As you walk into your house, you press a button on your phone to turn on the living room lights. You aim your handset at your stereo system and play some Broken Social Scene. While sitting on your couch, you remember you need to bake a pot roast. No problem -- you aim your phone at the oven and set it to 400 degrees.
In the coming years we'll be able to do this with femtocells, predicts David Nowicki, vice president of femtocell developer Airvana. The technology is currently being used to amplify cell-phone reception and Wi-Fi signals, but Nowicki said the next logical step for femtocells is to get your household devices to interact with one another.
"Your phone will be the coordinator of all your home devices," Nowicki said. "We call this concept Home 2.0."
A femtocell hub, such as the recently released Sprint Airave, acts as a miniature cell phone tower in your home. To put it simply, the femtocell hub provides an internet gateway to enter a cell-phone network, thereby reducing the amount of power and distance your handset would need to communicate with a remote tower.
In doing so, femtocell hubs such as the Sprint Airave expand and improve your cell-phone reception. Airvana's HubBub CDMA, set for release in late 2008 or early 2009, is already taking femtocells another step further by boosting your Wi-Fi data signal as well. Other competitors are working on similar products set for release around the same time frame. And with competition we can expect to see further innovation of this seemingly malleable technology.
Since a femtocell hub is primarily used in a home -- and utilizing an internet bridge -- it makes sense to eventually use it with other home appliances as well. Of course, Nowicki is thinking far ahead into the future, at which point virtually all devices will have an IP address.
The potential of femtocells will doubtlessly raise some concerns among users -- the number-one worry being security. It would be a hacker's dream come true to be able to transcend cyber-space sabotage by controlling a victim's physical appliances. Unhappy with your best friend for sleeping with your girlfriend? Hack into his phone and turn on the gas stove. The imagined possibilities of femtocells are as frightening as they are exciting. But new technology always introduces new fears, and if this foretelling becomes a reality, we'll likely have adequate security measures in place by then.
Controlling all your electronics with one device sounds convenient, but doesn't it remind you of the grim future of immobile, obese humans depicted in WALL-E ? Let's be careful what we wish for.
In the coming years we'll be able to do this with femtocells, predicts David Nowicki, vice president of femtocell developer Airvana. The technology is currently being used to amplify cell-phone reception and Wi-Fi signals, but Nowicki said the next logical step for femtocells is to get your household devices to interact with one another.
"Your phone will be the coordinator of all your home devices," Nowicki said. "We call this concept Home 2.0."
A femtocell hub, such as the recently released Sprint Airave, acts as a miniature cell phone tower in your home. To put it simply, the femtocell hub provides an internet gateway to enter a cell-phone network, thereby reducing the amount of power and distance your handset would need to communicate with a remote tower.
In doing so, femtocell hubs such as the Sprint Airave expand and improve your cell-phone reception. Airvana's HubBub CDMA, set for release in late 2008 or early 2009, is already taking femtocells another step further by boosting your Wi-Fi data signal as well. Other competitors are working on similar products set for release around the same time frame. And with competition we can expect to see further innovation of this seemingly malleable technology.
Since a femtocell hub is primarily used in a home -- and utilizing an internet bridge -- it makes sense to eventually use it with other home appliances as well. Of course, Nowicki is thinking far ahead into the future, at which point virtually all devices will have an IP address.
The potential of femtocells will doubtlessly raise some concerns among users -- the number-one worry being security. It would be a hacker's dream come true to be able to transcend cyber-space sabotage by controlling a victim's physical appliances. Unhappy with your best friend for sleeping with your girlfriend? Hack into his phone and turn on the gas stove. The imagined possibilities of femtocells are as frightening as they are exciting. But new technology always introduces new fears, and if this foretelling becomes a reality, we'll likely have adequate security measures in place by then.
Controlling all your electronics with one device sounds convenient, but doesn't it remind you of the grim future of immobile, obese humans depicted in WALL-E ? Let's be careful what we wish for.
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