For Every Light Bulb an IP Address?
By Alan Zeichick
Before one can truly embrace a technological innovation, there must be an epiphany to bring the topic into sharp focus. After such an epiphany, the cry "Eureka!" is heard -- and the world never looks the same again.
I can still remember the "Eureka!" when the World Wide Web itself first clicked in my mind. Suddenly, it all made sense, and the only question was, why hadn't I thought of that? But the details of that experience, the date, time, and location, are all lost in the mists of time.
My epiphany of understanding the real value of the Web as a communications link between devices is more tangible. Before the "Eureka!" the Web was just a way to connect people and their HTTP clients to servers and their HTML documents. After the experience, the Web was a way to link everything from cell phones to light bulbs, from Coke machines to security systems. Even better, I can recall the who, what, where, and when.
When? Tuesday, March 4, 1997, between 10:30 a.m. and 11:15 a.m. -- just about two years ago.
Where? San Jose, CA, at the ACM97 conference, which celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Association for Computing Machinery by trying to envision the next 50 years of computing.
Who? The speaker was Vinton Cerf, often referred to as "father of the Internet," coinventor of TCP/IP, and founding president of the Internet Society.
What? Dr. Cerf spoke about the future of the Internet, in particular its applications for being built-in to our homes, our appliances, and even our bodies.
