Context-aware search (I think the term “mobile search” has “horseless carriage” written all over it) is the next big thing according to Google founder:
“Mobile, mobile, mobile” were the words of Google Inc. (GOOG.O) Chief Executive Eric Schmidt this week when asked what technologies are most intriguing to the computer Web search leader.
What are the building blocks for context aware search? Location information, RFID-tags, pattern recognition in images and sound and of course one or more internet connected devices. We’re going from an internet of documents to an internet of places and an internet of objects.
Truly so.
But there is no one taking the lead, there is no microsoft or google that defines the new grid of communication. Internet was html-based infosystem, now? IP-connected objects, human or nonhuman, sharing application power and sometimes, only sometimes, it’s open for others. So the new grid is a new universe, or several.
Actually, Microsoft is focusing a large part of the companys’ efforts on robotics, that is mobile (sometimes by themselves) computers with sensors and pattern recognition capabilties. Apple recently removed the word “computer” from the company name and Google and Yahoo! have both proclaimed their goals of going mobile.
One contender that might not be an obvious one is LEGO, who if they play their cards right, very well might be building the future of distributed computing one brick at the time.
And then there’s the mobile phone manufacturers. And so on.
But it’s true that we still don’t have a de facto standard like MS DOS became for the PC. Most likely it will appear from some place unexpected. The Wal-Mart RFID chips, for example.