Wireless Sensor Network Nation. Imagine sprinkling tiny sensors on road and fields for surveillance, putting them in buildings and bridges to monitor structural health, and installing them in industrial facilities to manage energy, inventory and manufacturing processes.That's the idea behind the emerging technology of wireless sensor networks (see “Casting the Wireless Sensor Net”). Boston-based Ember is at the epicenter of this field. The MIT spinoff sells radio chips with embedded processors that can organize themselves into networks to manage real-world data from sensors. Ember CTO Robert Poor-whose past life includes stints as a programmer in the computer graphics group that became Pixar and as a guitar technician for the Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia-spoke with Technology Review staff writer Gregory T. Huang about his visions of a world filled with wirelessly networked devices. [Smart Mobs]

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