Despite what the snarky set may say, medical applications for Always On technologies are starting to get real interest from people with money.

An outfit called Wirelesshealthcare in the UK has come out with a report called "101 Things To Do With A Mobile Phone In Healthcare."

The only unfortunate thing here is that the writers of the release on this interesting report call the area eHealth.

My problem is not with their intent. A rose by any other name and all that. My problem is that the term eHealth is stifling, limiting. It minimizes what is actually happening, and isolates wireless network applications to one small field.

What can happen, when you use a term like eHealth to define wireless network applications, is that you wind up with incompatible systems. In order for the Always On lifestyle to really kick in, for the market to really get going, what you really need is compatibility among application sets. You can't have inventory using one system, health monitors using another, and environmental controls using a third. It's wasteful.

Worse, the name eHealth seems to have originated with Washington-based bureaucrats, and health industry bureaucrats. This will not allow it to be truly transformative. In the end, while doctors, nurses, and other caregivers benefit from wireless network applications, these applications will transform their lives, and must be allowed to do so. They need to happen outside the normal channels, until their benefits are overwhelming, and the system in which they work in is changed.

But, again, we should not look a gift horse in the mouth here.

I have said for years now that medical applications are the "killer apps" for Always On. People will spend an enormous amount to remain alive and vital. These applications let more people do that. And that's how they will sell.

They just need to be compatible with everything else coming down. Hence I still prefer the term Always On. Yes, I even prefer it to Participatory Panopticon. (Please don't hurt me, Jamais.)