The under-hyped tech that's changing the world

I was asked recently whether I thought any wireless technologies were currently being over-hyped. The cynic in me was ready to tick several off of my fingers. But the more I thought about it, I realized there's actually one I consider under-hyped. That would be the wireless sensor. These little gizmos are quietly on a path to change civilization as we know it.

The possibilities of wireless sensors are endless. I wrote recently about how they are being used, for example, in consolidated, virtualized data centers where power overall is reduced, but pockets of increased power in dense racks of equipment create "hot spots" that need controlling.

Meanwhile, though, sensors have been collecting environmental data on oil rigs and determining the location of vehicles for several years. They already play a huge role in supply-chain tracking of products and merchandise.

They are being used to create smart battlefields, smart homes and smart buildings to detect environmental conditions, keep people safe, turn lights and appliances on and off and save energy and money. Wireless sensors usually communicate the data they collect, in a hop-by-hop, meshed fashion, over a wireless sensor network up to an application that correlates it and potentially takes some automated action as a result.

Sensors are everywhere. I recently visited the IT department of my alma mater, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and discovered the SoyFACE (Soybean Free Air Concentration Enrichment) project. U of I researchers are growing crops in an atmosphere they anticipate will be common in the middle of this century -- one with higher levels of carbon dioxide and ozone. Data from sensors in the field are used to study the effects of atmospheric change on plant life and potentially the future food supply.

Similarly, a vineyard in Napa Valley is using a sensor network to fine-tune its irrigation practices, which it hopes will translate into better crops yielding more delectable wine.

Sensors also have home healthcare applications, often monitoring the human heart rate, glucose levels and other conditions, and alerting physicians and nurses across the Internet if a threshold is exceeded and the patient requires attention.

And now there's even an air-quality/content sensing app for the iPhone that Network World editor Michael Cooney wrote about earlier this month.

These applications barely scratch the surface of how wireless sensors are subtly changing our lives. Because they are wireless and battery-operated, they can be put just about anywhere to collect data on just about anything, correlate it and send it to people or applications that automate some kind of action.

That's powerful.

Joanie Wexler is an independent networking technology writer/editor in Silicon Valley.