A fascinating report by the United Kingdom’s version of the Federal Communications Commission paints a vivid picture of a technology-driven world right out of a Vernor Vinge novel: Bluetooth implants in your body warning doctors of impending heart attacks; wireless sensors in cars slamming on the brakes before collisions; reminders from doctors to take medications based on wireless vital sign readings.
The Office of Communications, known as Ofcom, is the UK’s independent regulator of competition in its television, radio, telecom and wireless communications industries. Its new report, “Tomorrow’s Wireless World,” features technology innovations being tested in some British cities and it already has some privacy advocates shouting about a digital Big Brother. But the tone of the report is generally positive about the role technology could play in saving lives, trimming health care costs and making travel safer and greener.
The section regarding “in-body networks” - wireless sensors that allow doctors to monitor patients’ health from miles away - uses existing radio spectrum in the UK. And while some of the transportation applications conjure up images of Onstar on steroids and the traffic scenes from Steven Spielberg’s “Minority Report,” Ofcom says the technologies are already in development and could be ready for placement in cars by 2015.
All of these intelligent networks will require equally-intelligent management of spectrum, whether in the UK or in the US. It’s true that some of these developments have already been touched on in gee-whiz tech reporting by the mainstream media - if not in sci-fi novels by the likes of Vinge, Kim Stanley Robinson and Bruce Sterling - but it’s still exciting (at least for the geeks in all of us) to hear an official agency say the technology is closer than you think. So get ready for those implants; at least they’ll save you money on those Bluetooth headsets.
Read [Ofcom]
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