Pervasive Internet: “Remote Control, With a Wave of a Hand”

At some point, the data network (Internet) becomes so pervasive, it is no longer a network – in the sense of connecting nodes.  It changes into something closer to what a physicist would call a field.  Perhaps, a more homely analogy is that we will not be connected to the Internet, but will be swimming in it. I’m not sure that anyone sees clearly what the implications are.
© 2011 Norman Jacknis

[http://njacknis.tumblr.com/post/10122528158/pervasive-internet-remote-control-with-a-wave-of-a]
——————————-

Soon gestures may be controlling more than just games. Scientists at Microsoft Research and the University of Washington have come up with a new system that uses the human body as an antenna. The technology could one day be used to turn on lights, buy a ticket at a train station kiosk, or interact with a world of other computer applications. And no elaborate instruments would be required.

“You could walk up to a ticket-purchasing machine, stand in front and make a gesture to be able to buy your ticket"

Instead, the technology uses something that is always with us, unless we live in the wilderness: ambient electromagnetic radiation emitted as a matter of course by the wiring in households, by the power lines above homes, and by those gas pumps at the service station.

The human body produces a small signal as it interacts with this ambient electrical field. The new system employs algorithms to interpret and harness that interaction.