Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with
Speaker 1: how Stuff Works, and I heart radio and I love
Speaker 1: all things tech. And today it's time for another classic
Speaker 1: episode of tech Stuff. This episode originally published on May nine,
Speaker 1: two thousand twelve. And boy howdy, this is gonna be
Speaker 1: a doozy of one to listen to. It is the
Speaker 1: Internet of Things episode, so that's changed a lot since
Speaker 1: two thousand twelve. I think it will be quaint to
Speaker 1: hear how Chris and I interpreted the Internet of Things
Speaker 1: seven years ago. Hope you guys enjoy. Let's listen in
Speaker 1: a while ago about maybe almost twenty years ago. Is
Speaker 1: is mid nineties? Yeah, Uh, listened to the founder of
Speaker 1: mind Spring Enterprises, which was an Internet service provider here
Speaker 1: in the United States. His name is Charles Brewer, and
Speaker 1: he was talking about how in the future, um, and
Speaker 1: he wasn't talking distant future, you know, he was talking
Speaker 1: realistically in the next few years. He was saying in
Speaker 1: the mid nineties, uh, that you would have stuff in
Speaker 1: your house. It wouldn't just be you connecting to the
Speaker 1: Internet to use email or the web. He said, in
Speaker 1: the next few years, your stuff is going to be
Speaker 1: connected to the Internet and it's going to talk to
Speaker 1: one another. And you know, he was talking about appliances
Speaker 1: and things, and I thought, well, that's kind of weird.
Speaker 1: I mean, how would you do that. Um, of course,
Speaker 1: at the time, we were still in a very dial
Speaker 1: up world where you had to have a modem attached
Speaker 1: to your computer or built into your computer that dialed
Speaker 1: over the phone line and would you know, connect to
Speaker 1: the Internet. And it was very slow and it was
Speaker 1: very spotty, and you know, it worked pretty well. But
Speaker 1: 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 this is what
Speaker 1: people call the Internet of Things. And the reason we're
Speaker 1: talking about this is that actually was contacted by a
Speaker 1: alien intelligence Yes, but that is not what I was
Speaker 1: going to mention. You know, now they have to visit
Speaker 1: me again, Chris, thank you so much, because I had
Speaker 1: plans this weekend anyway. No, I was also contacted by
Speaker 1: a tech conference to have a panel discussion about this
Speaker 1: very topic, the Internet of Things. 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 because nostalgic cast a slight 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 it was a it was
Speaker 1: a college campus. Now, okay, so all of them. But yeah,
Speaker 1: so we're we're talking about remember when we've talked about
Speaker 1: the early Internet, the the places that were wired, we're
Speaker 1: basically government facility and um educational institutions. So yes, they
Speaker 1: broad base facilities exactly. They had broadband people in the
Speaker 1: the Computer Science Department and why are their drink machine?
Speaker 1: And you could pin it, you know, because why not?
Speaker 1: That's more or less to deal And that was why
Speaker 1: it was interesting, because why not? But yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: and and it can be useful looking at it today
Speaker 1: you can have a vendor looking at it. Okay, well
Speaker 1: we don't need to restock this one today, we don't
Speaker 1: have to send out there. Yeah you can, you could consolidate,
Speaker 1: but back then it was just for fun. Right today
Speaker 1: it makes a lot of sense. Like if you own
Speaker 1: a vending machine company and you stock those vending machines
Speaker 1: and you are able to look at a glance and
Speaker 1: see where you need to send a delivery person in
Speaker 1: order to restock those machines, then you may not need
Speaker 1: as many delivery people on your staff because you don't
Speaker 1: have to have someone go out and physically check each machine.
Speaker 1: And and if the machines can alert you if something's wrong,
Speaker 1: then you know to send someone out to repair it.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of you know, you don't have
Speaker 1: to wait for a call from a client or happen
Speaker 1: or for your maintenance guy to happen upon it on
Speaker 1: a on a scheduled series of rounds. Uh yeah, there
Speaker 1: are a lot of different reasons for it. And then
Speaker 1: we have the consumer side, like actual consumer products, not
Speaker 1: just you know, commercial products, huh, and the possibilities that
Speaker 1: that holds. And they're already products out on the market
Speaker 1: right now that have some form of network capability. Um,
Speaker 1: they don't tend to all work together necessarily, like you
Speaker 1: might have a bunch of independent networks within your home network.
Speaker 1: Right So for example, you could have a you can
Speaker 1: be purchasing your appliances from a single company and you
Speaker 1: get a washer and a dryer, and they have this
Speaker 1: connectivity ability so that the washer and the dryer share
Speaker 1: information with each other. So when you put a load
Speaker 1: of laundry in the washer and you set it to
Speaker 1: a particular kind of setting, like let's say it's permanent press,
Speaker 1: it sends that information to the dryer, so that the
Speaker 1: dryer already has the proper settings ready to go when
Speaker 1: you transfer the wash from the washer dryer, so that
Speaker 1: way you don't have to reset the dryer settings. It's
Speaker 1: already taken care of. Uh. It might also even send
Speaker 1: you an alert somehow through through the internet, so that
Speaker 1: you know when your loads laundry are done. So you
Speaker 1: might get a ping on a smartphone or a tablet,
Speaker 1: or your computer, or if we're going to look into
Speaker 1: the future a little bit, your television. Because you've got
Speaker 1: internet connected televisions out there. It's only a matter of
Speaker 1: time before we get to a point where these internet
Speaker 1: connected televisions have a the ability to show alerts that
Speaker 1: are related to other appliances that are in your house.
Speaker 1: We're not quite there yet, but that's mainly because the
Speaker 1: approach most companies are taking is to create a proprietary
Speaker 1: communication protocol for their products. Right so Company A's products
Speaker 1: do not communicate with Company bees products. So unless you're
Speaker 1: buying everything from the same company, then the the communication
Speaker 1: protocols aren't compatible and they don't understand each other. They
Speaker 1: can't communicate. You need to C three PO right there
Speaker 1: in the middle, because they can speak over six million
Speaker 1: different languages, including vaporators. One of their first jobs was anyway, um,
Speaker 1: the point being that you know, the odds of you
Speaker 1: finishing that quote or yeah, never tell me the odds
Speaker 1: Many both died to bring us this podcast. So the
Speaker 1: the the different the different networks can't really communicate with
Speaker 1: one another. So that's kind of where we are right now.
Speaker 1: But we do have lots of products out there, including
Speaker 1: ones like refrigerators that can talk to stoves and ovens.
Speaker 1: So you've got again from the same company. So you
Speaker 1: might have a refrigerator that's Internet connected and you think, well,
Speaker 1: why would I want that? Well, if you have a
Speaker 1: fridge that connects to the internet and it actually is
Speaker 1: able to keep an inventory of the stuff that you
Speaker 1: put within that fridge, you know, if there's some method
Speaker 1: whether you know you want it to be as seamless
Speaker 1: as possible, Ideally you would have a method in there
Speaker 1: where when you put something in the fridge, it automatically
Speaker 1: detected its presence, knew what it was, and logged it
Speaker 1: so it would know when you put it in there, uh,
Speaker 1: and it would know what it was, and even in
Speaker 1: a real ideal situation, it would know when that product expires,
Speaker 1: so it could tell you like, hey, you've got some
Speaker 1: milk in the fridge. It's about to go bad because
Speaker 1: it's muscling up to the potato salad, So you want
Speaker 1: to make sure you're gonna go ahead and drink that. Um,
Speaker 1: So just don't walk in on the mayonnaise. It's dressing.
Speaker 1: That's right, boy. We were definitely punchy. We recorded an
Speaker 1: episode that had more bloopers in it than the previous
Speaker 1: the previous three years of recording combined, so we're all
Speaker 1: punchy now. But anyway, Yeah, the fridge would be able
Speaker 1: to keep you alert on what you have in your fridge.
Speaker 1: It could even give you recipes for off that you
Speaker 1: can make based upon what is in the refrigerator right now.
Speaker 1: So for example, you might think, well, why am I
Speaker 1: gonna have for dinner tonight and you could ask You
Speaker 1: could ask your refrigerator and they could say, well, based
Speaker 1: upon what you've got in the fridge, this is the
Speaker 1: kind of stuff you can make. Or it may say
Speaker 1: you could have this meal. You just need to go
Speaker 1: out and buy this, this, and this, so the ingredients
Speaker 1: are complete. And and with the possibility of purchasing stuff online,
Speaker 1: you could even get to a point where you you
Speaker 1: you authorize through your fridge purchases. Well, and and that's
Speaker 1: the the Well, there are two sort of things that
Speaker 1: are 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 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 going to
Speaker 1: place an order with the local shopping delivery company and
Speaker 1: they're just gonna bring Jonathan more milk. And they're gonna
Speaker 1: build it to his card, so he gets a regular
Speaker 1: delivery of milk because he's out and uh, the fridge
Speaker 1: has automatically told his local delivery company, Hey, uh, he
Speaker 1: needs milk and celery and other stuff you know that
Speaker 1: he's run out of or he wants to make this
Speaker 1: this meal. Um. So really this could be ultra convenient
Speaker 1: because you could just have stuff show up, go ahead
Speaker 1: and put it in the fridge, and it just runs
Speaker 1: on a normal cycle like that, so you don't have
Speaker 1: to make shopping trips and uh, you don't have to
Speaker 1: look through the fridge to identify what you're gonna eat.
Speaker 1: But that's all sort of well what if, because in
Speaker 1: the in the nineties, when um, these types of delivery
Speaker 1: services we're starting to take off, it was kind of
Speaker 1: early for them to do so. And I think it's
Speaker 1: scared a lot of people, which is why you don't
Speaker 1: they're they're sort of hit or missed. They're in some
Speaker 1: places but not another's. They're in the neighborhood down the street,
Speaker 1: but they won't deliver to your house. Back in the day,
Speaker 1: they expanded too quickly. They got they got so large
Speaker 1: that they weren't able to uh to handle their own
Speaker 1: the they weren't able to administrate the size of the
Speaker 1: company and so as a result, they eventually collapsed in
Speaker 1: on themselves. Because it's not a cheap business to be in.
Speaker 1: You know, it's a lot of warehouse management, a lot
Speaker 1: of deliveries. Uh, it's it's a tricky business. But also
Speaker 1: I was going to mention that the other possibilities, So
Speaker 1: we would talk you mainly about just the fridge interacting
Speaker 1: with the Internet, but it could also interact with the
Speaker 1: other appliances in your home, for example, your stove. So
Speaker 1: let's say that you have determined that you know, the
Speaker 1: fridge is suggested, Hey you've got the right ingredients here
Speaker 1: for a pot roast. Uh, and heck, you can even
Speaker 1: have a crock pot that has Internet connectivity. And so
Speaker 1: it starts the it starts the croc pot heating up
Speaker 1: at the right time so that you just all you
Speaker 1: do is dump them the ingredients into it and you
Speaker 1: and you walk away. Um, or you have you wanna
Speaker 1: you wanna end up like baking something, and so it
Speaker 1: ends up sending that information to the oven when you're prepared,
Speaker 1: so that way the oven starts to preheat while you're
Speaker 1: actually getting your ingredients together, and you never had to
Speaker 1: go and turn anything on yourself. It's all controlled because
Speaker 1: the devices themselves are aware of what it is you're
Speaker 1: trying to do. So this is sort of the promise
Speaker 1: of the Internet of things in general. But you know
Speaker 1: what we're talking about appliance is that the reason why
Speaker 1: we're talking about that is because those are things that
Speaker 1: exist on the market right now. The same sort of
Speaker 1: thing is true for experiences. If you have, say a smartphone,
Speaker 1: a tablet, and maybe even a video game console or
Speaker 1: set top box. Uh, you can have these sort of
Speaker 1: experiences right now within a separate kind of network. So
Speaker 1: let's use Netflix as an example. All right, Let's say
Speaker 1: have a Netflix account, and I have access to a
Speaker 1: Netflix film or television show on my smartphone, and I'm
Speaker 1: watching it, and then I stop, you know, I pause
Speaker 1: in the middle, and then a little bit later, I
Speaker 1: pick up my tablet and I watch a little bit
Speaker 1: more of it. It picks up right where it left off,
Speaker 1: and then I pause. And then when I get home,
Speaker 1: I turn on my TV and set top box that
Speaker 1: happens to have Netflix capability, and I start and it
Speaker 1: picks up again. Right where I left off, and so
Speaker 1: this is an experience that continues and it doesn't matter
Speaker 1: what the context is. It follows me. It's context independent,
Speaker 1: so I don't have to worry about fast forwarding to
Speaker 1: get to the right section, so I can pick up
Speaker 1: where I left off. It's going to just do that automatically.
Speaker 1: This is a really valuable experience to consumers, and it's
Speaker 1: the sort of thing that the Internet of Things really promises,
Speaker 1: is this idea of a seamless experience where you go
Speaker 1: from environment to environment and the environment adjusts to you
Speaker 1: and gives you the experience you want um based upon
Speaker 1: whatever your preferences are, and it may be that you
Speaker 1: have to express those preferences in a very um ordered way.
Speaker 1: And in fact, I would guess that the early early
Speaker 1: versions of this technology are going to require a lot
Speaker 1: of input on our part to be to work correctly.
Speaker 1: But future systems will have a lot of learning behaviors
Speaker 1: built into them so that based upon your behaviors in
Speaker 1: the past and the things that you've already done, they
Speaker 1: can anticipate what you want in the future and start
Speaker 1: to set things up so that they will be ideal
Speaker 1: for you before you even are necessarily conscious of it
Speaker 1: and UH and we're seeing some of that too, Like
Speaker 1: the Nest thermostat is a good example. So Nest thermostat
Speaker 1: is a programmable thermostat that has some learning algorithms in
Speaker 1: it that can, you know, based upon the way you
Speaker 1: adjust the thermostat throughout the day, can start to automatically
Speaker 1: make those adjustments for you. And you can also at
Speaker 1: any time going and manually change it, either in the
Speaker 1: house or building yourself, or you can even access it
Speaker 1: over the internet. So there are opportunities there for other
Speaker 1: appliances that do similar things to to do that. And
Speaker 1: then we've got other possibilities as well. For example, that
Speaker 1: you you're watching TV and you see a product on
Speaker 1: tell Vision and you know you are the ultimate impulse
Speaker 1: buyer and you think, I want that. Well, with the
Speaker 1: Internet of Things, you can get to a point where
Speaker 1: and a lot of companies have been trying to do this,
Speaker 1: figure out a way where you can if you see
Speaker 1: something on the screen that you want, you can indicate
Speaker 1: I want that and then go and purchase it, UH
Speaker 1: in a very easy, seamless way so that you don't
Speaker 1: have to open up a tablet or or smartphone application
Speaker 1: or pop open a computer in order to say this
Speaker 1: thing I saw on TV, I want that make that mine. Um,
Speaker 1: my TV provider already does that to some extent. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's there's some of that built in. It's it's still
Speaker 1: not widespread and it's still not truly seamless, but it's
Speaker 1: getting better. And that's another thing where we expect to see.
Speaker 1: But when we talk about the Internet of things, you
Speaker 1: have to think bigger than that. Like we're still talking
Speaker 1: appliances and and you know, entertainment centers and stuff, so
Speaker 1: radio's TVs and computers and all that. But but this
Speaker 1: is really about putting computers and sensors and actuators in
Speaker 1: lots of things. We have a lot more to say
Speaker 1: about the Internet of things, but first let's take a
Speaker 1: quick break to thank our sponsor. Well, one of the
Speaker 1: I would say one of the most mature Internet of
Speaker 1: things environments is the smart home, where you've got uh,
Speaker 1: you know, your lights, your climate control, your garage door, um,
Speaker 1: your the locks on your front door. Sh leg link
Speaker 1: system that you uh you wrote on that for the
Speaker 1: for the website. I'm not there's a you know, there's
Speaker 1: a a schleg lock article I wrote, and it was
Speaker 1: a few years ago about a system because it was
Speaker 1: something I saw at c e S where you could
Speaker 1: access the lock on your front door from the internet
Speaker 1: and from a smartphone, you could unlock your door. So
Speaker 1: let's say that you have a repairman showing up at
Speaker 1: a certain time, Uh, you could, uh, you can unlock
Speaker 1: the door for that person. You can also do things
Speaker 1: like set up pass codes, temporary pass codes that would
Speaker 1: only work within a certain block of time and outside
Speaker 1: of that they would no longer work. So that way,
Speaker 1: you could give a pass code to someone so that
Speaker 1: they could, you know, maybe walk your dogs or what
Speaker 1: are your plants or whatever it is, and then as
Speaker 1: soon as as soon as that time expand, it is over,
Speaker 1: it'll just automatically lock again. So yeah, I mean that's
Speaker 1: that's the sort of stuff that you can see in
Speaker 1: a smart home. That and alarm systems things like that
Speaker 1: you can you can watch um uh it's easy to
Speaker 1: if you have the camera setup, you can see what's
Speaker 1: going on at your home. Um. If if you're like
Speaker 1: me and you go, did I turn on the alarm?
Speaker 1: Did I lock the door? You can do you can
Speaker 1: take care of it. You know, if you get down
Speaker 1: the road, you can pull over and get on your
Speaker 1: smartphone and make sure that you lock your door and
Speaker 1: make sure that you turn the alarm on, UM and
Speaker 1: maybe the stove off, you know, those kinds of things.
Speaker 1: And that's something that that is already pretty well established
Speaker 1: in the market. Also, U the smart meters that they've
Speaker 1: been putting in a lot of cities where um, they
Speaker 1: don't have to send out a meter reader to your
Speaker 1: to check your electricity. They can check that from AFAR.
Speaker 1: And what what's funny to me is that it didn't
Speaker 1: move quickly enough for Google and Microsoft, who have now
Speaker 1: shut down their services. Well, I think that was mostly
Speaker 1: because the uh, the companies that installed the smart meters
Speaker 1: were not willing to share with Google and Microsoft um,
Speaker 1: and the two companies were just saying, you know what,
Speaker 1: if you guys aren't gonna help us out, we're gonna
Speaker 1: shot these down and we're not going to mess with
Speaker 1: it anymore. But I think that will eventually come back.
Speaker 1: But cars too, are our 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 there are there can
Speaker 1: be sensors like collision detection sensors and alarm systems. There
Speaker 1: 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 all right? UM.
Speaker 1: Actually was if you if you're interested in reading more
Speaker 1: about the Internet 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.
Speaker 1: UM and uh they had one where they quoted statistics
Speaker 1: from the g s M A of All People. UM.
Speaker 1: This is an organization. Uh you might know from our
Speaker 1: other podcasts about cell phones. Um, but they're studying how
Speaker 1: well connected things are because well, an internet of things
Speaker 1: would be beneficial for them because they are the kinds
Speaker 1: of things that you would manage through a smartphone. So
Speaker 1: it's it's definitely something that they're interested in. Um. They
Speaker 1: said that, uh, in twenty eleven, there were about nine
Speaker 1: billion devices connected to the internet around the world. About
Speaker 1: six billion of them are are something that you can
Speaker 1: carry with you. But by they expected uh twenty four
Speaker 1: billion connected devices and about half of those would be mobile. UM.
Speaker 1: So 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 clothing they are, what kind of
Speaker 1: cycle it needs to go through. So then you get
Speaker 1: to a point where you know, you just need a
Speaker 1: robot to disrobe you and put it into the washer
Speaker 1: and other and then you don't have to do anything else. Thanks, yeah,
Speaker 1: she needs a bonus. So the yeah, there's there are
Speaker 1: a lot of different things that could happen. And and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, we're talking about a point where these sensors
Speaker 1: and these computer systems are pervasive. They need to be
Speaker 1: both pervasive and transparent. And by that I mean for
Speaker 1: this system to be something that works seamlessly. You don't
Speaker 1: want to you don't want to see all the wires
Speaker 1: what I'm getting at, So uh and and there are
Speaker 1: a lot of companies working to kind of tackle that problem. Now,
Speaker 1: there is another major concern that arises out of this
Speaker 1: world of the future. Well, one of the concerns I
Speaker 1: was thinking of. And I think it's not the one
Speaker 1: that you're about to say, um, because I think the
Speaker 1: other one that you're about to say is bigger. But
Speaker 1: I mean it's, um, taking down the Internet at that
Speaker 1: point becomes a much bigger deal, because I mean, you
Speaker 1: see that all the time in uh, in corporate America.
Speaker 1: You know, everybody has a computer on their desk now,
Speaker 1: and then when something happens at the network, nobody gets
Speaker 1: anything done. And that's going to happen when everybody gets
Speaker 1: used to the Internet of things and suddenly there's a
Speaker 1: network outage or power outage. I can't cook my fridge
Speaker 1: won't tell me what to make exactly. And and yes
Speaker 1: it's a joke, but people, once you get reliant on
Speaker 1: that technology, when there is a glitch or a network
Speaker 1: problem or something like that, it it throws us off. Um.
Speaker 1: And it could you know, We've got all our traffic
Speaker 1: lights and everything, all our traffic systems online, and oh
Speaker 1: the power grid is overwhelmed and it shut down. Now
Speaker 1: the internet out. That's the smart grid. See when you
Speaker 1: 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 bind a necessity require redundant systems that are even
Speaker 1: if they are the old preconnected systems, there would be
Speaker 1: necessary So for example, your smart grid traffic light system
Speaker 1: may revert back to a pre smart grid version so
Speaker 1: that it's still working. You know, it's still working, it's
Speaker 1: just not 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 way 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. No, I can't even put
Speaker 1: on my own shoes anymore. Um. It also would be
Speaker 1: a tantalizing target for a terrorist. And not just saying
Speaker 1: that because it's alliterative, but it's the kind of thing
Speaker 1: that that you know, if you're looking for a way
Speaker 1: to disrupt people's lives and cause panic, that could do it, yeah,
Speaker 1: if you're Yeah. Now, part of the part of the
Speaker 1: defense of that is that the Internet is pretty darn
Speaker 1: robust and and there are a lot of different ways
Speaker 1: of working around problems. But if you were able to
Speaker 1: find a way to, I don't know, inflict a widespread
Speaker 1: virus that could, uh could come up the works, and
Speaker 1: that could be enough to really make an impact. But
Speaker 1: you know, trying to actually take down the Internet in
Speaker 1: the sense of I want to target the Internet because
Speaker 1: everyone's connected to it and if I if I shut
Speaker 1: it down, then it's going to cause chaos. That's a
Speaker 1: huge endeavor. I mean, that's not something that's easily done.
Speaker 1: You know, the Internet is all around us and something
Speaker 1: else that's all around us our ads. So we're gonna
Speaker 1: listen to some. But yeah, the other big concern, the
Speaker 1: major one that I think a lot of consumers should
Speaker 1: keep in mind is privacy issues. So if you've got
Speaker 1: an 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 airing, 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 experience possible.
Speaker 1: I mean, imagine walking through a building that automatically is
Speaker 1: adjusting to your preferences so that the lighting is just
Speaker 1: the way you would like it and the the ambient
Speaker 1: noise is just what you would want. That's that's a
Speaker 1: neat vision of the future. But it also means that
Speaker 1: there's a system that knows that you are there. They
Speaker 1: 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 foot print has
Speaker 1: to be identified with you on some level. It might
Speaker 1: be a superficial level, but it has to be identified
Speaker 1: with you because otherwise your experience isn't customized. That's the
Speaker 1: point of doing it. Yeah, the whole point of doing
Speaker 1: it is so that I Jonathan Strickland, 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 to use is tracking that there 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 trade off is do we
Speaker 1: go with this world where we have this custom experience
Speaker 1: to life? This the sort of idea where we have
Speaker 1: truly manipulated our environment to the fullest extent possible so
Speaker 1: that every person is getting as ideal and experience as
Speaker 1: we can hope to achieve. But on the flip side,
Speaker 1: every single movement you make is essentially and everything a
Speaker 1: thing you do is essentially tracked. Now, there are a
Speaker 1: lot of different ways to approach this, where you build
Speaker 1: in security systems so that everything is encrypted so that yes,
Speaker 1: everything is tracked, but it's not easy for anyone outside
Speaker 1: to see what you did. Win, But there are big concerns.
Speaker 1: I mean, what if you happen to be in an
Speaker 1: area where a crime is committed and you don't even
Speaker 1: witness it. You're not you're not a witness to this crime.
Speaker 1: You were unaware that the crime had happened. And the
Speaker 1: crime could be anything. Let's say it's robbery. So you
Speaker 1: happen to be in the same place at the same
Speaker 1: time as a robbery, but you're not in the exact
Speaker 1: same area, but but it's tracked you there, and then
Speaker 1: you happen to be late to something, so you make
Speaker 1: a faster than normal egress from the area in order
Speaker 1: to make your next appointment. And uh, it could very
Speaker 1: well be the law enforcement when looking and reviewing records.
Speaker 1: If you're leaving a digital footprint that can be traced
Speaker 1: back to you could say, hey, this is a person
Speaker 1: of interest because look, they were there at this particular time,
Speaker 1: and then they left in a real hurry at at
Speaker 1: that you know, shortly after the robbery took place. And
Speaker 1: then next thing you know, you're being hassled about something
Speaker 1: that you had no knowledge of. Or let's say that
Speaker 1: you are doing something naughty, something that is frowned upon,
Speaker 1: whether it's illegal or an ethical or whatever. Well, now
Speaker 1: you've got a record of it everywhere. So some of
Speaker 1: us 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 to 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 you 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 So, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I could, I could tell you from personal
Speaker 1: experience that it's not it's not a simple question to answer. Um,
Speaker 1: A lot of these technologies are are things that we
Speaker 1: can implement without having to give up too much your privacy. UM.
Speaker 1: And then others you know, uh, you have to go, well,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to make a decision here one way
Speaker 1: or the other. Yes, yeah, it's UM, it's it's definitely
Speaker 1: an exciting time to see these developments take place. And
Speaker 1: I think, you know, we we are looking at possibilities,
Speaker 1: but we also have to remember that this is not
Speaker 1: going to be a super fast transition and some stuff
Speaker 1: probably just won't work. Because you can build the best
Speaker 1: system in the world, but if people don't use it
Speaker 1: the way you thought they were going to use it,
Speaker 1: then it becomes a problem. And and that's one of
Speaker 1: the things is that it's hard to predict user behavior
Speaker 1: when you're first designing a system. I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people were very skeptical of smartphone apps when smartphones
Speaker 1: because a lot of the smartphone apps that first came
Speaker 1: out were very much curiosities. They weren't necessarily that useful.
Speaker 1: But now mobile apps, that is that is the thing.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the huge craze in tech right. I mean,
Speaker 1: we're seeing big companies scoop up small mobile app companies
Speaker 1: for billions of dollars because it's a big deal. So
Speaker 1: if the Internet of Things takes a route similar to
Speaker 1: the way smartphones and mobile technology and apps have, then
Speaker 1: it's definitely gonna become something pervasive and hopefully more useful
Speaker 1: than problematic. But it's also possible that the first few
Speaker 1: implementations of this kind of technology could fall flat, that
Speaker 1: 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, Hey,
Speaker 1: expect a load of permanent press it's coming. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: that may not necessarily take off. You know, if it's
Speaker 1: a five option and people go, I don't I'm not
Speaker 1: going to spend it on that. Now, having an email
Speaker 1: sent to you to tell you, hey, it's time to
Speaker 1: change the clothes over sticking in the in the dryer. Um,
Speaker 1: now that would be useful. So I think it's people
Speaker 1: are gonna say why I want that? But I don't.
Speaker 1: I mean, why would I want this? It may also
Speaker 1: be one of those things where a lot of these
Speaker 1: features end up getting built into all models. Eventually, like
Speaker 1: it filters down so it no longer becomes like a
Speaker 1: premium model of a particular appliance. It just becomes a
Speaker 1: standard feature that you find across all models of that appliance.
Speaker 1: And uh and in that case, um, you might end
Speaker 1: up slowly adopting it, but uh, there are other times
Speaker 1: where you might see companies just abandoned it. Another good
Speaker 1: example of this is like three D television. You know,
Speaker 1: there's there are a lot of television sets out there
Speaker 1: that have three D built into them, but they're not
Speaker 1: necessarily um marketed as three D TVs. Well, that that
Speaker 1: might be what we see in the future with these
Speaker 1: internet connected appliances, that it's just one of the features
Speaker 1: of the appliance and it's not the selling feature, and
Speaker 1: that it's not necessarily priced higher because of it. Um,
Speaker 1: it's just one of the many things that comes with
Speaker 1: that particular appliance. And the other thing that we'll have
Speaker 1: to have is some sort of universal standard of communication
Speaker 1: for this to truly work, or you're going to see
Speaker 1: third party companies pop up and their specialty is creating
Speaker 1: some sort of communication hub where different protocols can actually
Speaker 1: work 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. And that wraps up another classic episode of
Speaker 1: tech stuff. I hope you guys enjoyed it. This is
Speaker 1: what I was talking about if you listened a few
Speaker 1: weeks ago, I mentioned that there were going to be
Speaker 1: some upcoming classic epis zodes that would be a little
Speaker 1: amusing to listen to in light of the years that
Speaker 1: have passed. That's the challenging thing about picking classic episodes
Speaker 1: of a technology podcast. Things change so quickly. But then
Speaker 1: I thought, you know what, it's also an opportunity to
Speaker 1: kind of reflect back on what are thinking was like
Speaker 1: a few years ago and see how things have developed
Speaker 1: differently than the way we anticipated, or sometimes how we
Speaker 1: managed to actually hit upon how things are going to evolve.
Speaker 1: I think we miss more frequently than we hit. There's
Speaker 1: just too much that's unpredictable out there, but it's still
Speaker 1: interesting to go back there. If you guys have any
Speaker 1: suggestions for future episodes of tech Stuff, send me a message.
Speaker 1: The address is tech stuff at how stuff works dot com,
Speaker 1: or pop on over to our website that's tech stuff
Speaker 1: podcast dot com, where you'll find links to the social media,
Speaker 1: you'll find all the archived podcasts. You'll find a link
Speaker 1: to our online store. Check all that out and I'll
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Speaker 1: dot com.