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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: 4, Informative) by TheGratefulNet on Thursday July 16 2015, @11:30PM
you are correct. none of those things needs an ip-addr.
and not every iot solution means that every object gets one.
this is part of the problem; for some reason, there is a perception that iot is always about routable ip.
some of us use xbee, IR, zwave, other kinds of data transports. and - surprise! - not every thing needs or GETS to talk to anything public on IP networks.
at best, you'd have a single IP presence that controls and proxies for non-ip things. and that must be trustable (so that means no single vendor can have control over it; only you).
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 17 2015, @02:43AM
I think this hits the nail on the head, no pun intended. It's not the "Internet of Things", it is "My Personal Network of Things" that is going to be the revolution. Trying to get every device to talk to every device will be a nightmare. But having a custom wireless network where all of your devices can talk to each other... that's where the revolution will be. Think of how bluetooth has made it easy to have your phone connect to the speaker system in your
car. You'd want your appliances to talk to you and each other, not the Internet. You want the refrigerator and the stove to work in tandem, let's say by defrosting the roast and preheating the oven. What you don't need is your refrigerator/oven going onto the Internet and looking for new recipes.
(Score: 2) by AndyTheAbsurd on Friday July 17 2015, @08:06PM
It's not the "Internet of Things", it is "My Personal Network of Things" that is going to be the revolution.
You're going to need to come up with a name that produces a better acronym than that - "Pee Not" is a terrible idea.
Trying to get every device to talk to every device will be a nightmare. But having a custom wireless network where all of your devices can talk to each other... that's where the revolution will be.
Actually, I think the revolution will come when the manufacturers begin opening their APIs. Once that happens, "get[ting] every device to talk to every device" isn't necessary - they just have to talk to a [handful of] control devices.
Please note my username before responding. You may have been trolled.
(Score: 2) by TheLink on Friday July 17 2015, @07:21PM
The Internet of Things stuff would become more interesting and useful when we get iSavant/Virtual Savant wearable devices:
https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=5719&cid=135706#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]
I would have been more excited about "Virtual Savant" features (and "Virtual Telepathy", "Virtual Telekinesis" once brain-computer interfaces become better and thought macros become possible).
And there is a standard, easy and secure way to discover/enumerate and control the devices and to control the access to those devices.
Years ago I proposed something like this (to the IETF and ICANN): https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-yeoh-tldhere-01 [ietf.org]
The idea was to create a foundation for more stuff to be built on because back then it would have been hard to know what devices in your location/"magical plane" aka WiFi network are available for you to control and access.
But everyone seemed more interested in approving yet another dotcom TLDs (.info, .biz).
Without a standard or defacto standard developing, every location would be different, you'd have to learn how each place worked to use the publicly available devices.