Remember back in the good old days when futurists were telling us how cool it would be to have your fridge wired to the Internet to keep track of your groceries? It elicited a big yawn or a rolling of the eyes from a lot of people. Who could blame people for being a bit skeptical?
What a difference a decade makes.
Nowadays the idea of connecting objects, animals or people to the Internet via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi makes all the sense in the world.
According to our colleague Tim Bajarin, a certifiable Silicon Valley guru who recently visited Honolulu, the "Internet of Things" is the next big thing. Bajarin gave a short discourse on the IOT recently before a rapt group of techies at a function in Chinatown sponsored by Blue Startups.
So what exactly is the "Internet of Things"?
First, some history. Since its inception the Internet has largely operated as a network of mobile or hard-wired computers. The IOT changes the equation by adding physical things — machines, appliances, buildings, vehicles, objects, animals, people, plants and even soil — to the network. This, in effect, allows for the transfer of data over a network without requiring human-to-human or human-to-computer interaction.
So, what’s the point?
With inexpensive, ubiquitous, strategically located microchips and sensors, the Internet will be able to communicate with and/or monitor items such as parking meters, factory assembly lines or your automobile. It’s able to do this with the confluence of wireless technologies, micro-electromechanical systems and the network.
The applications will be endless:
Someone with a heart condition will be able to have his or her smartphone monitor their condition and get an early warning if there are problems. That’s because an IOT application will be able to anticipate trouble while keeping a physician notified.
The IOT will be able to find your child, your lost dog or your set of keys because everything with a chip and a sensor will be trackable.
We’ll be able to create smart grids, smart homes and smart cities that will control and monitor efficient use of electricity, traffic, water use, parking, toll collection and even wildlife movement.
Here are some examples of how IOT might work in Hawaii:
Under a contract with Johnson Controls, the lighting, power and air conditioning at the University of Hawaii Community Colleges is monitored and controlled on all campuses.
On the home front, Apple and Google are working to become the dashboard for your dwelling. Google’s "Nest" thermostat gives Internet control of home heating and cooling and will be the center of full home appliance control. Apple is doing the same with "HomeKit" using iOS, which might already be on your TV with Apple TV. An example of these systems includes new standards for IOT on appliances would allow your dryer to be told you are not home and would switch to air dry to keep your shirts from getting wrinkled. In the future, this process may be automatic as everything in your home communicates that you have gone out.
Your appliances might know more about what you do than your family!
There are already hundreds of millions of things connected to the Internet, and we’re headed for hundreds of billions. It will increase efficiency in the way we do business by an order of magnitude, but of course the implications for privacy are disconcerting. Big Data and the Internet of Things could make it harder for us to control our own lives as we become more transparent to corporations or government institutions.
No one knows where it’s going to lead, but it’s going to change things irrevocably.
Mike Meyer, formerly Internet general manager at Oceanic Time Warner Cable, is now chief information officer at Honolulu Community College. Reach him at mmeyer@hawaii.edu.
