Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you did? In touch with technology? With
Speaker 1: tech stuff from house stuff works dot com. Hello everyone,
Speaker 1: Welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Pollett, and
Speaker 1: I'm an editor at house stuff works dot com. Sending
Speaker 1: across from me as usual as senior writer Jonathan Strickline.
Speaker 1: No one would have believed in the last years of
Speaker 1: the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly
Speaker 1: and closely by intelligence greater than man's and yet as
Speaker 1: mortal as his own, that as men busied themselves about
Speaker 1: their various concerns, they were being scrutinized and studied, perhaps
Speaker 1: almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might
Speaker 1: scrutinize the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a
Speaker 1: drop of water. Burma, Why did you say, Burma? Uh?
Speaker 1: What we just did a double quote? Um, I was
Speaker 1: going to I didn't. We were sort of going over
Speaker 1: what we were going to talk about. I'm gonna throw
Speaker 1: Jonathan a very non curvy curveball here. Um. A while ago,
Speaker 1: about maybe almost twenty years ago, is is mid nineties?
Speaker 1: I uh listened to the founder of mind Spring Enterprises,
Speaker 1: which was an Internet service provider here in the United States.
Speaker 1: His name is Charles Brewer, and he was talking about
Speaker 1: how in the future, um, and he wasn't talking distant future,
Speaker 1: you know, he was talking realistically in the next few years.
Speaker 1: He was saying in the mid nineties, uh, that you
Speaker 1: would have stuff in your house. It wouldn't just be
Speaker 1: you connecting to the internet to use email or the web.
Speaker 1: He said, in in the next few years, your stuff
Speaker 1: is going to be connected to the Internet and it's
Speaker 1: going to talk to one another. And you know, he
Speaker 1: was talking about appliances and things, and I thought, well,
Speaker 1: that's kind of weird. I mean, how would you do that. Um.
Speaker 1: Of course, at the time, we were still in a
Speaker 1: very higle up world where you had to have a
Speaker 1: modem attached to your computer or built into your computer
Speaker 1: that dialed over the phone line and would you know,
Speaker 1: connect to the internet. And it was very slow and
Speaker 1: it was very spotty, and you know, it worked pretty well.
Speaker 1: But I thought, well that that would be kind of cool.
Speaker 1: And it seemed uh, you know, of course it's not
Speaker 1: jet jet packs and uh, hoverboards, but it was at
Speaker 1: the same time you know, kind of far off in
Speaker 1: my head because I was thinking, I don't you know,
Speaker 1: I guess people would adopt that. I don't know, it
Speaker 1: seems kind of cool to me. Well, as it turns out,
Speaker 1: we really have moved on to that kind of a model,
Speaker 1: although we're not quite there yet. But um, this is
Speaker 1: what people call the Internet of things. And the reason
Speaker 1: we're talking about this is that actually was contacted by
Speaker 1: a alien intelligence. Yes, but that is not what I
Speaker 1: was going to mention. You know, now they have to
Speaker 1: visit me again, Chris, Thank you so much, because I
Speaker 1: had plans this weekend anyway. No, I was also contacted
Speaker 1: by a tech conference to have a panel discussion about
Speaker 1: this very topic, the Internet of things, and I thought, well, heck,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm already preparing for that. Why don't we make
Speaker 1: that a podcast as well? And here we are, so
Speaker 1: let's talk a little bit about where we are right now. So, um,
Speaker 1: we're still not at a point where everything is talking
Speaker 1: to everything else, and there are a few different reasons
Speaker 1: for that. I think one of the reasons is, uh,
Speaker 1: like Chris was saying, you know, broadband rollout was probably
Speaker 1: a little more gradual than we had anticipated when the
Speaker 1: futurists were first starting to think about the possibilities of
Speaker 1: the Internet of things. But that that's less of a
Speaker 1: problem now for a good percentage of the population of
Speaker 1: the United States, as well as for many other countries.
Speaker 1: Clearly it's still a problem. Not everyone has broadband Internet
Speaker 1: access now. In some cases, the information that these different
Speaker 1: products would be sending back and forth would be very
Speaker 1: small packets of data, So perhaps broadband access isn't as important.
Speaker 1: I remember back as a nostalgic cast, as a slight tangent.
Speaker 1: I remember buying uh. You may remember this to the
Speaker 1: the age of when, um. There were publications like Yahoo
Speaker 1: Internet Life back in the nineties when and there were
Speaker 1: books too with Internet sites on them, and you would go, Okay,
Speaker 1: so I got this Internet thing, what am I going
Speaker 1: to do with it? One of the things I've had
Speaker 1: in a book was this UH drink machine that was
Speaker 1: hooked up to the Internet and you could and this
Speaker 1: was all text. This is not you know, pretty worldwide
Speaker 1: web stuff. This was You would ping the machine and
Speaker 1: it would tell you how many of each drink it
Speaker 1: had sold that day. And I was thinking, so you
Speaker 1: can figure out how many people within the population of
Speaker 1: that region had diabetes. Well was a it was a
Speaker 1: college campus. Now, okay, so all of them. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: we're we're talking about remember when we've talked about the
Speaker 1: early Internet, the places that were wired, we're basically government
Speaker 1: facilities and um educational institutions. So yes, they had broad
Speaker 1: basearch facilities. Exactly, they had broadband people in the the
Speaker 1: computer science department and whirre their drink machine and you
Speaker 1: could pin it, you know, because why not? That's more
Speaker 1: or less the deal. And that was why it was interesting,
Speaker 1: because why not? But yeah, I mean, and and it
Speaker 1: can be useful looking at it today. You could have
Speaker 1: a vendor looking at okay, well we don't need to
Speaker 1: restock this one today, send somebody out there. You can,
Speaker 1: you could consolidate, but back then it was just for fun.
Speaker 1: Right today, it makes a lot of sense. Like if
Speaker 1: you own a vending machine company and you stock those
Speaker 1: vending machines and you are able to look at a
Speaker 1: glance and see where you need to send a delivery
Speaker 1: person in order to restock those machines, then you may
Speaker 1: not need as many delivery people on your staff because
Speaker 1: you don't have to have someone go out and physically
Speaker 1: check each machine, and and if the machines can alert
Speaker 1: you if something's wrong, then you know to send someone
Speaker 1: out to repair it. Um, there are a lot of
Speaker 1: you know, you don't have to wait for a call
Speaker 1: from a client or happen or for your maintenance guy
Speaker 1: to happen upon it on a on a scheduled series
Speaker 1: of rounds. Uh. Yeah, there are a lot of different
Speaker 1: reasons for it. And then we have the consumer side,
Speaker 1: like actual consumer products, not just you know, commercial products, huh,
Speaker 1: and the possibilities that that holds. And they're already products
Speaker 1: out on the market right now that have some form
Speaker 1: of network capability. Um, they don't tend to all work
Speaker 1: together necessarily, like you might have a bunch of independent
Speaker 1: networks within your home network. Right. So for example, uh,
Speaker 1: you could have a you can be purchasing your appliances
Speaker 1: from a single company and you get a washer and
Speaker 1: a dryer, and they have this connectivity ability so that
Speaker 1: the washer and the dryer share information with each other.
Speaker 1: So when you put a load of laundry in the
Speaker 1: washer and you set it to a particular kind of setting,
Speaker 1: like let's say it's permanent press, it sends that information
Speaker 1: to the dryer, so that the dryer already has the
Speaker 1: proper settings ready to go when you transfer the wash
Speaker 1: from the washer dryer, so that way you don't have
Speaker 1: to reset the dryer settings. It's already taken care of. Uh.
Speaker 1: It might also even send you an alert somehow through
Speaker 1: through the internet so that you know when your loads
Speaker 1: laundry are done. So you might get a ping on
Speaker 1: a smartphone or a tablet or your computer, or if
Speaker 1: we're going to look into the future a little bit,
Speaker 1: your television. Because you've got internet connected televisions out there.
Speaker 1: It's only a matter of time before we get to
Speaker 1: a point where these internet connected televisions have a the
Speaker 1: ability to show alerts that are related to other appliance
Speaker 1: that are in your house. We're not quite there yet,
Speaker 1: but that's mainly because the approach most companies are taking
Speaker 1: is to create a proprietary communication protocol for their products. Right,
Speaker 1: so Company a's products do not communicate with Company bees products.
Speaker 1: So unless you're buying everything from the same company, then
Speaker 1: the the communication protocols aren't compatible and they don't understand
Speaker 1: each other. They can't communicate. You need to C three
Speaker 1: PO right there in the middle because they can speak
Speaker 1: over six million different languages, including vaporators. One of their
Speaker 1: first jobs was anyway, um, the point being that you know,
Speaker 1: the odds of you finishing that quote or yeah, never
Speaker 1: tell me the odds. Many both died to bring us
Speaker 1: this podcast. So the the the different the different networks
Speaker 1: can't really communicate with one another. So that's kind of
Speaker 1: where we are right now. But we do have lots
Speaker 1: of products out there, including ones like refrigerators that can
Speaker 1: talk to stove and ovens. So you've got again from
Speaker 1: the same company. So you might have a refrigerator that's
Speaker 1: Internet connected and you think, well, why would I want that? Well,
Speaker 1: if you haven't a fridge that connects to the internet
Speaker 1: and it actually is able to keep an inventory of
Speaker 1: the stuff that you put within that fridge, you know,
Speaker 1: if there's some method whether you know you want it
Speaker 1: to be as seamless as possible. Ideally you would have
Speaker 1: a method in there where when you put something in
Speaker 1: the fridge, it automatically detected its presence, knew what it was,
Speaker 1: and logged it so it would know when you put
Speaker 1: it in there, uh, and it would know what it was.
Speaker 1: And even in a real ideal situation. It would know
Speaker 1: when that product expires, so it could tell you, like, hey,
Speaker 1: you've got some milk in the fridge. It's about to
Speaker 1: go bad because it's muscling up to the potato salad,
Speaker 1: So you want to make sure you're gonna go ahead
Speaker 1: and drink that. Um, So just don't walk in on
Speaker 1: the mayonnaise. It's dress boy. We were definitely punchy. We
Speaker 1: recorded an episode that had more bloopers in it than
Speaker 1: the previous previous three years of recording combined. So we're
Speaker 1: all punchy now. But anyway, Yeah, the fridge would be
Speaker 1: able to keep you alert on what you have in
Speaker 1: your fridge. It could even give you recipes for stuff
Speaker 1: that you can make based upon what is in the
Speaker 1: refrigerator right now. So for example, you might think, well,
Speaker 1: why am I gonna have for dinner tonight and you
Speaker 1: could ask You could ask your refrigerator and they could say, well,
Speaker 1: based upon what you've got in the fridge, this is
Speaker 1: the kind of stuff you can make. Or it may
Speaker 1: say you could have this meal. You just need to
Speaker 1: go out and buy this, this, and this, so the
Speaker 1: ingredients are complete and and with the possibility of purchasing
Speaker 1: stuff online. You could even get to a point where
Speaker 1: you you you authorize through your fridge purchases. Well, and
Speaker 1: and that's the the Well, there are two sort of
Speaker 1: things that that occurring to me to sort of funny things. UM.
Speaker 1: One of which is, there's no reason we can't do
Speaker 1: this right now or or really a couple of years ago.
Speaker 1: It's just we haven't. UM. So it's not it's not
Speaker 1: a a technology that we're waiting for it to develop. UM.
Speaker 1: This is all pretty simple stuff really when you get
Speaker 1: right down to it. UM. The other the other promise,
Speaker 1: I mean, this really could be a very convenient thing
Speaker 1: if they go forward with it, because it's the kind
Speaker 1: of thing that you're you're talking about that would make
Speaker 1: life really easy if you have the money to buy
Speaker 1: this kind of stuff and the services available to you.
Speaker 1: So let's say you have UM, your internet connected fridge
Speaker 1: and the services necessary to complete this conversation. So you
Speaker 1: got stuff in the fridge and some of it's starting
Speaker 1: to expire and you've used some of it. So UH,
Speaker 1: there are f I D tags radio frequency identification tags
Speaker 1: on your things. So you have UM milk and UH,
Speaker 1: you have cheese and things like that, and as you
Speaker 1: use it up, the fridge realizes, hey, it's no longer
Speaker 1: in the fridge. Um, so I'm going to Uh, Jonathan
Speaker 1: has already said that he wants more milk as soon
Speaker 1: as he runs out of milk, So I'm gonna place
Speaker 1: an order with the local shopping delivery company and they're
Speaker 1: just gonna bring Jonathan more milk and they're gonna build
Speaker 1: it to his card, so he gets a regular delivery
Speaker 1: of milk because he's out, and uh, the fridge has
Speaker 1: automatically told his local delivery company, Hey, uh, he needs
Speaker 1: milk and celery and other stuff you know that he's
Speaker 1: run out of or he wants to make this this meal. Um.
Speaker 1: So really this could be ultra convenient because you could
Speaker 1: just have stuff show up, go ahead and put it
Speaker 1: in the fridge, and it just runs on a normal
Speaker 1: cycle like that, so you don't have to make shopping
Speaker 1: trips and uh, you don't have to look through the
Speaker 1: fridge to identify what you're gonna eat. But that's all
Speaker 1: sort of a well what if because in the in
Speaker 1: the nineties, when um, these types of delivery services we're
Speaker 1: starting to take off, it was kind of early for
Speaker 1: them to do so and I think it's scared a
Speaker 1: lot of people, which is why you don't they're they're
Speaker 1: sort of hit or miss. They're in some places but
Speaker 1: not another's. They're in a enighble head down the street,
Speaker 1: but they won't deliver to your house. A lot of
Speaker 1: these scases back in the day, they expanded too quickly,
Speaker 1: they got they got so large that they weren't able
Speaker 1: to uh, to handle their own they weren't able to
Speaker 1: administrate the size of the company, and so as a result,
Speaker 1: they eventually collapsed in on themselves. Because it's not a
Speaker 1: cheap business to be in. You know, it's a lot
Speaker 1: of warehouse management, a lot of deliveries. Uh, it's it's
Speaker 1: a tricky business. But also I was going to mention
Speaker 1: that the other possibilities. So we were talking mainly about
Speaker 1: just the fridge interacting with the Internet, but it could
Speaker 1: also interact with the other appliances in your home, for example,
Speaker 1: your stove. So let's say that you have determined that
Speaker 1: you know, the fridge is suggested, Hey, you've got the
Speaker 1: right ingredients here for a pot roast. Uh, And heck,
Speaker 1: you can even have a crock pot that has Internet connectivity,
Speaker 1: and so it starts the it starts the croc pot
Speaker 1: heating up at the right time so that you just
Speaker 1: all you do is dump them the radiance into it
Speaker 1: and you and you walk away, um or you have
Speaker 1: you wanna you wanna end up like baking something, and
Speaker 1: so it ends up sending that information to the oven
Speaker 1: when you're prepared, So that way, the oven starts to
Speaker 1: preheat while you're actually getting your ingredients together, and you
Speaker 1: never had to go and turn anything on yourself. It's
Speaker 1: all controlled because the devices themselves are aware of what
Speaker 1: it is you're trying to do. So this is sort
Speaker 1: of the promise of the Internet of things in general.
Speaker 1: But you know what we're talking about appliance, is that
Speaker 1: the reason why we're talking about that is because those
Speaker 1: are things that exist on the market right now. The
Speaker 1: same sort of thing is true for experiences. If you
Speaker 1: have say a smartphone, a tablet, and maybe even a
Speaker 1: video game console or set top box. Uh, you can
Speaker 1: have these sort of experiences right now within a separate
Speaker 1: kind of network. So let's use Netflix as an example. Alright,
Speaker 1: Let's say have a Netflix account and I have access
Speaker 1: to a Netflix film or television show on my phone
Speaker 1: and I'm watching it, and then I stop, you know,
Speaker 1: I pause in the middle, and then a little bit later,
Speaker 1: I pick up my tablet and I watch a little
Speaker 1: bit more of it. It picks up right where it
Speaker 1: left off, and then I pause. And then when I
Speaker 1: get home, I turn on my TV and my set
Speaker 1: top box that happens to have Netflix capability, and I
Speaker 1: start and it picks up again right where I left off.
Speaker 1: And so this is an experience that continues, and it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter what the context is. It follows me. It's
Speaker 1: context independent, so I don't have to worry about fast
Speaker 1: forwarding to get to the right section, so I can
Speaker 1: pick up where I left off. It's going to just
Speaker 1: do that automatically. This is a really valuable experience to consumers,
Speaker 1: and it's the sort of thing that the Internet of
Speaker 1: Things really promises, is this idea of a seamless experience
Speaker 1: where you go from environment to environment and the environment
Speaker 1: adjusts to you and gives you the experience you want
Speaker 1: um based upon whatever your preferences are, and it may
Speaker 1: be that you have to express those preferences in a
Speaker 1: very um order way, and may in fact, I would
Speaker 1: guess that the early early versions of this technology are
Speaker 1: going to require a lot of input on our part
Speaker 1: to be to work correctly. But future systems will have
Speaker 1: a lot of learning behaviors build into them so that
Speaker 1: based upon your behaviors in the past and the things
Speaker 1: that you've already done, they can anticipate what you want
Speaker 1: in the future and start to set things up so
Speaker 1: that they will be ideal for you before you even
Speaker 1: are necessarily conscious of it. And UH and we're seeing
Speaker 1: some of that too, Like the Nest thermostat is a
Speaker 1: good example. So Nest thermostat is a programmable thermostat that
Speaker 1: has some learning algorithms in it that can, you know,
Speaker 1: based upon the way you adjust the thermostat throughout the day,
Speaker 1: can start to automatically make those adjustments for you. And
Speaker 1: you can also at any time going and manually change
Speaker 1: it either in the house or building yourself, or you
Speaker 1: can even access it over the internet. So there are
Speaker 1: opportunity these there for other appliances that do similar things
Speaker 1: to to do that. And then we've got other UH
Speaker 1: possibilities as well. For example, that you you're watching TV
Speaker 1: and you see a product on television and you know
Speaker 1: you are the ultimate impulse buyer and you think I
Speaker 1: want that. Well, with the Internet of Things, you can
Speaker 1: get to a point where and a lot of companies
Speaker 1: have been trying to do this, figure out a way
Speaker 1: where you can if you see something on the screen
Speaker 1: that you want, you can indicate I want that and
Speaker 1: then go and purchase it, uh, in a very easy,
Speaker 1: seamless way, so that you don't have to open up
Speaker 1: a tablet or or smartphone application or pop open a
Speaker 1: computer in order to say this thing I saw on TV,
Speaker 1: I want that. Make that mine. Um, yeah, my TV
Speaker 1: provider already does that to some extent. Yeah, yeah, there's
Speaker 1: there's some of that built in. It's it's still not
Speaker 1: widespread and it's still not truly seamless, but it's getting better.
Speaker 1: And that's another thing where we expect to see. But
Speaker 1: when we talk about the Internet of Things, you have
Speaker 1: to think bigger than that. Like we're still talking appliances
Speaker 1: and and you know, entertainment centers and stuff, so radio's
Speaker 1: TVs and computers and all that. But but this is
Speaker 1: really about putting computers and sensors and actuators in lots
Speaker 1: of things. Yeah, well, one of them, I would say
Speaker 1: one of the most mature Internet of things environments. Is
Speaker 1: the smart home where you've got uh, you know, your lights,
Speaker 1: your climate control, your garage door, um, your the locks
Speaker 1: on your front door. The sh leg Link system that
Speaker 1: you uh you wrote on that for the for the website. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not. Yeah, there's a you know, there's a a
Speaker 1: schleg Lock article I wrote and it was a few
Speaker 1: years ago about the system because it was something I
Speaker 1: saw at ce S where you could access the lock
Speaker 1: on your front door from the internet and from a
Speaker 1: smartphone you could unlock your door. So let's say that
Speaker 1: you have a repairman showing up at a certain time,
Speaker 1: you could, um, you can unlock the door for that person.
Speaker 1: You can also do things like set up pass codes,
Speaker 1: temporary pass codes. They would only work within a certain
Speaker 1: block of time and outside of that they would no
Speaker 1: longer work. So that way, you could give a pass
Speaker 1: code to someone so that they could, you know, maybe
Speaker 1: walk your dogs or what are your plants or whatever
Speaker 1: it is, and then as soon as as soon as
Speaker 1: that time expand it is over, it'll just automatically lock again.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean, that's that's the sort of stuff
Speaker 1: that you can see in a smart home. That and
Speaker 1: alarm systems things like that you can you can watch
Speaker 1: um uh it's easy to if you have the camera setup,
Speaker 1: you can see what's going on at your home. UM.
Speaker 1: If if you're like me and you go, did I
Speaker 1: turn on the alarm? Did I lock the door? You
Speaker 1: can do you can take care of it. You know,
Speaker 1: if you get down the road, you can pull over
Speaker 1: and get on your smartphone and make sure that you
Speaker 1: lock your door and make sure that you turn the
Speaker 1: alarm on. UM and maybe the stove off, you know,
Speaker 1: those kinds of things. And that's something that that is
Speaker 1: already pretty well established in the market. Also, the smart
Speaker 1: meters that they've been putting in a lot of cities
Speaker 1: where um, they don't have to send out a meter
Speaker 1: reader to your to check your electricity. They can check
Speaker 1: that from AFAR. And what what's funny to me is
Speaker 1: that it didn't move quickly enough for Google and Microsoft,
Speaker 1: who have now shut down their services. Well, I think
Speaker 1: that was mostly because the uh, the companies that installed
Speaker 1: the smart meters were not willing to share with Google
Speaker 1: and Microsoft um. And the two companies were just saying,
Speaker 1: you know what, if you guys aren't gonna help us out,
Speaker 1: We're gonna shut these down and we're not gonna mess
Speaker 1: with it anymore. But I think that will eventually come back.
Speaker 1: But cars to are are online in ways that they
Speaker 1: hadn't been before. And and again, if we're talking about
Speaker 1: the future, you can imagine a system, a system where
Speaker 1: cars all have technology UH installed, whether it's retrofitted or
Speaker 1: just off the assembly line where UH there are there
Speaker 1: can be sensors like collision detection sensors and alarm systems.
Speaker 1: There can even be override systems where UH the you know,
Speaker 1: we've seen this with like Google self driving cars. You
Speaker 1: can you can imagine that being incorporated into vehicles off
Speaker 1: the line where UM if you wanted to, you could
Speaker 1: engage it so that the car drives itself and because
Speaker 1: as these other UH sensors, it can navigate through traffic
Speaker 1: without there being a danger of a collision, especially if
Speaker 1: all the other cars are also on the same system.
Speaker 1: Then you've got a computer that can manage everything so
Speaker 1: that you get to where you're going in the most
Speaker 1: efficient manner possible, which would be a huge relief. You know,
Speaker 1: theoretically you could avoid traffic jams because a lot of
Speaker 1: traffic jams depend upon human behavior and not necessarily something
Speaker 1: uh that's actually actively blocking the street, although that could
Speaker 1: happen too if there were if there were an incident
Speaker 1: where something was blocking the street, then obviously that would
Speaker 1: still be a problem, although a really robust system could
Speaker 1: potentially navigate around that so that the the the impact
Speaker 1: would be minimal on traffic. Uh. And you could also
Speaker 1: see sensors being built into the infrastructure itself, so not
Speaker 1: just the cars, but in streets uh and in the
Speaker 1: you know, signs, things like that, so that it could
Speaker 1: uh there, the system itself could maintain how much traffic
Speaker 1: is going across it on a given day, help change
Speaker 1: things like traffic light patterns. Um. So you're talking about
Speaker 1: a system that's much more flexible and can change on
Speaker 1: the fly, uh and possibly possibly helps cities like Atlanta
Speaker 1: with their horrible, horrible traffic problems. Atlanta's way up there, guys,
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, Atlanta. I mean, we're we're hurting and we
Speaker 1: we could we could use the help. So so I
Speaker 1: had some statistics. Let me read you them. UM actually
Speaker 1: was if you if you're interested in reading more about
Speaker 1: the Internet of Things, I would also recommend um read
Speaker 1: right Web, which is one of my favorite tech sites anyway.
Speaker 1: But they have a whole section on Internet of things articles, UM,
Speaker 1: and uh they had one where they quoted statistics from
Speaker 1: the g s M A of All People. UM. This
Speaker 1: is an organization. Uh you might know from our other
Speaker 1: podcasts about cell phones. UM. But they're studying how well
Speaker 1: connected things are because well, an Internet of things would
Speaker 1: be beneficial for them because they are the kinds of
Speaker 1: things that you would manage through a smartphone. So it's
Speaker 1: it's definitely something that they're interested in. UM. They said that, Uh,
Speaker 1: in twenty eleven, there were about nine billion devices connected
Speaker 1: to the Internet around the world. About six billion of
Speaker 1: them are are something that you can carry with you.
Speaker 1: But by they expected uh, twenty four billion connected devices
Speaker 1: and about half of those would be mobile. UM. So
Speaker 1: it's definitely something that is that is growing exponentially. UM.
Speaker 1: But it's at the same time, it's it's one of
Speaker 1: those things that they're they're you know, as long as
Speaker 1: everything is working the way it's supposed to and people
Speaker 1: are behaving themselves, it's great because it can be real
Speaker 1: time saving. UM. It can give you opportunities to to
Speaker 1: do other things with your time and with your money
Speaker 1: and really improve efficiency and turn things off that don't
Speaker 1: need to be powered on electricity. You could improve your
Speaker 1: quality of life to all kinds of people. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: uh so, yeah, there are a lot of potential benefits.
Speaker 1: I mean, and we're still not even finished with all
Speaker 1: the possibilities. I mean, there could be sensors built into
Speaker 1: clothing should tell the clothing when it's dirty and when
Speaker 1: it needs to be washed, and it could well what
Speaker 1: would work great until you wash it and then you
Speaker 1: know short circuits. Well, yeah, you got you have to
Speaker 1: build in the right kind of fabrics so that you
Speaker 1: can wash it. But we could get to a point
Speaker 1: where sensors are built into clothing so that when you
Speaker 1: put them in the washer, the washer detects from the
Speaker 1: sensors what kind of clothes they are and what kind
Speaker 1: of cycle it needs to go through. So then you
Speaker 1: get to a point where you know, you just need
Speaker 1: a robot to disrobe you and put it into the
Speaker 1: washer and other and then you don't have to do
Speaker 1: anything else. Uh thank yeah, she needs a bonus. So
Speaker 1: the uh yeah, there's there are a lot of different
Speaker 1: things that could happen and and uh, you know, we're
Speaker 1: talking about a point where these sensors and these computer
Speaker 1: systems are pervasive. They need to be both pervasive and transparent.
Speaker 1: And by that, I mean for this system to be
Speaker 1: something that works seamlessly. You don't want to you don't
Speaker 1: want to see all the wires what I'm getting at
Speaker 1: so uh and and there are a lot of companies
Speaker 1: working to kind of tackle that problem. Now, there is
Speaker 1: another major concern that arises out of this world of
Speaker 1: the future. Well, one of the concerns I was thinking of,
Speaker 1: and I think it's not the one that you're about
Speaker 1: to say, um, because I think the other one that
Speaker 1: you're about to say is bigger. But I mean it's um.
Speaker 1: Taking down the Internet at that point becomes a much
Speaker 1: bigger deal, because I mean you see that all the
Speaker 1: time in UH, in corporate America. You know, everybody has
Speaker 1: a computer on their desk now, and then when something
Speaker 1: happens at the network, nobody gets anything done. And that's
Speaker 1: going to happen when everybody gets used to the Internet
Speaker 1: of things and suddenly there's a network outage or power outage.
Speaker 1: I can't cook, my fridge won't tell me what to make,
Speaker 1: and and yes it's a joke, but people. Once you
Speaker 1: get reliant on that technology, when there is a glitch
Speaker 1: or a network problem or something like that, it it
Speaker 1: throws us off. Um and it could. You know, we've
Speaker 1: got all our traffic lights and everything, all our traffic
Speaker 1: systems online, and oh the power grid is overwhelmed and
Speaker 1: it shut down. Now the internet out grid. See when
Speaker 1: you have the smart grid than the power grid's fine? No, no, no,
Speaker 1: you're you're totally right. And and of course a lot
Speaker 1: of these systems, especially the ones that are related to infrastructure,
Speaker 1: would by necessity require redundant systems that are even if
Speaker 1: they are the old preconnected systems, they would be necessary. So,
Speaker 1: for example, your smart grid traffic light system may revert
Speaker 1: back to a pre smart grid version so that it's
Speaker 1: still working. You know, it's still working, it's just not
Speaker 1: it's just not flexible like it used to be. Um
Speaker 1: or at least you get maybe the flashing red lights
Speaker 1: and hopefully people treated like a four was stop in Atlanta.
Speaker 1: That's a that's a hope that you make in Vain.
Speaker 1: I'm to the point now where I'm not flexible like
Speaker 1: I used to be either. I can't even put on
Speaker 1: my own shoes anymore. Um, it also would be a
Speaker 1: tantalizing target for a terrorist. And I'm not just saying
Speaker 1: that because it's alliterative, but it's the kind of thing
Speaker 1: that that you know, what, if you're looking for a
Speaker 1: way to disrupt people's lives and cause panic, that could
Speaker 1: do it. Yeah, if you're Yeah. Part of the part
Speaker 1: of the defense of that is that the Internet is
Speaker 1: pretty darn robust and and there are a lot of
Speaker 1: different ways of working around problems. But if you were
Speaker 1: able to find a way to, I don't know, inflict
Speaker 1: a a widespread virus that could uh could come up
Speaker 1: the works, and that could be enough to really make
Speaker 1: an impact. But you know, trying to actually take down
Speaker 1: the Internet in the sense of I want to target
Speaker 1: the Internet because everyone's connected to it and if I
Speaker 1: if I shut it down, then it's going to cause chaos.
Speaker 1: That's a huge endeavor. I mean, that's not something that's
Speaker 1: easily done. But yeah. The other big concern, the major
Speaker 1: one that I think a lot of consumers should keep
Speaker 1: in mind, is privacy issues. So if you've got an
Speaker 1: Internet of things, you've got all these sensors around you,
Speaker 1: and you've and on you potentially um in the various
Speaker 1: things that you're carrying or possibly even wearing. Well, then
Speaker 1: you could be you know, worried about your privacy because
Speaker 1: because the same systems that can make the environment so
Speaker 1: pleasant for us and to customize our experience in such
Speaker 1: a way that we have the best sort of uh
Speaker 1: experience possible. I mean, imagine walking through a building that
Speaker 1: automatically is adjusting to your preferences so that the lighting
Speaker 1: is just the way you would like it, and the
Speaker 1: the ambient noise is just what you would want. That's
Speaker 1: that's a neat vision of the future. But it also
Speaker 1: means that there's a system that knows that you are there.
Speaker 1: They know when you're there, they know how long you're there,
Speaker 1: they know when you arrived, they know where you came from,
Speaker 1: they know where you went to. Because it's a if
Speaker 1: it's a big system that's keeping track of all of this,
Speaker 1: then it's keeping track of you. And as you move
Speaker 1: around and interact with the various environments around you, there
Speaker 1: is a record there. You are leaving a digital footprint
Speaker 1: everywhere you go, and by necessity, that footprint has to
Speaker 1: be identified with you. On some level. It might be
Speaker 1: a superficial level, but it has to be identified with
Speaker 1: you because otherwise your experience isn't customized. That's the point
Speaker 1: of doing it. Yeah, the whole point of doing it
Speaker 1: is so that I Jonathan's trick Land as I walk
Speaker 1: around in my life experience the best sort of outcomes
Speaker 1: possible considering my preferences. Well if they you know, if
Speaker 1: if nothing is connected to me, then there's no that
Speaker 1: all it's doing is tracking that there that that someone
Speaker 1: is moving around, but it doesn't know how to adjust
Speaker 1: you know, the settings were anything to make it ideal
Speaker 1: for me. So that's the tradeoff is do we go
Speaker 1: with this world where we have this custom experience to life?
Speaker 1: This the sort of idea where we have truly manipulated
Speaker 1: our environment to the fullest extent possible so that every
Speaker 1: person is getting as ideal and experience as we can
Speaker 1: hope to achieve. But on the flip side, every single
Speaker 1: movement you make is essentially and every single thing you
Speaker 1: do is essentially tracked. Now, there are a lot of
Speaker 1: different ways to approach this, where you build in security
Speaker 1: systems so that everything is encrypted, so that yes, everything
Speaker 1: is tracked, but it's not easy for anyone outside to
Speaker 1: see what you did win. But are big concerns. I mean,
Speaker 1: what if you happen to be in an area where
Speaker 1: a crime is committed and you don't even witness it.
Speaker 1: You're not you're not a witness to this crime. You
Speaker 1: were unaware that the crime had happened. And the crime
Speaker 1: could be anything. Let's say it's robbery. So you happen
Speaker 1: to be in the same place at the same time
Speaker 1: as a robbery, but you're not in the exact same area,
Speaker 1: but but it's tracked you there, and then you happen
Speaker 1: to be late to something, so you make a faster
Speaker 1: than normal egress from the area in order to make
Speaker 1: your next appointment. And uh, it could very well be
Speaker 1: the law enforcement when looking and reviewing records. If you're
Speaker 1: leaving a digital footprint that can be traced back to
Speaker 1: you could say, hey, this is a person of interest
Speaker 1: because look, they were there at this particular time and
Speaker 1: then they left in a real hurry at at the
Speaker 1: you know, shortly after the robbery took place. And then
Speaker 1: next thing you know, you're being hassled about something that
Speaker 1: you had no knowledge of. Or let's say that you
Speaker 1: are doing something naughty, something that is frowned upon whether
Speaker 1: it's illegal or an ethical or whatever. Well, now you've
Speaker 1: got a record of it everywhere. So some of us
Speaker 1: who consider ourselves to be fairly ethical people might say,
Speaker 1: you know, I understand, but I don't really do anything terrible,
Speaker 1: so I don't see what that's a concern. Some people
Speaker 1: who are truly ethical people will be saying, this is
Speaker 1: an awful idea. I mean, whether I do anything wrong
Speaker 1: is immaterial. I don't want there to be a system
Speaker 1: that tracks everything I do all the time. I want
Speaker 1: I want privacy in my life. And uh so that
Speaker 1: that is a huge hurdle. I mean, do we do
Speaker 1: we adopt this world in the future where we can
Speaker 1: have this kind of experience or do we shy away
Speaker 1: from it because we don't want to have a living
Speaker 1: record of everything we do every day until we're know
Speaker 1: part of the environment as opposed to experiencing it. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: and and that's um you know, that's one of those
Speaker 1: conflicts that's difficult because the the um the benefits of
Speaker 1: some of this technology are pretty obvious, and you say, well,
Speaker 1: you know, I really like this stuff. I wish I
Speaker 1: could do that, but I'm just not comfortable with giving
Speaker 1: up my privacy. UM, I'm one of those people. UM.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean I could I could tell you
Speaker 1: from personal experience that it's not it's not a simple
Speaker 1: question to answer. Um. A lot of these technologies are
Speaker 1: are things that we can implement without having to give
Speaker 1: up too much your privacy. Um. And then others you know, uh,
Speaker 1: you have to go, well, I'm gonna have to make
Speaker 1: a decision here one way or the other. Yeah, it's um,
Speaker 1: it's it's definitely an exciting time to see these developments
Speaker 1: take place. And I think, you know, we we are
Speaker 1: looking at possibilities, but we also have to remember where that, uh,
Speaker 1: this is not going to be a super fast transition,
Speaker 1: and some stuff probably just won't work. Because you can
Speaker 1: build the best system in the world, but if people
Speaker 1: don't use it the way you thought they were going
Speaker 1: to use it, then it becomes a problem. And and
Speaker 1: that's one of the things is that it's hard to
Speaker 1: predict user behavior when you're first designing a system. I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people were very skeptical of smartphone
Speaker 1: apps when smartphones because a lot of smartphone apps that
Speaker 1: first came out were very much curiosities. They weren't necessarily
Speaker 1: that useful. But now mobile apps that is, that is
Speaker 1: the thing. I mean, that's the huge craze in tech, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're seeing big companies scoop up small mobile
Speaker 1: app companies for billions of dollars because it's a big deal.
Speaker 1: So if the Internet of Things takes a route similar
Speaker 1: to the way smartphones and mobile technology and apps have,
Speaker 1: then it's definitely gonna become something pervasive and hopefully more
Speaker 1: you full than problematic. But it's also possible that the
Speaker 1: first few implementations of this kind of technology could fall flat,
Speaker 1: that they just don't work the way they were anticipated to.
Speaker 1: And if it's if it's a big enough failure, it
Speaker 1: may mean that we don't see this Internet of things
Speaker 1: truly emerge because companies may shy away from it. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, like like I was saying earlier, I mean,
Speaker 1: there are some things that are already there, We're already
Speaker 1: in the world. The thing is, there's I think it's
Speaker 1: going to end up being a situation where consumer demand
Speaker 1: drives a lot of things like the washer and dryer.
Speaker 1: That situation where you know, the washer wood communicated the dryer,
Speaker 1: Hey expect a load of permanent press it's coming. Um,
Speaker 1: you know that may not necessarily take off, you know,
Speaker 1: if it's at five option and people go, I don't
Speaker 1: I'm not going to spend it on that. Now, having
Speaker 1: an email sent to you to tell you, hey, it's
Speaker 1: time to change the clothes over sticking in the in
Speaker 1: the dryer, um, now, that would be useful. So I
Speaker 1: think it's people are gonna say, why want that? But
Speaker 1: I don't mean this. It may also be one of
Speaker 1: those things where a lot of these features end up
Speaker 1: getting built into all models. Eventually, like it filters down
Speaker 1: so it no longer becomes like a premium model of
Speaker 1: a particular appliance. It just becomes a standard feature that
Speaker 1: you find across all models of that appliance. And uh
Speaker 1: and in that case, um, you might end up slowly
Speaker 1: adopting it, but uh, there are other times where you
Speaker 1: might see companies just abandoned it. Another good example of
Speaker 1: this is like three D television. You know, there's there
Speaker 1: are a lot of television sets out there that have
Speaker 1: three D built into them, but they're not necessarily um
Speaker 1: marketed as three D TV s. Well that that might
Speaker 1: be what we see in the future with these Internet
Speaker 1: connected appliances, that it's just one of the features of
Speaker 1: the appliance and it's not the selling feature, and that
Speaker 1: it's not necessarily priced higher because of it. Um, it's
Speaker 1: just one of the many things that comes with that
Speaker 1: particular appliance. And the other thing that we'll have to
Speaker 1: have is some sort of universal standard of communication for
Speaker 1: this to truly work, or you're going to see third
Speaker 1: party companies pop up and their specialty is creating some
Speaker 1: sort of communication hub where different protocols can actually work
Speaker 1: together with one another, at least on a superficial level. Uh.
Speaker 1: And so my point there is that if manufacturers don't
Speaker 1: start looking into ways where their technologies can talk to
Speaker 1: other companies technologies, a third party is going to find
Speaker 1: a way to make it happen, and then they're gonna
Speaker 1: just explode, you know, assuming that consumers care about it
Speaker 1: at all. Anyway, all Right, Well, that wraps up our
Speaker 1: discussion about the Internet of Things and the possibilities that
Speaker 1: lie there in Uh, it'll be interesting to see this
Speaker 1: develop over time. I mean, you know, it's we're in
Speaker 1: the early stages already, and whether we progress much further
Speaker 1: really depends upon ingenuity and user behavior, so behave yourselves,
Speaker 1: users and UH. If you have any topics you would
Speaker 1: like us to talk about in future episodes of tech Stuff,
Speaker 1: you can email us at tech stuff at the scurvery
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Speaker 1: Our handle at both of those is text Stuff H. S.
Speaker 1: W and Chris and I will help you again really soon.
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