new capabilities started with the smart phones and now have moved to include all the existing infrastructure through WiFi and cell networks.
The ready availability of low-cost compute capabilities and mobile communications has enabled context aware functions that can intelligently apply information to the context. The cloud-based systems can look at patterns of activity to make recommendations. These capabilities will move from smart phones to smart objects to become responsive media.
There will be levels of contextual intelligence. A context aware device will have a sensor triggered, but will offer no additional intelligence. Behavior aware systems will track patterns of activity, and activity aware systems will label those patterns. Ultimately, the systems will become goal aware and will help you live a better life.
An example is a smart mirror which matches a customer’s pose on a slave portion of the display and shows selections of merchandise. This responsive mirror allows the customer to see a range of offerings which reduces returns while increasing user satisfaction. The smart mirror enables more cross- and up-selling.
Of course, privacy is a top priority in this system. Everything is on an opt-in basis to allow the client-side analytics tied to the cloud-side analytics on the encrypted data. The existing infrastructure works for this level of contextual intelligence. What is needed for full implementation are interoperability, unification, management, and ways to handle privacy and security.
