Still don’t know what a ‘cookie’ is? Curiously turn your face up to the sky at the mention of ‘the Cloud’? Yes? Weeeeell you’re about to hate me. Why? Because I’m about to throw one more piece of slippery Internet jargon your way. But trust me, I get it, and so this post is going to break things down very s-l-o-w-l-y. Here goes ….
- More and more people have access to it and it’s becoming faster and cheaper by the day
- More and more things are being built to connect to it – through wifi, sensors etc.
The Internet of things (IoT) basically is the result of all of the above coming together. It is the idea, already being realised, that any ‘thing’ or part thereof can be connected to the Internet as long as it can be switched on and off.
As you can imagine we’re talking about a lot of ‘things’ here. Think of everything you know that has an and off switch! We’re talking lights, cars, coffee machines, the milk heater in your coffee machine, fridges, freezers, TV’s, heaters, music players, washing machines, phones, computers, head phones, cooking appliances, hair straighteners, car keys, watches, electric blankets, ALL OF THE THINGS!
As Morgan from Forbes Magazine explained, this means that with everything connected the big relationships of the future will be people-people, people-things and things-things.
But what does this mean?
Well, say your alarm clock, heater, coffee machine, electric toothbrush, and car were connected, your mornings could become very efficient. I’ll explain …
Using cues from your alarm clock your heater could have turned on and warmed up by the time you woke and your coffee machine could have automatically organised your caffeine hit without you lifting a finger. Then your car heater could take cues from your toothbrush – because that is the last thing hypothetical you uses before leaving the house – to know when to turn on and heat up before you get in.
This is a very practical example. A more realistic one for uni students could be that of your calendar connecting to an online grocer and automatically pre-ordering you chocolates (and wine) around the time major assignments are due. Or, if things are getting particularly dire, your calendar could block you from Facebook until you have clicked submit on moodle (shudder).
Zooming out a little to look at the the bigger picture, IoT has a lot to offer infrastructure and the societies in which we live. The idea of Smart Cities are those which capitalise on all that IoT has to offer for financial, time, energy and general resource efficiency as well as the increased wellbeing of citizens. Which is explained well in this short video.
It all sounds pretty great hey? But like any thing there are two sides to the coin and when it comes to the Internet a big con is often privacy concerns. The IoT is no exception. How do you protect your information if everyone and everything has it? Could someone steal my identity through my hair straightener? I don’t know.
Also with so much of our information out there, our free will starts to decline because ‘things’ are influenced by what we do and what we do is influenced by ‘things’ which creates a somewhat scary cycle. Will we lose part of our autonomy? Our control over our lives? Our ability to interact with one another? These are all questions that are yet to be answered but have been speculated on by experts in the field. Read more here if you’re interested.
What do you think about a future with IoT? Scared? Excited? Do you think the benefits will outweigh the costs?
Hopefully whatever your thoughts (I’m keen to hear them) you now understand the IoT a little better.