ITGumbo: spicing IT up

1. An interesting question, mobile phone may be used to order food from nearby restaurants. How about home cooking with a mobile phone? An IPv6 enabled cooking appliance that can take recipes and instructions from the semantic web. Recipes and instructions can be found on the semantic web from the URI stored in the RFID tag. Either this device has a RFID reader so you can read the product URI at your convenience, or RFID reader is installed at home or you may send the recipe to an IPv6 enabled home appliance from the future store by accessing the URI on the store computer or your mobile phone.

2. This device has entertainment features. iPhone is a mobile phone with iPod. More audio and video can be downloaded on 2G, 3G and 4G mobile communication connection to play on the mobile phone media player.

3. This device has a provision to store data or provide access to externally stored data. Mobile phones have an organizer to remember personal notes in the device internal memory and can store data on external memory card. PC or WWW can be accessed for more information.

4. Devices like BlackBerry and other smart phones have advanced features like J2ME environment for JAVA applets and software tools like mobile office for documentation. It is also possible to configure mobile phones as modem for mobile internet connection on Laptop.

5. This device has a mechanism to secure information and provide secure access to external devices. A key ring may be attached to a mobile phone or the wireless port of the mobile phone may be used to punch in the gate access code or an access code for IPv6 enabled device. Most mobile phones have security locks to secure stored data and lock keypad. Device wireless port address may be used by the electronic device that is being locked/unlocked to authenticate the user. Secure communication on the WWW is ensured by data encrypting technologies and SSL/TLS/IPsec.

6. It is possible to integrate remote control for electronic devices with mobile phone if both have an infrared or a Bluetooth or a Wi-Fi port. On a TV cable control box with two-way communication channel it may be required to transfer an entertainment program details from the memo on mobile phone to the TV control box, either for surfing the WWW or communicating with the cable operator.

Home appliances with a Wi-Fi port can be enabled for XML format commands on an IPv4 WLAN, however this will have limitations of non-standard web 2.0 metadata and limited external accessibility due to IPv4 addressing. Operating IPv6 enabled appliances from the WWW will be easier with normative metadata that is being advocated for "open market" applications. Normative metadata will facilitate interoperability between applications and appliances from different vendors, e.g. IPv6 enabled vending machine and recipes from a semantic web service provider. Another technology convergence for a new q4 definition: <RFID, Semantic Web, Mobile Communication, IPv6>.

Answer to the puzzle: Smart Phone for Smart Home, RFID, Semantic Web and IPv6. The smart phones exist but the infrastucture is not yet up.