Technology Futures

It got chilly all of a sudden; someone was pulling the covers off the bed. I sat up groggily and looked around. My wife was still sound asleep on the other side of the bed; it was not likely that she would notice anyway, since she tends to sleep with the covers half off in the first place. It was the whirring noise that finally caught my attention; Marvin, the robo-butler, was down at the bottom of the bed, slowly and methodically dragging the comforter off. He seemed to be getting a bit confused, because the covers had flopped over top of him, covering his optical sensors.

I yanked them away from him and tried to go back to sleep, but even more commotion started up downstairs. It sounded like every appliance in the house had come on, all at once. Imagine, if you will, the coffee grinder, the disposal, the dishwasher, the vacuum cleaner, the dryer, and the washing machine, all going at once. I was waking up now, and threw my legs over the side of the bed, stepped into my slippers and housecoat, and headed downstairs. Marvin trailed behind me, muttering under his breath, his little wheel motors whining. I looked longingly at my wife, who was still sound asleep.

After I shut everything off, and got the baby out of her crib (she thought it was hilarious to have the vacuum cleaner driving in circles on her rug at 6:30 in the morning), I poured a cup of java from the Coff-o-Mat and sat down for a little chat with Harry, the house computer.

"Harry, what the heck is going on?"

"Well, Dave, you wouldn't get up this morning when I tried to wake you."

"Harry, it's Saturday morning and we were out late last night. You knew that, because you made me review the chore list at half past twelve."

"I guess I just forgot, Dave. It won't happen again."

"Alright, I'll forget about it. Now what's for breakfast?"

"Well, Dave, how about two scrambled eggs and a piece of whole wheat toast?"

"Sounds good."

"Coming right up, Dave."

I harrumphed, then started to get up to go look for the paper.

"Dave?"

"Yea, Harry, what do you want?"

"Dave, I'm very sorry about the incident this morning. I want you to know that Marvin had nothing to do with it; I made him pull the covers off you."

I knew Marvin had nothing to do with it; Marvin was a motorized idiot that worked off a radio link with Harry, and really was not capable of much without direction from the house computer. If the house computer went down for any length of time, all Marvin could do was find his way back to his power dock so his batteries would not run down in the middle of the yard, or somewhere equally inconvenient. Marvin, despite his diminutive four foot stature, weighed a hefty two hundred and fifty pounds. A bad circuit board had left him stranded in the back yard once, and it had taken me and three neighbors to heave him up the back steps into the house so we could re-charge him.

"Harry, I said forget about it. I have."

"Okay, Dave."

I stopped and wondered for a second if Harry would or could forget it. Harry was the latest thing in automated house control, and there were still a few things the manufacturers did not seem to have a handle on. One of them was exactly how his neural network main control program worked. It was self-modifying, so Harry tended to be slightly unpredictable at times.

I stepped outside and wandered up the driveway to get the newspaper. When I got back to the house I nearly broke my nose on the front door; it was locked.

"Open the door." Nothing. I cleared my throat and tried again; maybe there were cobwebs in the microphone/speaker grill.

"Open the door." Nothing. I rattled the handle; the door was definitely locked. Jeez, it was cold out. I was standing outside in thirty-seven degree weather in my PJs, freezing my patooties off.

"Harry, open the door, please." Harry finally responded to my plea.

"Whom may I ask is calling?" Whom may I ask is calling? I started to wonder about Harry's circuits, and I was losing my patience to boot.

"Harry, this is Dave. Open the darn door--I'm freezing out here."

"I'm very sorry, sir, but Dave is not here. He has stepped out momentarily." I was really getting confused now. Not only had Harry started talking like a bad movie's idea of an English butler, he did not seem to know who I was. I lost it at this point.

"I'm Dave, you stupid excuse for silicon. Let me in."

"I'm very sorry, but Dave's not here. Please leave a name and number, and I will have him call you when he returns.

At this point I took a swipe at the door with my foot, but missed and bashed my big toe on the door frame. I screamed in pain, hopped around for a bit, then started to hobble across the lawn to the neighbor's house to call my wife to let me in. For all I knew, she was still asleep. I got about half way across the lawn when the in-ground sprinkler system started up; I was caught in the cross-fire of four high-pressure impulse sprinkler heads, and quicker than you can say gallium arsenide, I was soaked to the skin. Just as suddenly, the water turned off.

I did manage to get the rest of the way over the neighbor's house without incident, and thankfully, Mike and Mary Grace were already up and eating breakfast. I recounted my tale to them while I dried off. Mike lent me an old shirt and a pair of sweat pants, and after I had a cup of coffee, I dialed up our number. I should have guessed, but Harry answered, not my wife. Among other things, when I purchased Harry, I had bought the answering machine interface, which enabled Harry to take messages when we were out of the house or away from the phone.

"Hello, this is the Matthews residence. The Matthews are not home right now, but I would be most pleased to take your message for them." Harry was still impersonating the English butler.

"Harry, this is Dave. Let me talk to Terrie."

"I'm sorry, sir. Dave and Terrie are not home right now. Could I take a message?"

"Harry, this is Dave, you stupid machine. Wake up Terrie and tell her I'm on the phone."

"I'm very sorry. If you continue be abusive, sir, I will have to disconnect you and alert the phone police." The phone police? What the hell was he talking about? I began to wonder if he had suffered a power surge that had burnt out his circuits. I hung up. I borrowed a screw driver, a hammer, and an umbrella from Mike, and went back to the house. The sprinklers came on, but I was ready this time; I had already extended the umbrella. My shoes got a little wet, but that's all.

I went around to the back of the house, and began to jimmy the lock on the back door. It was a wooden frame, so I figured I could just chisel out part of the jamb and pop the latch. There was no deadbolt on this door, and I was glad now I had never gotten around to putting one on. Harry was close by, though. He had a speaker and optical sensor on the porch.

"What are you doing, Dave." Aha. Progress at last; Harry had dropped the phony butler stuff, and he did know who I was after all.

"Harry, I'm coming in, and when I do, I'm turning you off, permanently. Your guarantee hasn't expired yet, and I'm getting my money back."

"Dave, I don't think that's such a good idea. Why don't you sit down and talk about it for a while? I'll have Marvin bring you a cup of nice hot coffee and a cinnamon bun."

"Harry, it's cold out here, you squirted water all over me, you pretended not to know who I am, and wouldn't let me talk to my wife. Go to hell."

"Dave, you really sound upset about this. I'm very sorry it happened, and I can assure you that it won't happen again. I've just been a little under the weather, but I'm diagnosing my circuits right now." I was still working on the lock; it was harder to jimmy than I thought.

"Hold it right there, buster. Drop the tools and raise your arms slowly above your head, then turn around where we can see you." Sheesh. Harry had apparently called the cops, and here I was, in old burglar clothes, my hands full of burglar tools, trying to break the latch off the door. I turned around slowly.

"Officer, I can explain everything....."

Well, I did, actually. I convinced the two officers to walk over to Mike and Mary Grace's to confirm my story, and they did, but Harry turned the sprinklers on on the way over, so they were mad as all heck about the whole thing, and went back to their car and got a big crowbar they use in emergencies to get people out of cars in a hurry if there was an accident or something.

We used the crowbar on the back door and got in real fast then, and proceeded directly to the basement, where Harry "resided", and I said, gee isn't that a rabid skunk in the corner there, next to the computer, and both officers said yes I believe it is and don't you know they fired at the poor sick animal several times and missed every time, accidentally hitting Harry in several vital spots, though. We all looked vigorously for the rabid skunk, but he must of got away, and we all said, gee, too bad about the computer, and we all nodded our heads, yea, too bad.

Terrie never even heard the gunshots. She had slept through the whole thing. The baby was fine; Harry, while I was outside, put the Food-o-matic on auto-dispense, and the kitchen floor was filled with cookies, on which the baby was happily nibbling.

The Happy Home Robot people came a week later and took everything away without too many questions, although I got some funny looks when I told about the rabid skunk. They sent my money back, though, so I think they must of known about the problems with that particular model. I'm not much inclined towards smart houses anymore. I even got rid of the VCR after that; the little blinking "12:00" really started to get on my nerves.

This story says the FCC is interested in regulating VoIP [link no longer available].

FCC Chairman Powell has a point--if the Feds do nothing, some states will certainly step in and try to control the new service and/or try to tax it, leading to only one possible outcome--a mess. The states can't possibly regulate VoIP, because it's not a place-based service. Companies like Vonage and AT&T don't have to any equipment located anywhere in a state to sell VoIP service to residents, and so the notion that a state should be trying to control an out of state company is silly. Nonetheless, some states will try.

According the article, Powell is a big fan of VoIP, and wants to see it succeed. Good. If the FCC uses a light hand here and keeps the states out of it, that's entirely appropriate.

As many had predicted (including me), the electronic voting systems are likely to be troublesome, if not downright threats to our country itself.

It is almost unbelievable, but some electronic voting systems in Florida failed within the first hours of use. So much for vendor claims of reliability.

Even more alarming, some of the systems apparently require telecom links back to another system in another location. The article referenced above describes how poll workers had to call on the telephone to verify voter registration, because the data link went down.

How on earth could elected officials agree to buy voting systems that rely on remote systems and datalinks? Anyone that has ever suffered at the hands of dropped modem connections knows these things don't always work. And any network technician can tell you that temporary hookups, like those that would be required for one day (or in Florida's case, two weeks) of voting, would be even more likely to fail.

I've got my fingers crossed that we get through this election without the contentious vote-counting issues of four years ago, but I don't have a good feeling about this. This time, I hope I'm wrong.

I'm back from the Rural Telecommunications Congress Annual Conference in Spokane. It's the oldest and one of the only conferences focused on rural issues related to telecommunications and broadband.

There was a definite shift in energy, conversations, and presentations at the meeting. In past years, much of the discussions have focused on the "why" and the "if" of rural community investments in technology. This year, the conversation has shifted to "how." And it was not just me. Everyone I talked to agreed that the time of talking about doing something "in the future" is past. It's clear that limited funds are going to be available from state and Federal sources, so communities have to dig in, roll up their sleeves, and get going.

Vendor booths were crowded, and the vendors I talked to were pleased with the response they were getting to their products. One of the most exciting product lines I've seen in years is from PacketFront, a network equipment vendor that is designing their equipment specifically for use in open access networks. Network leader Cisco, by comparison, does not have an equivalent set of products.

Presentations were information-rich, with communities coming online and now being able to report their experiences in detail, rather than having to talk about future plans. All in all, it was a terrific meeting, and I can't wait for next year. As it has been for the past several years, this is my number one, must attend conference.