9 Hot Trends for '99

t NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, scientists have set up an experimental network that will allow future space station residents to call home from an ordinary cordless telephone. The telephone is plugged into an Internet node that transmits and receives data from the space agency's Advanced Communications Technology Satellite.

Phone calls travel in the form of Internet data into NASA's phone system. Computer data, such as e-mail, can travel the same way -through NASA's data networks. Video and fax services will be tested next.

Although the tests are occurring on Earth, rather than in space, the network should operate identically in space -and with less delay, because the distance between the node and the satellite is shorter. It takes data a half-second to make the round trip between Earth and the satellite.

NASA's experiment is an example of how technology is making it possible to communicate almost anywhere in almost any fashion. The effects of this trend are evident everywhere there's a cellular phone or pager user. That means almost everywhere. In some Third World countries, wireless phones are becoming the norm because it's easier and cheaper to install cellular nodes than to wire an entire nation for conventional telephone systems.

That same logic underlies a new system that a contractor has developed for the Army's food service. The food service managers at Army bases need to know how many people they are feeding in each dining hall and whether each diner is entitled to a free meal. To collect this information, soldiers have been signing in on clipboards at the entrance to cafeterias.

If a private stationed at Fort Monmouth, N.J., visits Fort Sill, Okla., and eats at a cafeteria there, for example, Fort Sill will bill Fort Monmouth for the meal. Civilian visitors will be asked to pay cash. Obtaining the billing information from the clipboards and charging for meals has been slow and error-prone, according to Jatinder Singh of Impact Innovations Group, a systems integrator in Columbia, Md.

Singh's company developed an inexpensive alternative based on the $300 Palm Pilot handheld computer. At each entrance to a dining hall, Palm Pilots with bar-code readers attached have replaced clipboards. The Army's standard ID cards, which have bar codes with such information as meal entitlements, are swiped through the reader as each diner enters the hall. If a soldier must pay for his meal (perhaps because he lives off base), the computer alerts a cashier.

The line moves much faster because no one needs to write down information, Singh says. After the meal, the Palm Pilots are taken to a PC server where the contents are uploaded. The data then can be used locally and forwarded to regional or national food service managers. Among the uses for the data are matching the number of diners with the day's menu, determining what items attract more customers, and managing inventories.

The system was scheduled to be installed in a half-dozen dining halls at Fort Hood, Texas, in May after a successful test. Then Impact Innovations will sell it as a package to other installations. Pricing remains to be determined, Singh says, but it will be far less expensive than installing local area network wiring throughout the mess halls.

Although handheld computers aren't typically used as communications devices, this is an example of how technology and ingenuity are making information technology ubiquitous. The Palm Pilot comes with a device that communicates with a standard PC. Not all communications between different types of devices are so easy to establish. But increasingly, people have choices about how and where they will communicate.