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Ethernet Pioneer Hails ZigBee
An anonymous reader writes "Bob Metcalfe, who invented Ethernet back in 1973, took part in a wide-ranging Q&A over the weekend. He's excited by ZigBee and software radios, but tired of the various 802.11 and Web services companies floating around. He also warns that engineers like himself will really struggle to get onto company boards in the future."
Is it just me or does it sound like he doesn't know that much. Many of the questions were answered with "I don't know much/anything about that subject but here's what I think." He's quite the "visionary".
The last few times I've read internivews with him he has always seemed to be way out of line and clueless. This time he seemed to at least be aware that he's not clued in.
And I have to say that it was very refreshing to read an article like this and not have to see 50 references to why this new technology is better than Bluetooth and WiFi. He did go off a bit about Bluetooth regarding setup but later on came to the conclusion that it's a really hard problem.
From what I've read about ZigBee it's an interesting trechnology, I'm not quite sure what use it will have though. He mentiones things like light switches and letting VCRs automagically get the time but don't propose any real hints on how it would work. And most of all doesn't provide much hints on how it will protect itself from intruders, something we've seen issues in the real world from both Bluetooth and WiFi.