Coming your way: the Internet Of Things

Essentially, an environment in which:

 

Most of the elements required to meet these two conditions are already available and in use. Many have proven popular, have been the subject of articles in magazines and newspapers and seem to appeal to the owners of smartphones and tablets.

Some of their uses are “fun” and expressions of human creativity and show how the boundaries of the possible get expanded – for example, a pair of shoes that contain an accelerometer, a gyroscope and a pressure sensor. These link with Bluetooth to a smartphone app. The latter processes the data collected and translates it into motivating comments to the wearer.

 

The serious includes implantable medical devices such as insulin pumps and heart pacemakers, robots that perform surgery. Medical electronics is seen as an area of great potential. he serious is likely to change the way we live and coexist with technology, being permanently connected gradually building a symbiotic relationship.

 

The Internet Of things (IOT) will take this much further by giving objects an identity that can be accessed and verified electronically. The figure below gives a summary of the current status of the IOT and how it may develop.

There is much optimism about the many benefits that an IOT will bring and enthusiasts talk of up to 50 billion devices being connected to it. Driven by Venture capital, commercially motivated vendors, designed by geeks and rushed to the market, we can expect many unintended consequences.

 

 

One of them is a change in behaviour – a single device as the robotic bee above is reasonable predictable and controllable. This is not the case when such devices use their connectivity to become a swarm (wasps, locusts, blackbirds, crocodiles, schools of fish and others exhibit such behaviour), something scientists admit they don’t fully understand.

 

We should also know from history that such innovations can be used for good as well as for evil and that for as long as legislation is well behind technology as is always the case, the evil applications will be creative, smart and successful.

 

Why is this an issue?

Devices exchanging data with each other are definitely progress and should be welcomed. We know that the mobile devices with which they will interact are not necessarily secure – someone else may be able to access, remove or modify the data either on the device or hijack it and use it to control another device such as heart pacemaker: in such a situation a smartphone becomes a deadly weapon that does not need licensing or regulation.

 

Privacy, Security, Transparency, Cross-border data lows, liabilities and, finally Standards will have to be good enough for the IOT to fulil its promise.

 

The risk domains of unintended consequences and malicious use, autonomous swarm behaviour, irreversible dependency and how these will impact the future of work and our relationship with technology are all fascinating topics for research. As it happens, Alvin Toler defined “Future Shock” as the situation when the future arrives before you are ready for it.

 

What you should do about it

Becoming an informed observer may be a good idea. Follow the media and discover for yourself whether your character makes you:

 

• An Early Adopter: those who must have the new “item” as soon as possib There are many pictures of hundreds of people queuing overnight outside a major brand shop to achieve this.
• A Watcher: those who wait until the “item” has been used for a while, how successfully or otherwise, what issues emerged, what alternatives may be available, et, before deciding.
• A Laggard: those who are not inclined to adopt new thin They can however become addicts if they receive such an item as a birthday gift but have no concept of cyberspace and are therefore at risk.

 

Whatever you decide is right for you, please remember you are doing it at your own risk.