One of the technologies featured in the TR35 (Technology Review’s young innovators of the year) is ad hoc networks, with references to military and commercial possibilities, including networked parking meters.  That’s great for finding empty parking spots—and it will also let the police know asap when your parking meter has expired.

In our chapter on Networks in New Places, Connected World talks about ad hoc networks and the DoD’s JTRS network, an ad hoc mobile network under development that provides interoperability across the spectrum of military environments, from back packs to ships.  A single JTRS radio can support different standards, frequencies, bandwidths and waveforms via software controls that are adapted to the mission and intended platform.  Because the network is ad hoc, warfighters will have “instant on” communications and there is no risk of having a single point of failure in the network, as each node in the network routes traffic to any other node as required.  A single wireless base station is not needed.  This opens up all sorts of possibilities for putting networks in new places. 

The potential commercial applications like the networked parking meter remind us that anything that can be connected will be connected, discussed in our chapter on Connected Things.