Smart Bricks, or a Dumb Idea?
From: Wired News - June 20, 2003
By: Eric Baard

There is a movement to develop "smart buildings" that can perform routine
maintenance tasks automatically and monitor their structural integrity in
real time. One innovation along these lines is a "smart brick" from
researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The brick,
developed by professor Chang Liu, is equipped with sensors that read
temperature, vibrations, and movement, and can wirelessly transmit data to a
desktop PC. However, Steven D. Glaser of the University of California at
Berkeley thinks his school's own wireless sensor network research effort will
yield more useful inventions, especially because the initiative combines an
array of disciplines, including civil engineering, material science, and
computer science. UC Berkeley scientist Kris Pister heads a company that
manufacturers minuscule, low-power wireless sensors, coined "smart dust," for
buildings, as well as aircraft, military hardware, laboratories, and
inventory tracking. James Grayson Trulove, co-author of "The Smart House,"
notes that most smart building technology is scattered and unconnected, but
foresees a time where it will become seamlessly consolidated "in such a way
that the building becomes a virtual living organism complete, it would seem,
with smart skin." Both Glaser and Liu foresee the emergence of smart skin,
which could be sprayed onto existing systems and surfaces. There are concerns
that a smart house could be compromised by hackers, or exploited by the
government to reveal personal information about its owners, but some consider
these worries to be exaggerated: For one thing, designers plan to equip
houses with nodes designed to respond to sensor input separately, rather than
use a central computer for all tasks. Smart home technologies might be most
welcomed by aging consumers, given their potential to enhance home medical
care for senior citizens. 

Read the entire story at:
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,59319,00.html 

Links:
http://www.ece.uiuc.edu/faculty/faculty.asp?changliu
http://www.rbookshop.com/engineering/e/Engineering_Reference/The_Smart_House_0823048594.htm
http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,54515,00.html