PAN / Personal Area Network for Not Yet Techies

PAN / Personal Area Network is a new concept developed by Thomas Zimmerman and other researchers at MIT's Media Lab. At its logical extreme, it would make each of us an entire network unto ourselves. Many people walk around with cell phones, handheld computers, PDAs, video games and other small computer/communications devices. A PAN / Personal Area Network would enable them all to share data, functioning as a small network.

We could someday all be wearing computer devices that keep in touch with Bluetooth or other wireless protocols. So if you update a friend's telephone number on your cell phone, it automatically updates your contact database in your handheld computer.

It is also theorized that we could use the electrical conductivity of the human body as a data network. For instance, our computers could exchange personal information when we shake hands, with the natural salinity of our bodies as a good conductor of electricity. Though I don't see why we just wouldn't use wireless technology so we could be asking for somebody's phone number even without shaking hands - that can be done automatically with a PAN / Personal Area Network.

Since our PAN / Personal Area Network would also of course include Internet access, it could mean we would always be on line. We could read email in our dreams, and when it's spam would still be a nightmare.

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