Features

Everything, from the chair you're sitting on to the tree outside your window, could one day be a part of the internet. That might sound daft, but the United Nations is taking it seriously. Two years ago, the UN commissioned a report from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the UN agency responsible for regulating communications worldwide. The report was called The Internet of Things, and it looked at the next step in always-on communications. In short, it examined how a communications network might include real-world objects and places as well as data, which is mostly what the internet is restricted to today.

According to the lead author of the ITU report, Lara Srivastava, "The Internet of Things implies a future in which the number of users of the internet will grow exponentially. Not only will humans, PCs and mobile phones have the potential to access the network of networks, but so too will everyday items, from toothbrushes to tyres, from textbooks to boots."

For Srivastava the early signs of an Internet of Things are already visible today in the retail world as more and more consumer goods are tagged for inventory management, and in the healthcare sector, as medical equipment and pharmaceuticals are more easily tracked. But Srivastava is cautious. "A full-fledged Internet of Things, in which the majority of real objects could be mapped in the virtual world, will most likely take some 20 years."

Two decades is a long time. However, it has been two years since the ITU report was published so we should be seeing the emergence of some of the mechanisms that the Internet of Things will require, if it

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is ever to come into existence.

Object lessons

Putting objects on the internet is not new. Ever since researchers in the computer laboratory at Cambridge University trained a camera on their coffee pot to view it remotely in 1991, academics have revelled in giving all sorts of objects a home on the web. Robots, model railways and interactive art installations are just a few of the objects you can view and control via the web.

There's a serious side to this, too. State-of-the-art home-automation systems allow you to control central heating, lighting and much more via the web or a mobile phone. All these devices contain processors, but the Internet of Things aims to encompass these and dumb objects, too. Increasingly you will be able to interrogate such mundane objects as posters or even lamp-posts.

But how could a lamp-post possibly be networked and, more pertinently, why would anyone ever want to do so? Tom Hall, travel editor for the Lonely Planet guidebooks, says that it's not so much the lamp-post that is of interest, but where it is situated. The Lonely Planet book The Guide to Experimental Travel suggests unusual ways of enjoying the travel experience. Of particular interest is the section on Yellow Arrow (www.yellowarrow.net). When it was first published, the book came with a few sample Yellow Arrows for readers to use to recommend places, views and experiences to other tavellers. "Find something that is interesting, perhaps a café or a view, and stick an arrow on anything you can find nearby, for example a lamp-post."

Each arrow has a unique code printed on it. When someone puts up a Yellow Arrow they register it by texting a message from their mobile phone, or sending text plus a photograph or a map via the web. Once this has been done, anyone stumbling across the Yellow Arrow just texts or emails its code to receive information associated with it. Yellow Arrows have also been used to create interactive city guides. There's no more rummaging around in your backpack to find that dog-eared copy of your travel guide or city map; you just text the code on each arrow to learn about your current location and receive directions to the next place on the itinerary.