Envisioning what a world with an Open Spectrum Commons look like...

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: "Robert J. Berger" <rberger () ibd com>
Date: Mon, 03 Feb 2003 18:18:30 +0900
To: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>, Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: Envisioning what a world with an Open Spectrum Commons look like...

One of the things I'm writing about here at Glocom is what a world with an
Open Spectrum Commons might look like in terms of how it would effect
people, companies and markets.

It seems that what has been written so far has been so focused on just
communicating what Open Spectrum is, that there is not all that much about
how an Open Spectrum Commons might transform society.

There has been some written about the importance of Open Spectrum is for
freedom of speech. For instance Dave Weinberger and others who have been
thinking a lot about Open Spectrum have put down some broad strokes on how
its important to democracy in the Greater Democracy website pages on Open
Spectrum "Why Open Spectrum Matters"
(http://www.greaterdemocracy.org/framing_openspectrum.html).


There was a good  science fiction story recently on the net by Cory Doctorow
about a near term future vision of Open Spectrum: "Liberation Spectrum"
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2003/01/16/liberation_spectrum/index.html

One aspect I look to exploring is the idea that UWB + Cognitive Radios +
RFID + Moore's Law should develop into ultra-lowcost devices that can be
embedded in just about every manufactured (and probably biological as well)
thing. What will this mean? There are both dark and light possibilities
here. (Infinite trackability is one). What kind of emergent property will
come about?

Combine that with the following thoughts from a recent essay by William
Gibsion. He wasn't thinking about wireless perse, but I always think of the
Open Spectrum wireless as just the capilaries of the Internet. His essay was
about how electronic media in general and the Internet in particular are
examples of how we are becoming a "borg". We don't need implants, just
connectivity:

"There¹s my cybernetic organism: the internet. If you accept that ³physical²
isn¹t only the things we can touch, it¹s the largest man-made object on the
planet, or will be, soon: it¹s outstripping the telephone system, or
ingesting it, as I speak. And we who participate in it are physically a part
of it. The Borg we are becoming..

Š

Interface evolves toward transparency. The one you have to devote the least
conscious effort to, survives, prospers. This is true for interface hardware
as well, so that the cranial jacks and brain inserts and bolts in the neck,
all the transitional sci-fi hardware of the sci-fi cyborg, already looks
slightly quaint. The real cyborg, the global organism, is so splendidly
invasive that these things already seem medieval. They fascinate, much as
torture instruments do, or reveal erotic possibilities to the adventurous,
or beckon as stages or canvasses for the artist, but I doubt that very many
of us will ever go there. The real cyborg will be deeper and more subtle and
exist increasingly at the particle level, in a humanity where unaugmented
reality will eventually be a hypothetical construct, something we can only
try, with great difficulty, to imagine -- as we might try, today, to imagine
a world without electronic media."

- William Gibson Essay: IN THE VISEGRIPS OF DR. SATAN (WITH VANNEVAR BUSH)
http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/archive/2003_01_28_archive.asp

I'm also attempting to identify related disruptive technology opportunities.
IE what would be the tech to invest in if you were a technology company and
wanted to attempt to ride the wave of Open Spectrum. The areas I'm thinking
of right now are:

* Enhancing existing standards and developing new standards that facilitate
UWB, Cognitive/Software defined radios and meshing.

* Chipsets and embeddable subsystems for above

* Integrating existing types of devices into ubiquitous, broadband, wireless
networked devices (i.e. Appliances, home electronics, cars, lighting, etc.)

* Distributed OS and management

* Distributed entertainment


If anyone has any thoughts or pointers to stuff written about this (doesn't
have to be this far out of course :-), please let me know. Besides my own
needs, it might also be useful in stimulating both discussion and building
more steam for conveying why Open Spectrum is important.

-- 
Robert J. Berger - Internet Bandwidth Development, LLC.
In Tokyo as Glocom visiting research fellow through April 2003
Cell: +81 80-3121-6128 Work: +81 3-5411-6613 http://www.glocom.ac.jp
eFax: +1-408-490-2868 rberger () glocom ac jp rberger () ibd com



------ End of Forwarded Message

-------------------------------------
You are subscribed as interesting-people () lists elistx com
To unsubscribe or update your address, click
  http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip

Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/