IoT Influence on Society

”Things” and the applications/services that support them are changing the way we live. Wearables in the sports and health sectors will grow to nearly 170 million devices by 2017 — an annual growth rate of 41 percent. Specific to the enterprise, if you thought the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) craze was a headache, just wait until button cameras, smart watches, fitness trackers, and connected glasses are a daily occurrence in the office. Workplace wearables will be a huge challenge in the coming years as more devices, clothing and pretty much any 'thing' with a chip or sensor become commonplace in society.

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in The Wearable Future report found that 77% of respondents thought that a top benefit of wearable technology is the potential to make employees more productive and efficient. If the technology is simple to use and integrates with other devices, that should boost productivity and lift profits. Industries that could benefit immediately from the wearable market include:

• Entertainment will be more 'immersive and fun'
• Social Media gets real time updates from clothes
• Gaming can be more visually and physically engaging
• Advertisers will also want that space someone’s back
• Healthcare will track vitals
• Retail could offer “pleasant, efficient” shopping experiences

Clothing is just one example of many. Organizations will also be able to manage assets and office building more efficiently. Imagine the connected home automation today, but geared toward commercial properties. Security, HVAC, assets, lighting, employee access and so forth is all handled by sensors and monitors. Smart cities are already being built with IoT on a metropolis scale. Energy, environment, street lights, sanitation, water supply, transportation and other civic related functions are all automatically controlled by meters.

The automotive industry is also taking advantage of sensors with self-driving cars, in car Wi-Fi, seamless integration with mobile phones, car to car communications, software updates and even their own in-car apps for streaming entertainment, navigation and other connected activities.

By all accounts, everything that is a noun – a person, place or thing – at some point, will have or wear a sensor/actuator/IP-chip that gathers some sort of data and all that traffic is headed for a data center somewhere. The digital society has emerged.

ps

Related

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• What are These "Things”?
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The Analog Generation

From Baby Boomers to Gen X, Y, & Z, there are certain characteristics that define, at least according to demographers and historians, each generation. Generation X, specifically, might also remember a Rush song called The Analog Kid. While not as frequently played as Tom Sawyer or Subdivisions, it has always been my favorite Rush song. Driving bass, awesome guitar solo, amazing imagery and Peart.

I am that Generation. The Analog Generation.

With all of our digital things getting connected, including things on and in our body, I started thinking that I'm part of the generation that transitioned from analog to digital. Not that analog or analog signals are disappearing anytime soon, but as a kid, there were way more analog things than digital, that's for sure. Audiophiles will also argue that analog recordings are better at capturing the true representation of sound due to it being continuous, rather than specific values to represent sound, as in the discrete digital.

I wondered if I was the only one who figured this out - highly doubtful - so I searched. And actually, there are a few people who have made the connection. One who argues that today's kids, at least his kids, are very analog. They love playing outside, playing board games and other non-digital activities. He talks about the importance of parents giving their children attention in the real world. And the other one specifically talks about the analog things we remember as a kid - records, 8mm, rotary phones, black & white TV, VHS and others verses the CDs, DVDs, iPhones and HD TVs today's kids live with.

Some feel that Rush's The Analog Kid is about a more innocent time with less technology in the world, longing for the simpler days. A cautionary tale. One person notes, 'Perhaps Peart's social comment with the two songs is how technology and science creates incredible wonders, but there's a cruel price to pay if there's no heart to guide it.' The other song he references is Digital Man, also on the Signals album. When I hear The Analog Kid it immediately takes me back to 1982 and whatever I was doing in high school. It is interesting that I took my first computer class in high school around that time...while still learning how to type...on a real typewriter. If you remember those, with the little IBM ball to change fonts, you're analog.

The last lines of the song are:

Too many hands on my time
Too many feelings
Too many things on my mind

When I leave I don't know
What I'm hoping to find
When I leave I don't know
What I'm leaving behind...

We are certainly entering a new realm with IoT with a lot of hopes, dreams and ideas of things to come. And while they all might help us automatically adjust home temperatures, become a little healthier, auto drive our car, keep an eye on our home, and cook better dinners, we can't forget that humans are social creatures, not necessarily social media darlings, and our real family, friends and loves are what really matter.

We're already forging a new frontier but we must tread carefully.

ps

Related

• The Analog Generation
• Analog vs. Digital Generations
• Is IoT Hype For Real?
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• OK 2015, Now What?
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• Welcome to the The Phygital World

Technorati Tags: f5,analog,digital,rush,music,the analog kid,iot,things,sensors,humans,society,generations,silva

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The Applications of Our Lives

The Internet of Things will soon become The Internet of Nouns

There are a few 'The ______ of Our Lives' out there: Days. Time. Moments. Love. They define who we are, where we've been and where we are going. And today, many of those days, times, moments and loves interact with applications. Both the apps we tap and the back end applications used to chronicle these events have become as much a part of our lives as the happenings themselves.

The app, Life.

As reported on umpteen outlets yesterday, Twitter went down for about an hour. As news broke, there were also some fun headlines like, Twitter goes down, chaos and productivity ensue, Twitter is down. NFL free agency should be postponed, Twitter is down, let the freak-out commence and Twitter goes down, helps man take note it’s his wife’s birthday. It is amazing how much society has come to rely on social media to communicate. Another article, Why Twitter Can’t Keep Crashing, goes right into the fact that it is globally distributed, real-time information delivery system and how the world has come to depend on it, not just to share links and silly jokes but how it affects lives in real ways.

Whenever Facebook crashes for any amount of time people also go crazy. Headlines for that usually read something like, 'Facebook down, birthdays/anniversaries/parties cease to exist!' Apparently since people can't tell, post, like, share or otherwise bullhorn their important events, it doesn't actually occur. 'OMG! How am I gonna invite people to my bash in two weeks without social media?!? My life is over!' Um, paper, envelopes, stamps anyone?

We have connected wrist bracelets keeping track of our body movements, connected glasses recording every move, connected thermostats measuring home environments and pretty much any other 'thing' that you want to monitor, keep track of or measure. From banking to buying, to educating to learning, to connecting to sharing and everything in between, our lives now rely on applications so much so, that when an application is unavailable, our lives get jolted. Or, we pause our lives for the moment until we can access that application. As if we couldn't go on without it. My, how application availability has become critical to our daily lives.

I think The Internet of Things will soon become The Internet of Nouns since every person, place or thing will be connected. I like that. I call 'The Internet of Nouns' as our next frontier!

Sorry adverbs, love ya but you're not connected.

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Related

• Does Social Media Reflect Society?
• The Icebox Cometh
• The Top 10, Top 10 Predictions for 2014
• The Internet of Things and DNS
• Delivering the Internet of Things

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