Here and Now.

The wireless revolution is coming to a cell phone or PDA near you--or maybe it's already there. Here's the skinny on what you can get today-- and a preview of technology to come.

Think the days when you'll be keeping tabs on Junior's day at the park via your PDA, tap on your steering wheel to get your e-mail, or have sensors in your shirt monitor your vital signs are years away? Think again. Thanks to a handful of companies aggressive about adopting--and adapting to--wireless technology, such wonders are already possible. And soon they'll be a part of daily life.

Somewhere in Prague, a thirsty Czech is pointing his mobile phone at a vending machine and pushing a few buttons to summon forth a can of Coke. A businesswoman in New York is using her PalmPilot to call up a real-time stock price courtesy of Fidelity, while the famished driver of a 2000-model Saab taps into GM's OnStar service to get directions to the closest McDonald's.

A Finnish rock fan is dialing up a download of her favorite band's latest tune on her cell phone, even as a college student in Italy uses his to check a daily Internet horoscope. In Japan, preteens are downloading cartoon images through NTT DoCoMo's wireless service, while their big brothers and sisters flirt virtually by trading electronic notes and images on their technicolor iModes.

Okay, maybe that's not all happening right now, but it could be. Although wireless Internet applications are still billed as the next technological tidal wave, these scenarios--and others like them--are already a part of day-to-day life around the globe. Who's driving the transition toward this new, "mobile lifestyle?" The usual suspects--hordes of early adopters, both companies eager to find and deliver the next innovative application and consumers eager to embrace it.

For now, the focus continues to be on handheld devices like Internet-enabled cell phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs) such as the Palm Pilot VII, which, as the first PDA with a built-in wireless modem, has a healthy lead in the race for mobile market share. These are heady days for that company, notes Carl Yankowski, Palm Company's chairman and chief executive. "What the Walkman did for music, what the cell phone did for telephony, Palm will do for your wireless data world--simply being connected. Anytime, anywhere," he boasts. And that's just the beginning.

Both Yankowski and a group of analysts at International Data Corporation (IDC) say that cell phones and PDAs will blend into one tool within a few years. Already, their predecessors--those once-ubiquitous beepers and pagers--are being disdained as miniature dinosaurs. In the meantime, companies in industries ranging from financial services to retail are scrambling to develop services that work with the smaller screens and slower data speeds of existing wireless devices.

Fidelity Investments was the first financial company out the gate in October 1998 with its InstantBroker wireless service. The company offers account balance information, real-time quotes, and trading, as well as "triggers" and alerts when selected stock prices change in absolute or percentage terms, over Palm VII handheld personal digital assistants (the only financial software currently built in), RIM Interactive 950 pagers, and the Sprint PCS phone network.

Fast forward to 2000 and Fidelity customers will soon pay bills, aggregate services, and transfer sizable assets wirelessly as the security of the system improves, predicts Fidelity's Joe Ferra. "This is just ever-increasing," asserts Ferra, who refers to current capabilities as "a bit bounded." Another customer convenience around the corner is the ability to redirect where information will be delivered. Is your Palm battery running low late one morning? Go to Fidelity's Web page and have your afternoon alerts and quotes zapped to your pager or cell phone, or the hotel fax machine.

Or to your new car. General Motors, BMW, and other car companies, are ready to receive. "Right now the BMW 7 Series features a digital portable phone that can easily serve as one's personal communication system outside the car, yet, when you plug it into the car, the phone book may be accessed using the steering wheel controls," says Tom Purves, chairman and CEO, BMW U.S. Holding Corporation. "With the advent of wireless communications and devices like Palm Pilots, it will become possible to send and receive e-mail and import and access information from the car in a very efficient and safe manner."

Both BMW and GM are emphasizing safety with development of their cars' wireless features. "People are spending 500 million hours a week in vehicles in the U.S.," explains Chet Huber, president and general manager of GM's wireless program, called OnStar, who notes that more than half of cell phone calls are made from inside cars and the distraction of punching small buttons has raised safety concerns. "We believe the car is important enough to deserve its own dial tone," he adds.

In the effort to send data to drivers without sending them careening over embankments, the trick is to deliver e-mail and other benefits of the Web without taking drivers' eyes off the road or their hands off the wheel.

The BMW approach is to sell a cell phone with the car. Upon entering the car, the driver clicks his cell phone into a port and from then on his or her voice is picked up through a microphone and the other party is heard through the car's speaker system. To dial out, the driver selects a stored phone number by scrolling through a steering wheel display.

GM started its OnStar wireless service in 1996 with 20,000 vehicles of three models. That number is expected to jump to one million by the end of this year, at which point the service will be available in 30 models. In an effort to minimize driver distraction, most models equipped with OnStar will have just three buttons on the rearview mirror. To make a cell phone call, the driver presses the appropriate button and recites the desired phone number, or calls up preprogrammed numbers by voice-recognized key words like "office," "home," or "pizza."

Already, both BMW and GM can deliver e-mail and Internet-based information like stock quotes, weather reports, and sports scores by computer-synthesized voice and recorded reports. A BMW owner can reply to email messages by having a voice message saved as a wave file that can be attached to an e-mail. Future refinements will translate voice responses into e-mail text. In this arena, GM is one step behind; OnStar users can only receive e-mail, not reply.

But it's not all done with voice synthesizers and software. The voice summoned by an OnStar button is often human. Subscribers to the service pay a flat monthly or annual rate for the ability to get directions or summon help from an OnStar operator. That can range from "turn left at the light to reach the nearest McDonald's" to directing you to your car when you've forgotten where you parked. You can even have your car unlocked if you've left the keys inside, or, if the men lingering near it look menacing, OnStar will flash your lights, honk your horn, and summon police if necessary.

Any airbag deployment automatically alerts OnStar, which will then call for help and direct ambulances to your car using the satellite-based Global Positioning System once controlled by the military. If the driver or a passenger is still conscious, the ambulance en route can be alerted to the injuries he or she describes.

The kids are really all right

But people shouldn't need a luxury car to feel safe, argues Dan Doles, president and CEO of WhereNet, a Santa Clara, CA-based wireless tracking company. The company has produced what are essentially next-generation rape whistles for the University of Southern Florida and University of Southern Alabama. The "wireless panic button" identifies the student and location of the student anywhere on campus, Doles explains. The same technology, which is based on extremely low-power transmissions amid a grid of antennae in a given area--one per every five acres--can be used to track inventory and parts throughout a factory and children in enclosed areas, such as theme parks, museums, or playgrounds.

But parents shouldn't be too dependent upon technology for their children's safety. "The system is very simple to defeat," Doles warns. The devices, which can be strapped to a wrist, can be cut off, and a child is untraceable once past the perimeter.

Another company, Applied Digital Solutions(ADS) of Palm Beach, FL, is developing a GPS system dubbed "Digital Angel." The company wants parents to be able to track their children's locations to within a few feet with watch-based locators. The idea was first proposed by a former police officer who'd seen too many children remain missing, says CEO Richard Sullivan. But the Angel, which might eventually be implantable, could also help Alzheimer's disease patients and soldiers. "Maybe if we'd had this in Vietnam, we wouldn't have had MIAs," Sullivan speculates.

Both WhereNet and ADS see immediate growth opportunities in a variety of industries. In agriculture, the Food and Drug Administration wants to prevent and isolate meat-born diseases by requiring that within two years all such goods be electronically tracked from the slaughterhouse to the deli counter. Airlines might also use the technology to more reliably handle luggage.

A broader commercial application for WhereNet's technology might be for stores to distribute the devices to priority customers, suggests Dole. "This would work best when you have customers who have a desire to participate," explains. "They want to be catered to, like frequent flyer programs with airlines. Walk into Macy's and you could be one of their top 10 percent customers and they would never know it. This will get you attention."

Marconi PLC, a London-based company with subsidiaries in Atlanta, GA, also sees wireless technologies as a way to build relationships between customers and even staid, traditional products like gasoline and CocaCola. "Over the next three years there are going to be a lot of ideas springing up," asserts Michael J. Donovan, CEO of Marconi Capital and Marconi Systems. "A lot of it, we can't even get our minds around. Each leg of this technology has legs on it, and those little legs have legs. We can have a global virtual store with the efficiencies of a Wal-Mart."

And some of them are already in operation. Coca-Cola, for example, is saving money by installing fixed wireless transmitters in its vending machines to let its drivers know exactly which products need restocking. In years past drivers had to scramble up and down stairs hauling heavy inventory guesstimates, often with a truck double-parked outside.

The machines will also get a new face, says Donovan, who points out that making a Coke machine a touch-screen portal to the Internet might help the company reinforce its bond with customers. "Instead of two seconds of their time, why not get two minutes? We're not talking about a night at the theater, but if you're waiting for the subway, it might be better than just sitting on that bench."

In some parts of Europe customers can already "Dial-a-Coke," purchasing sodas via cell phone, with the charge showing up on their normal monthly statement. Americans will soon have that, and more, Donovan says. That Coke machine might electronically tap you on the shoulder--via cell phone, PDA, or pager--to offer a coupon as you pass it. Such wireless intimacy will, of course, let CocaCola get to know its customer base better than ever.

Marconi already claims success with its Mobile easy pass wand. A customer wielding the wand or a similar windshield device can drive into a station and pay for gas without ever delving into his or her wallet. That same technology suggests many similar applications, points out Donovan, who envisions a single rapidly moving line of wand-holders flowing into a movie theater.

And soon, like Coke machines, gas pumps will be Internet portals that greet you with screens that you customize over the Web, he suggests. Maybe you'll be able to instruct it to play your favorite music video while you pump. "For most people, one gas station is like another," Donovan explains. "What can you do then to get them to turn left to your corner instead of right? This creates a tiny, tiny edge."

Tracking consumers' cyber footprints offers another edge--one that companies like Internet advertising and marketing group Orb Digital plan to sell. Orb looks to help its clients, which include Citigroup, stay on top of the real-time success of their Web banner ads by providing their marketing teams with Palm VIIs equipped to monitor consumers from the moment they click on an ad to the time they make a purchase. Updates can also be sent on an hourly basis over Sprint PCS phones.

"Some of these people are information junkies," says Andrew S. Paluka, Orb president and CEO. "But this isn't leading to Monday morning quarterbacking. Clients have the power to switch-out an underperforming ad immediately with an array of possibly more effective alternatives." As television and the Internet merge into one home infotainment system, that tweaking could happen during a live Webcast of the Super Bowl, he adds.

Is that a little too much Big-Brother-in-your-Palm Pilot for comfort? Wait, there's more. Some companies want to know more than where you are, and what you're buying. They want to know how you feel. "Wireless devices are going to help transform the way chronic illness is managed," asserts Bill George, chairman and CEO of Medtronic, a 51-year-old medical technologies company in Minneapolis, MN. Along the way, Medtronic itself might be transformed, with revenue from wireless services added to that of its traditional implantation business.

George envisions a revolution in healthcare over the next few years--one founded on pacemakers, shunts, and other implants that will be able to send data to doctors over the Web by piggybacking on cell phones and PDAs, as well as Medtronic home stations. That information, whether simple respiration rates or EKGs, can be routinely and remotely monitored by specialists, or used by paramedics on the scene, George says. Some day, the implant itself may be the one calling 911 for you.

"These implants will be able to provide full medical data, not just alerts," George says. "Imagine you suffered from fainting spells. These would detect that you were fainting and freeze and hold the last 15 minutes of EKG data. Your doctor would not only know that you fainted on the street, but would also know why-what led up to it," George says.

Your heartbeat's on your sleeve

While implants equipped with wireless communication capabilities are still more than several heartbeats away, wearable devices with sensors that monitor vital functions will hit store shelves in less than a year, promises Jeffrey Wolf, CEO of SensaTex. A startup formed in April in New York City's Silicon Alley, SensaTex is marketing the Smart Shirt, which features a technology developed at Georgia Institute of Technology that weaves sensors into clothing so that temperature, heart and breathing rates, perspiration, and other physiological data can be monitored remotely.

"We look for paradigm shifts and it was obvious we'd found one in the Smart Shirt," says Wolf, who also serves as CEO of the Seed-One venture capital firm. The Smart Shirt is a washable T-shirt threaded throughout with fiber optics and sensors, powered by a beeper-sized battery. Wolf, who promises that future batteries will be smaller, says Smart Shirts will retail for about $35 each.

"We are trying to make clothing intelligent," says Smart Shirt inventor Sundaresan Jayaraman, Ph.D., professor of textile engineering at Georgia Tech. "This is a means of ensuring the quality of the continuum of life."

The applications are vast and varied, he suggests. Sudden infant death syndrome might be prevented with something as simple as an alert sounded by a baby-sized Smart Shirt, while children with hyperactive attention deficit disorder might be better dosed with medication once their episodes are precisely charted. Doctors could watch over post-operative or elderly outpatients, and Olympic athletes would be able to hone their performances with tabulated or real-time statistics.

Additional sensors could perform specialized tasks, such as wirelessly report the location of bullet wounds received by soldiers and police officers, or the carbon monoxide levels of fire-fighters. Even airline pilots might have their vital signs transmitted to airplane's black boxes to aid accident investigations. Jayaraman hopes to interest the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in having astronauts wear Smart Shirts, instead of wiring them in ungainly contraptions like those worn by John Glenn during his shuttle flight.

SensaTex is also already looking beyond the medical implications of the Smart Shirt. Wolf describes the Smart Shirt as a "naked, plug-and-play motherboard" that could usher in pervasive computing. Your shirt could receive e-mail that, depending on advances in fiber optics, might eventually be displayed by a screen in the fabric itself. In the meantime, suggest Wolf and Dr. Jayaraman, screens could plug into a button on your sleeve.

A world where a parting executive might promise "my shirt will get in touch with your shirt," or a budding romance begins with a shirt-to-shirt transmission, could soon be reality. Already in Scandinavia and the Philippines, teenagers and young adults are flirting by zapping text to each other's cell phones. In Sweden, subscribers to one matchmaking cell phone service are alerted when they're within a certain distance of someone who's written a compatible personal profile. The children born from such pairings will truly be the first wireless generation.

VINES WITHOUT LINES

For thousands of years, wine lovers have toured vineyards and been charmed by the time-honored practice of wine making. Who doesn't know the traditional imagery of each vintage's birth--the careful tending of the vines by expert farmers, the harvest of the grapes by weathered farmhands, and the festive trampling of vats of fruit under the soles of local children. Sure, we know that modern farming techniques have already replaced stamping feet with heavy machinery, but at least one vineyard has gone one step further--putting the high-tech farming data into the palms of its workers, or rather their Palm Vlls.

At Chateau St. Michelle in Woodinville, WA, viticulturalists and support staff use Palm Vlls to share knowledge about crop growth, trouble with pests and disease, thinning recommendations, soil quality, moisture, and other elements affecting the vineyard's production. Each factor ultimately affects the company's bottom line, so financial projections can be constantly revised to reflect changes in the data.

"This is only the tip of the iceberg of the type of benefits we might enjoy," says Allen Shoup, chairman and CEO of St. Michelle, which is a sister company of U.S. Tobacco. "Wireless tools are going to change the face of agriculture. Eventually there will be wireless probes for every plant."

The revolution is starting with vintners because "the variants of value given for the quality of grapes for fine wine is like nowhere else in agriculture," Shoup says, explaining that the premiums on high-quality grapes justify the luxury of experimentation. Wireless networking is especially important for Chateau St. Michelle because the label contracts out for the lion's share of its fruit, says Kevin Corliss, the company's chief viticulturalist. He plans to use Motorola devices to monitor myriad conditions; all wirelessly beaming back to home base, where a 3D interactive map will be generated to display the unfolding life of the vines from the root hairs to the weather system above it.

St. Michelle's wireless tracking doesn't stop there. Harvesters will ultrasonically scan the pickings to measure volume, so Corliss will know what acres yielded the most fruit. And, if grapes from one section are clearly superior to those of others, St. Michelle might wirelessly cull enough knowledge to replicate those ideal factors across the vineyard the next year.

But Corliss cautions against swilling technology that hasn't been aged--and fine-tuned-to perfection. In 1988 St. Michelle tried a similar wireless plan that it had to abandon within a few years. "The technology was frightfully expensive and not reliable enough," Corliss recalls. "We've since then been waiting for the technology to catch up with the wish list."

Some day, technology might even surpass it. Eventually, Shoup admits, agribusiness might sharpen its techniques so much that "in some respects I guess it's a little scary. Anyone might have the ability to make world-class wines. The joy of distinction--and maybe a lot of the mystery and glamour of this business--might be lost."

Yet, for Shoup the potential benefits--for St. Michelle, the industry overall, and wine aficionados alike--outweigh such far-off risks. "If we make mistakes for the right reasons, I still think we benefit from that," he says. "The world didn't need another winery. Or, for that matter, another viticultural region. We had to work harder. We pride ourselves as being cutting edge."

He dreams of a day when, with software programs based on chaos theory, farmers might "know how many butterflies are flapping their wings in China, and if in two weeks that will lead to a freeze here that we might take action to prevent."