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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: 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.