Korea's Ubicomp Vision Offers Opportunity for the West

Filed in archive Ubiquitous Computing on October 10, 2005

Recently I pointed out the Digiens@U-City blog, a blog written by Alex Guenho Lee. On his blog he has writings outlining korea's ubiquitous computing vision for its country.

Ubiquitous computing means an environment where virtually everything is connected to computers that transmit data wirelessly from RFID tags and sensors. Think "smart home" on steroids -- no, "smart city" on steroids. Ubiquitous computing enables our environment to be controlled and for us to interact with our surroundings in ways barely imaginable today.

Here in North America and Western Europe, we tend to view ubiquitous computing with a blend of gee-whiz fascination and fear. Worries about privacy make it controversial.

Ubicomp (short for "ubiquitous computing") is still nearly the stuff of sci-fi here in the U.S. We do not even have widespread wireless networks in place in the U.S. that could form the backbone for ubiquitous computing. Think about it: we're still arguing here in the U.S. about whether city-wide wireless networks should be allowed.

It is a far different story in Korea. There, ubiquitous computing has the backing of the government, which has earmarked significant money for it. There are major initiatives underway.

In fact, what Korea is doing is big news in the world of ubicomp and also RFID, because RFID chips play a role in ubicomp environments. It is such big news that the New York Times wrote about it last week, in an article entitled "Korea's High Tech Utopia, Where Everything is Observed" by Pamela Licalzi O'Connnell:

"IMAGINE public recycling bins that use radio-frequency identification technology to credit recyclers every time they toss in a bottle; pressure-sensitive floors in the homes of older people that can detect the impact of a fall and immediately contact help; cellphones that store health records and can be used to pay for prescriptions.

These are among the services dreamed up by industrial-design students at California State University, Long Beach, for possible use in New Songdo City, a large "ubiquitous city" being built in South Korea.

A ubiquitous city is where all major information systems (residential, medical, business, governmental and the like) share data, and computers are built into the houses, streets and office buildings. New Songdo, located on a man-made island of nearly 1,500 acres off the Incheon coast about 40 miles from Seoul, is rising from the ground up as a U-city."

Guenho Lee of the Digiens@U-City blog was quoted in the New York Times article, pointing out that Korea is experimenting with the U-City initiative in order to find opportunities to drive economic growth for Korea.

Now, if you are from the United States, Canada, Europe or anywhere other than Korea, why should you care? Well, it seems to me that the initiative offers opportunities for some in the West. SmartCode recently reported getting the largest order for RFID tags ever, destined for the Korean initiative. As the NY Times article mentions, much of the technology being used in Korea was developed in U.S. research labs. Cal State University students are involved in designing the U-city. And even the U-City planning manager is a Korean-American who used to work for Yahoo. You connect the dots.

Tags: RFID; business; wireless