BACK in York from his whirlwind press tour of the US, Dr Ken Tindell is a giant step closer to his dream of linking a billion everyday devices to the Internet.

Dr Tindell is the 34-year-old former computer science graduate from the University of York who is founder and now chief technology officer of LiveDevices based at the Innovation Centre at York's Science City.

He and his astonishing company are poised to make a fortune: from cars which will guide you away from jams; from virtual juke boxes in every home; from refrigerators which automatically order new supplies when they need replenishing... the list seems endless.

Technology correspondents in new York, New Jersey, Long Island, Washington, San Francisco and San Jose gathered around Dr Tindell earlier this month as he explained how LiveDevices' technological breakthrough will allow millions upon millions of devices, from vending machines to videos, heating controls to security systems to be operated through the Internet.

Yes, the feasibility of the technology was always known, but what is so different is that he and his York team of 40 have developed super-efficient embedded Internet connectivity software to run in very low cost hardware - costing around £3.

Breaking the cost barrier has excited the U.S. electronics industry, not least the likes of the mighty Microchip Technology based in Phoenix which has already sold a billion microchips to manufacturers and now wants to partner the fledgling York company. That alone fully justifies the £9 million poured into the venture last year by investors 3i and TecCapital.

Clearing this path to success may appear to have occurred overnight with the formation last month of LiveDevices, but it is in fact an operating division of Northern Real-Time Applications, the pioneering bio-incubator firm at the Innovation Centre.

Dr Tindell started that five years ago having specialised real-time systems research in Sweden. Volvo suggested he formed a company so that it could buy he research ideas and he returned to York to do just that. The result was the S80, V70 and S60 Volvos all ran his revolutionary software which allowed various system components to "talk" to each other.

He says enthusiastically: "The Advanced Braking System tells the radio system how fast the wheels are turning and the music adjusts volume accordingly. The gearbox talks to the mirrors so that when reverse is selected the reflections automatically angle to show the back lower half of the car."

But this new invention would allow manufacturers to produce his embedded chip to link with the Internet in a way that charmed the public and whittled manufacturing costs.

For instance, he says, you could programme your video recorder through the Internet, clicking into a TV guide and requesting your programme through a server which would communicate with your set's microchip. "Think of what that means for manufacturers who can remove the costs of all the gadgetry normally used to programme the machines.

"If you had 100 million users visiting your website every day think how much advertising could be generated - targeted, if necessary, to your viewing tastes which the system has automatically assessed!"

The prototype is already built but he has not yet spoken to manufacturers. "We've only been around a few weeks," he says.

The commercial uses have hugely favourable cost implications. For example operators of vending machines, each linked to base via an Internet chip, would report when machines were going wrong or when they needed re-stocking.

"And if the weather is warm they could all be automatically re-programmed to increase the price of cool drinks and vice-versa. Believe me, we will tackle every major drinks dispensing firm in the world," he says.

In order to cater for small companies unable to afford their own service to talk to the device, his firm was building a "server farm" for which space would be rented. It could be used to store raw data in a totally secure process called "data mining".

Vending companies could, for instance, plot the where and why of a big increase in drinks in one area - a pop concert perhaps?

"If they know the profile of their selling they can plot when their machines are about to run out or where new machines should be installed to cater for demand."

His next step? "Signing up more partners and in a year or two we will go into production. When it does we will make millions of pounds."