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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 lentilla on Friday July 17 2015, @05:16AM
An excellent example of why the IoT worries me.
Here are four devices, priced around the $200 mark. They have a button to "ring the doorbell" and a camera to see who is at the door. I can see this being a useful addition to a home. The problem that I see is that they are completely inoperable with anything else, and that their useful life probably won't outlast your current smartphone.
Sure, they'll all do their advertised job - for a while at least. Then a new doorbell will come along with new features, or the smartphone app will be discontinued, or you won't be able to work out how to connect it to the new WiFi access point.
The original article mentions Rose's grandfather - and I'd like to extend that by mentioning the apocryphal "grandfather's axe". (Sure, I replaced the handle twice, and the blade a couple of times, but it is still "My Grandfather's Axe".) The same thing was possible with doorbells - replace the buzzer, replace the wiring, replace the button with a fancy model when the porch is remodelled. That old "doorbell" was intrinsically "interoperable". It seems that we will lose that with the "Internet of Things".
Unless we want to be constantly purchasing the same functionality every few years, we must ensure we can communicate effectively with IoT devices. That means adherence to open standards. It means that the source-code of smartphone "apps" needs to available to study and modify.
The possibilities opened up by IoT are vast. It's exciting and there are many useful things that can now be achieved, and no doubt many more yet to be discovered. All these possibilities, however, are predicated on being able to connect devices together. A single sensor is not very useful, but a world of possibilities opens up when joined in tandem with other devices. Thus we must be always be mindful that end-users have the ability to communicate with their devices in a transparent fashion, otherwise - fifteen years hence - our homes will be littered with once-operational plastic junk.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Sunday July 19 2015, @03:23AM
That's a problem solved by open source software/hardware and standardized/open source protocols. Stallman might be crazy, but he's right about some things.
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