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Not Big Brother, but SOA sensors are afoot
If the thought of a global array of Internet-based sensors monitoring every aspect of the physical world conjures up images of George Orwell's "1984," relax. It's really not that bad.
At least, not according to the founders of Arch Rock, who in late March unveiled their vision of a world in which wireless sensors could be used by farmers to monitor rainfall and fertilizer consumption, by logistics companies to track shipments, by municipalities to monitor parking meters and bridge and road conditions, or by utilities to observe energy consumption.
"With the Internet, we've been able to connect every person to every other person," said David Culler, co-founder and CTO of Arch Rock, a private company based in San Francisco. "The opportunity now is to connect everything of value-to expand the Internet to embrace the physical world."
Culler, a UC Berkeley professor, is a former director of Intel Research Berkeley and principal investigator of DARPAs Network Embedded Systems Technology (DARPA NEST), which created the TinyOS open-source platform for wireless sensor networks. Arch Rock, which incorporated in May of 2005, last March received US$5 million in Series A funding from New Enterprise Associates, Shasta Ventures...