We and connected devices

    "Internet of Things" is the freshest, most delicious, and perhaps the most frequently used phrase for any self-respecting IT company.

    Industrial manufacturers, the largest retailers, commercial players in the healthcare market - each of these market sections sees its own way to get the most out and capture the largest percentage of buyers of small (dependent), energy-efficient (not always) gadgets.




    All technology industries are so excited about what is happening in the IoT field that the overall level can rightly be called hysteria.
    It comes to the ridiculous: Cisco is trying to introduce a slightly modified term - “Internet of Everything” (as it was in the story with “Human Network”, it turned out so-so). Qualcomm has several proprietary solutions, Intel intends to immediately proceed to the creation of the platform, while Apple and Google are developing increasingly complicated strategies and tactics behind high fences.

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    As with any other trend in the past, before IoT, a flock of specialized shows, exhibitions, accelerators and venture capital funds, local meetings in districts and do-it-yourself circles have already appeared. Unexpectedly, consulting companies such as McKinsey, Accenture, KPMG started organizing their own IoT-oriented departments and developing “best” practices.

    What, so far, is most surprising is the lack of a universal, understandable and simple definition of what advantages each of us, in the person of the buyer, will bring a direct acquaintance with the device and further immersion in IoT. Not to mention what it is.

    At the same time, we already see a refusal of a certain number of users from the trend and evidence of this, for various reasons: someone is called Glasshole (Glass / Asshole, nickname for Google carriers), and someone no longer sees the point in continuing to carry a fitness device with you, learning about yourself a lot (or not so) new. At the same time, they all continue to be very actively sold, and they are no less actively abandoned.

    The consumer (we are above this) does not understand the phenomenon of machines communicating with each other (now it is called “M2M”), or what a “data cloud” is for the majority, for now, this is SkyNet, another HAL9000. After everyone found out, first of all from traditional media, that the NSA sees everyone, and Facebook sees everyone, and still manages to make money from our data and behavior, the basic task of IoT companies is to convince the buyer that the product can trust. Especially when it comes to our homes and our only bodies.

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    There is one more difficulty - for all of us these are still toys, and not a comprehensive philosophy that can change the world around us, regardless of our level of readiness. Perceiving IoT as a “passing trend” reduces the overall significance of what is happening. It is worth taking a look - and it becomes clear that the phenomenon is much wider. However, many manufacturers are also mistaken, dictating their behavior by the momentary behavior of the buyer - this is hardly the road to a bright future.

    And the marketers of these companies who advertise the next “genie in a bottle" based on "big data" analyzed in real time using our behavior or its standardized model are wrong. It becomes completely incomprehensible what kind of era awaits us.



    We all understand that technology platforms that interact in the same mode, at the same speed, complement each other in a distributed computing network, are something very exciting. But something is missing in all our ideas about how it can, should, and will actually look like.

    But in fact, IoT may be the culmination of the development of modern technologies - the moment when, at last, it will be possible to connect any device with your body, digitize your own life, and maybe expand your own capabilities. After all, this is exactly what it is worth striving for: to extract for ourselves the best from what the IT sector, as such, offers us today.

    With the help of the ability to analyze the context in which each user is individually located, and the world in which he is surrounded, right now we have the opportunity to create a single information field for data, machines and people. Augmented reality, applications that know for sure what you are doing and how to help you - the future where we have to bring IoT.

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    In last year's book“A Century of Context: Mobile, Sensors, Data and the Future of Privacy," Robert Scoble and Shell Israel call the most exciting thing we don't know. And this is not about the uncertainty of the future, but about things more mundane - the fact that you can’t do without existing opportunities, and the existing restrictions (protocols, infrastructure) set the tone for the development of innovations. A sequence that begins with smart watches, bracelets, smart home devices, each of which sends its data to the notorious cloud, where it is analyzed and creates the conditions for the user’s reaction. Or something like that.

    Existing devices, existing socio-digital data about us, our friends, colleagues, family members and the relationships within this structure, being included in the analysis and absorption of this information. It turns out already a little more than just a "trend".

    Another interesting detail regarding IoT is that this is a little more than just “things.”



    Right now, before our eyes, the next technological miracle is developing, in fact - a new paradigm. If by 2020from 50 to 100 (according to forecasts) billions of devices will really be connected to the network in a year, it is impossible to lose sight of the fact that in the center of everything one way or another there must be a user - a person who uses all these numerous devices, applications and services. First of all, for the sake of integrating your real “I” with the digital and extracting, if not benefit, then at least information.

    Developers around the world have worked for years to progressively build the infrastructure and interoperability between major centers of gravity on the Internet, and because of this, we generally talk about IoT - after all, initially, there’s no other goal than connecting billions of people together of them did not pursue.

    Today we are in a situation that forces us to unite around smart cities, buildings, cars and, in the first place, sensors connected to our bodies. IoT is just a temporary name for "networked human body."

    Of course, we are interested in data collection, intellectual interaction and predictive analysis, as well as in deep optimization of data and ways of their connection, around us, and physical objects around us, as well as already existing conditions and prerequisites for the emergence of all this.

    In healthcare, industrial networks, transportation, energy, and many other industries, IoT will increasingly go beyond what we initially imagined was possible. We would like for us to expect the appearance of completely new fundamental innovations, technologies, applications and business models for their successful existence.



    We should also talk about healthcare, because it is in connection with it that sensors can be placed not only and not so much on our bodies, but at home or on the street. Damn it, they will soon be in our bodies, analyzing the biological and anatomical information of the body, sending information for analysis, the results of which should result in an improving quality of services, and therefore - the continuation of human life.

    The technological foundation, on which and thanks to which the entire “Internet of Things” is developing today, has already existed for a sufficient time, we are only watching how a number of obstacles have been overcome, which allowed billions of devices to interact with the user, their own platforms and among themselves. A striking example of IPv6, allowing you to build addressable schemes that can withstand such data streams.

    Not to mention miniaturization and energy intensity issues, as well as energy efficiency. Perhaps it would be wrong to say that we have achieved our own goals here.

    Well, the primary field of work is the standards by which devices can perform their function. Most of them already exist, such as IEEE 802.3 “Standart for Ethernet” andIEEE 802.11 [2] , which designates all "wi-fi" products on the market. Further improvements are also required in architectures, clouds, communications platforms, not to mention the areas of distributed computing, privacy, and security. The IEEE P2413 “Draft Standart for an Archutectural Framework for the Internet of Things”, for example, is being created as an architectural framework for cross-domain interactions that will help future systems communicate regardless of the source platform or method of implementation of a particular device.

    There are no universal solutions, but they may appear.

    In preparing the material used work from: TechCrunch , The Verge , Wired Magazine

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