I remember my disappointment at 9 years old with my first computer...
A ZX-81 - which was pretty cool at the time I assure you. But, when I asked it a question...
all I got was ‘error: bad command’. I guess I had the expectation of some sort of ubber brain that would know all. For me that’s what’s so inspiring about the internet and connectivity - every thing and every one connected in a sort of global intelligence. We’re not there yet, but we’re getting closer...
With the mobile internet... Tim Berners-Lee’s semantic web… and what I’m most interested in, and what I’ve made the focus of a new venture I’m developing...
... the ‘Internet of Things’ - The enablement of millions and soon billions of every day objects, products and sensors with their own connectivity and presence within the internet. With that comes a flood of dynamic information from and about these objects - physical things part of the real time web.
It introduces amazing possibilities for science, fascinating ideas for interaction and experiences, opportunities to make systems smarter, services more efficient. It all sounds very sci-fi and wonder I know, but it’s here and now, and developing fast.
Ford trucks for technicians that use tags to determine if the right tools are loaded before setting off on a job.
6,000 apartments in Oklahoma City equipped with smart meters moderating power consumption to throttle grid demand and optimise expense for the consumer.
A hospital in South Carolina using tags attached to patients to follow patient health and procedures in realtime.
Sensors reporting the Golden Gate’s health.
And we’re all building the Internet of Things together, right now!
In California an applet running on thousands of phones carried by ordinary people captures traffic information and drives realtime system responses.
Bruce Sterling has said : There’ll be no need to hunt for your missing shoes, just Google them
In fact, there’s a recently launched Facebook-connected line of clothing…. The reality of every object having its own virtual presence like a FB page, and with it it’s own status updates, is getting closer.
The tipping point is where the cost of a digital presence for any object (each unique object) on the web becomes so trivial as to be de facto
As with all innovation, there is without doubt a Dark Side of uncertainties, risks, challenges, unintended consequences.
When your car makes a decision using an multiple algorithms on the web and data from multiple cars and sensors, who’s responsible? How much can we trust the information driving our objects? How much can we trust our objects?
The internet is in some ways critically flawed when it comes to trust and identity
The financial crisis has shown us the risks with systems built on systems, and where we lose track of what’s real and what’s derived. With the Internet of Things we will come to depend on systems and services built on a mashed-up bits of information flowing from billions of objects. Trust, identification and responsibility are going to become pretty important.
As Ray Kurzweil would probably point out, the singularity point coming is where objects moderate their behaviour based on the state and actions of other objects. This will create systemic effects we can’t predict. Then again…most TEDsters probably think that sounds pretty cool ;-)
We’ve learned the value of being in the network is higher than being out of it. Metcalfe’s law, Wisdom of Crowds etc. I think adding a billion connected objects to the global conversation will help the world build fantastic new, collective problem-solving capabilities. We know we need that.
So I suspect when my 3 year old is 9, he is going to be plugged into that global brain of every thing and everyone around him. So when he asks something around him a question, he probably will get an answer.
