Why No Always-On?

When I launched Mooreslore four years ago, at Corante, I was fascinated with the idea of combining RFID with 802.11 networking, resulting in enormous markets for medical, home automation, and home inventory applications.

I saw RFID as a consumer technology.

What got in the way? Many people in the industry are still asking that question.

The answer, in a word, is politics:

1. People won't trust systems controlled by others.
2. The Administration used a top-down approach to RFID aimed solely at its own security.
3. RFID became associated with Big Brother.

This did not have to happen, and it can still be undone. But it can't be undone in the current political environment.

What's needed to jump-start these applications is a simple statement of privacy law:

                                                              Data I create belongs to me.

This is a proposition the current Administration refuses to accept. Corporations that take your data believe your data belongs to them. Government-created data on you is seen as an economic good, to be marketed freely. And the government, of course, wants all the data you create, for your own protection of course.

People rightly resist this. They resist it the only way they know how. They don't cooperate. And thus they don't consider products that would create (for their use) even more data as beneficial, since they now see data as belonging to others, and thus to be an enemy of their interests.

If your data belongs to you, there are enormous benefits to be derived in linking RFID tags and sensors to your own network:

• Sensors on your body or your clothing can anticipate a heart attack and save your life.
• Tags on the products you buy can let you anticipate your buying needs.
• Sensors inside and outside your house can keep the lawn watered, automatically, at the lowest possible cost. They can also control your heating and electric bills, and improve security.
• You can find your keys.
   

There are huge markets just waiting to be created, once we let people control their own data. There are enormous edge applications to be created with this data, once we're secure that it won't be turned against us by either big business or big government.

Thus politics prevents progress.