“…two technologists… Vijay Saraswat and Dave Marvit… have
found themselves embarked on their own kind of diplomatic mission
as co-chairs of a working group commissioned by the Internet
Engineering Task Force (IETF). The group’s charter: To find the
‘rough consensus’ toward a protocol that would allow one instant
messaging service to operate with any other, and as ecumenically as
different e-mail services do today.
Even before AOL and Microsoft’s cat-and-mouse erupted into the
banner headlines, Saraswat and Marvit knew they had a tiger by the
tail. The reason, they will tell you, is that instant messaging
technology isn’t just about chat — even though that much has
already turned it into a proverbial ‘killer app.’ …real-time chat
and ‘buddy lists’ represents only a rudimentary implementation of
the basic technology. … ‘Once the infrastructure is in place you
can do a lot of stuff beyond instant messaging.’ “
“…Saraswat, a computer science Ph.D. who worked at Silicon
Valley’s famed Xerox PARC research center for nine years before
joining AT&T, foresees the day when a real-time digital
communications technology will allow people to share their
‘context’ with other. … ‘I click and send you an instant message
from my TV. When you click on TV, you not only get my message but
the show I’m watching as well.’ … ‘My grandmother could publish
her heartbeat,’ Marvit says, allowing a health care facility to
monitor it — and react to any anomalies by either calling her into
the doctors office or automatically dispatching an ambulance if
something more serious was indicated.”