Abstract:
The arrival of 'Smart Dust' or Motes on the market has the potential to allow mankind to
develop a 'new kind of Internet where these minute computers merge with the physical world and
allow people to query almost anything - buildings, roads, rivers-for information'. The authors
believe that Motes have potential in the mobile enterprise as part of the developing Sensor web as
outlined by Tao. In this paper the authors describe the four layers of the architecture for a successful
Sensor web and apply the Varshney & Vetter four level integrated framework for mobile commerce as
a model with which to investigate the applicability of Motes technology to a mobile enterprise. This
paper reports on the findings of an unstructured interview session held at the 2004 Workshop on the
Potential of Motes and Mobile Commerce as well as the development of a prototype system for
integrating motes with other devices. There are many potentially beneficial applications for motes
particularly in the agricultural and horticultural industries, which are just now capturing the attention
of industry but there are many potential security, data privacy and legal challenges ahead. The paper
also outlines the problems we faced in integrating motes with other wireless technologies.
