Cornelius “Pete” Peterson, President and CEO of NETsilicon, Inc., has written a fascinating article about the coming of age of universal device networking. Highly integrated system-on-chip (SOC) integrated circuits, low-cost networking, Linux, and the Internet are key enablers of what surely represents a significant “phase transition” in the evolution of modern technology.

Peterson writes . . .

“Over the next five years, everything that has anything to do with information, control, or measurement is going to be Internet/Ethernet connected. Electronic devices of all kinds will collaborate to perform tasks with minimal human intervention. Imagine your office printer ordering repair parts, or the vending machine placing a re-stocking order with the warehouse.”

“We stand on the threshold of a new era of the electronic age; one characterized by widespread proliferation of invisible intelligent interconnected embedded systems. By some estimates, there will be billions of such intelligent nodes . . . virtually everything that runs on electricity!”

“. . . This dawning era of device connectivity is largely due to three converging trends: (1) the need for and value of sharing information in real time; (2) the ubiquity of the Internet and its incredible ability to interconnect virtually everyone and everything on the planet; and (3) the reduced size and lower cost of powerful computing and networking hardware and software.”

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