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One of the leading thinkers in the new computing sector known as the internet of Things (IoT) can't help but look at all the flashy, expensive, feature-packed gadgets on the market today – things like Google Glass or the Apple Watch – and keep coming away with the same thought: too many device makers keep getting it wrong.
Given the nature of his chosen field, serial entrepreneur David Rose – who's also a researcher with the MIT Media Lab, where he's taught for six years – might be expected to want the next generation of connected devices to pick up where smartphones leave off. Indeed, that seems to be the nature of the race to figure out what the next dominant computing platform looks like, whether it's Facebook snatching up Oculus or Microsoft working to bring its HoloLens to fruition.
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In a book he published last year, Enchanted Objects: Design, Human Desire and the Internet of Things, Rose sums up his hope for the future of technology: he wants it be dominated less by glass slabs and more by tools and artefacts, just like his grandfather's space was filled with.His grandfather, for example, never hunted for the one tool to serve as an all-purpose tool hub or for a tool that would eliminate the need for other tools. His shop was filled with hammers, screwdrivers, wrenches, clamps and more – and they all enchanted the young Rose because even in their simplicity, those tools could lead to a multiplicity of imaginative creations.
The Internet of Things could also, beyond proving a privacy debacle, be a walled garden whose walls reach to infinity.
Original Submission
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Thursday July 16 2015, @11:17PM
Computers are supposed to make life easier, more enjoyable, simpler. In actual use, computers are often frustrating pieces of crap that frustrate, confuse, and hamper you. Why is that? Primarily because some moron decided to use the computer for a purpose, or in a way, that the computer really isn't meant to be used. Or, another moron who was mostly computer illiterate stumbled over a "method" to accomplish some task, which he then forces upon users.
Internet of things? I can just imagine getting an email from my refigerator. "Please tend to the 14 day old milk rotting away on the second shelf." Like, I'm going to drop whatever I'm doing, come home to the refrigerator, and get that sour milk out of the poor suffering thing. Or, a power surge. EVERYTHING in the house sends messages that they've suffered a power spike, and that they need to be checked immediately. Worse, if they all demand to be serviced by a "qualified technidian", and they require credentials from a licensed tech to dismiss the warnings.
All kinds of stupid crap can happen when you put all your devices online.
That doesn't even touch on the important issue: privacy. The junk in your home should never be reporting your activities to anyone, anywhere. That includes the electric company, the city/county governmetns, state or federal government, or the happy little script kiddy freak down the street. It can be a full time chore keeping a desktop/laptop secure, depending on your environment. Do you REALLY want thirty devices in your home, all of which must be routinely updated and scanned for malware?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Hartree on Thursday July 16 2015, @11:29PM
"Do you REALLY want thirty devices in your home, all of which must be routinely updated and scanned for malware?"
Only if you are the one making money from the software update and malware protection racket... I mean service.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 17 2015, @09:29AM
Do you REALLY want thirty devices in your home, all of which must be routinely updated and scanned for malware?
Do you really think anyone would be so foolish as to have an internet of things running on Windows? Go back and read "The Road Ahead". There is no internet in it. Microsoft is for standalone non-networked appliances only. You know, like mobile phones.
(Score: 1) by AnonymousCowardNoMore on Friday July 17 2015, @02:07PM
Half true. The original version of the book wasn't about the internet. But when Gates realised that he missed the bus, the book was heavily edited for subsequent editions. Wiki article. [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by TheGratefulNet on Thursday July 16 2015, @11:33PM
All kinds of stupid crap can happen when you put all your devices online.
agreed.
and so, don't agree to put all (or even many) of them online.
let them talk locally and with one of your trusted proxies or gateways.
default should be to deny public (outbound) comms at your firewall for all things that are not explicity trusted. it used to be that you want default outbound=allow and default inbound=deny, but now you want BOTH to be default=deny and only whitelist what you know is trustable.
oh, and no ip stack on a device is a good thing; one less thing to worry about and one less (very common) attack vector.
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 2) by el_oscuro on Friday July 17 2015, @12:01AM
I have no IoT appliances and plan to avoid them as long as possible. If it ever becomes hard to find appliances that are not connected, I'll promptly root any I get using my very non-IoT tools.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 19 2015, @12:19AM
Unless they start coming with their own cellular connections, wouldn't the simplest option just be not connect them to a network?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by multixrulz on Friday July 17 2015, @12:16AM
This comes close to my reason for disinterest in an IoT future.
I was recently given a saw with a laser guide built in. It seemed like it might be a good idea, although I would never have bought it for that feature. Turns out it was completely pointless. It didn't help me cut any straighter, and of course the laser line jumped around like crazy if you actually tried to use it _while_ sawing.
As far as I can see, IoT is just an excuse to cram more unreliable, untrustworthy, and expensive electronics into stuff that doesn't need it, not to mention the ongoing rorting for service and genuine parts and the improved opportunities for planned obsolescence.
Besides, I spend enough of my life interacting with computers. They're cool and all, that's why I got into this field, but just occasionally I'd like to be a lump of biology in contact with the environment around me, instead of having it all mediated through little rectangles and complex bits of stuff that subtract from experiencing the moment.
(Score: 2, Informative) by tftp on Friday July 17 2015, @02:03AM
You said "unreliable", and I can only confirm that. I was doing some home automation, and my conclusion is that it's largely a liability. Too many of those switches and sensors keep failing. Some just need a new battery, but other are becoming genuinely dead because they are assembled from cheapest components at the cheapest assembly house using a design that cannot tolerate overvoltage greater than a few percent. If you install those switches, make sure you have plenty of spares - you will need them.
Maybe 10% of my HA is useful - an irrigation controller, a security camera, a SIP intercom. Those are good if someone rings a bell and you want to speak to the visitor even though you are 10,000 miles away. Light switches are already an overkill in most cases. Motion sensors, outside of the security function, are an annoyance when they light up the whole house when you want to make one last visit to a nearby bathroom at midnight. Programming them to be smarter is a complex task - and, ultimately, a futile one, as the computer cannot know what you want to happen. The smart house takes control of little things away from you.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Friday July 17 2015, @02:20AM
I can just imagine getting an email from my refigerator. "Please tend to the 14 day old milk rotting away on the second shelf." Like, I'm going to drop whatever I'm doing, come home to the refrigerator, and get that sour milk out of the poor suffering thing.
You're using email incorrectly.
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(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 17 2015, @02:21AM
> sour milk... the poor suffering thing [pinimg.com]