IoT Beyond the Smart Gadgets

[Music]

imagine new york city without traffic

lights

all the cars are self-driving there’s no

need to stop and go at a traffic light

because all the routes have been

calculated and were calculated as needed

so that not only will they avoid

collisions

but they can also take us to our

destinations as fast as possible

there are no gas stations because energy

is harvested from

renewable resources such as the sun wind

pressure sensors from roads and

pavements

even from sounds and vibrations

energy is harvested and distributed

intelligently

to balance out consumption

a truly sustainable city of the future

if there is a fire or medical emergency

first responders can be prioritized

obstacles automatically moved out of

their way

so that they can reach patients victims

medical buildings

fire stations these can all save lives

but there might hardly be medical

emergencies

because body sensors and monitoring bias

sensors

can detect whether a health crisis is

about to occur

building fires home sensors can detect

gas and heat automatically triggering

very targeted fire retardants so that

they are extinguished before you even

notice

these are visions of the future that iot

can give us

the internet of things iot is the

idea of connecting not just devices but

also things

to the internet so that we may collect

information

about the world and make decisions based

on that information

to make the world more efficient we

actually hardly need to be creative to

imagine all of this there are plenty of

sci-fi movies for reference

in fact we typically get two very

different versions

of this future one of a highly advanced

technological utopia

and another a bleak picture of the human

race in society

controlled and or destroyed by

technology

many worry that with iot making all of

the decisions for us and everything

around us with a goal of optimizing

everything

humans will just become mindless

entities ushered along by technology

stripped of what makes us humans

in the movie wall e humans are just big

babies being carried around by their

hover chairs

everything done for them by robots

however either of these visions seem

very far off

when we see devices like these flip

flops that can play

ads for the company so instead of

avoiding telemarketers

we’re actually going to wear them forks

that can mask slurping sounds

we have a couch that can tilt and

vibrate enhancing your movie experience

just like in those immersive cinemas

except that there’s a noticeable delay

between the movie and the couch

so it’s really just preventing you from

eating your popcorn in peace

and we have a trash can with a camera on

the lid

that takes pictures of the contents of

your trash bin

and uploads it to facebook for no reason

let’s put aside for a moment

the question of whether these devices

needed to be invented

and focus on what it is about iot

is not just about connecting devices but

also in making decisions

so that these devices operate in

efficient ways

and improve our lives and the more of

these devices we connect and enable

the more optimized those decisions can

be for example

a smart home can only save energy within

the home

but a community of smart homes we can

create a sustainable community

excess harvested energy from a house

that gets a lot of sunlight can be

redirected to a house that is under a

shade

uber of everything could be implemented

a lot of us are fans of ride sharing

food and package delivery

grocery shopping how about extending

that to dog walking

home improvements errands handyman

services

the point is it’s not the individual

gadgets

but the services that we can create

through the collective

iot capabilities and with each device

that we connect and enable

we have more and more ways for the

digital world to interact with the

physical world

so i invite you to think of this process

of developing iot capabilities

as building an infrastructure a

programming interface

through which we can develop

applications

that have much greater impact for the

future

and you’ll probably ask what are those

applications

well honestly my answer is i don’t know

and i believe it is okay to not know in

fact

it is because we don’t fully know that

what

makes iot such a promising technology

now tell you why i think that

what are your favorite computer

applications microsoft word

excel facebook maybe you like to play

video games on your laptop or listen to

music on your tablet

whatever those applications are when the

software developers create them

they are decomposed or compiled into

the same or similar instructions that

are part

of the computer’s instruction set

think of it this way a car can do many

things

it can take you to work to the store on

vacations

any route that you come up with can be

decomposed

or compiled to a series of basic actions

the car can do

move forward at a specified speed

turn right at a specified angle open the

passenger door

any route can be decomposed into these

basic set of actions you can think of it

as the car’s instruction set

if you are in your desktop or laptop

right now there’s a good chance

that any application that you’re running

is composed of instructions

from what is called the x86 instruction

set

well guess what x86 was first introduced

in 1985.

the developers of x86 probably did not

know

that someday an application called zoom

is going to save

us from face-to-face meetings during a

pandemic

and internally it consists of

instructions from x86

so our iot devices are implementing

capabilities and

infrastructure adding instructions to

our instruction set

so that someday we can create sequences

and combinations of these instructions

to create applications

that we haven’t even thought of yet in a

sense we are building

a programmable world

this programmable world like computers

have two major components hardware and

software

and they interoperate elegantly through

a well-defined instruction set

you can think of it as a contract where

the hardware says

these are the set of physical actions i

can do the software side of things

is the sequences repetitions

combinations of these instructions

to form a program it’s not unlike how we

can create wonder stories

out of the words in our language’s

vocabulary

we form sentences entire conversations

by creating combinations and sequences

of these words

this is just like how we can create

combinations

and sequences and repetitions of

instructions

in the computer’s instruction set to

create a program in this analogy

the words are the instructions the

stories are the applications

to support this vision of creating a

programmable world

we need to build the hardware that means

adapting the enabling technologies of

iot

which includes identification sensing

communication

computation and actuation identification

is essential because in order to

interact with a device or an object

it needs to be identifiable and

distinguishable

from any other object even of the same

kind

sensing is necessary because that is how

we get information from

the object such as location

temperature humidity communication is

needed because we need to communicate

that information

for processing and any

decisions that are made out of the

processing needs to be communicated back

to the device and just like how we need

a brain

to receive information and make

decisions

we also need computation for iot so that

optimal decisions can be made

based on the data that we collect

actuation is akin to our ability of

changing the state of our physical

environment such as

moving items around or even walking to a

different location we need

iot devices that can administer physical

actions such as this

in order to implement or optimize

decisions

the software side of things in the

context of this instruction set analogy

are the applications and services that

we can create

using these hardware capabilities

so look beyond the toaster that can

print the weather

on your toast and see the identification

sensing networking computation

and actuation capabilities that have

been added to this heating device

a common question i ask when you know we

see this device is

do we really need that well in most

cases

my answer is no what i don’t hear

is people asking what new capabilities

has this added to our instruction set

so i invite you to not focus on the

current application

but focus on two things one

the role the development of this device

has played in advancing technology

and two the ability instruction

or action it has added to our

instruction set

consider how the development of this

device has led us to create robust

waterproof energy efficient components

that have very small form factors

and also think of the additional way

that this device has provided us

to digitally interact with the physical

world

so let’s not focus on the current

application

but also look beyond that see what it

could become

and see how it can contribute to our

vision

of a technological utopia when the covet

19 pandemic hit

this accelerated the adaption of

automation in many of our industries

including manufacturing transportation

retail parcel delivery

these industries benefited from the fact

that before the pandemic

we already had foundations for these

technologies in place

when an unforeseen crisis arose we had

the foundations

to expand and create services to respond

to unanticipated demands

i’m not saying that we should just

welcome useless

intrusive devices into our homes or

cities or hospitals

we have every right to be apprehensive

these devices can become ripe with

vulnerabilities

riddled with avenues for exploiting

security and privacy

in 2016 large portions of the internet

went down

netflix twitter cnn because of denial of

service attacks

due to this malware called the mirai

which started in internet-enabled

digital cameras and dvrs

in 2017 the fda confirmed

the implantable cardiac devices can be

hacked such as pacemakers

malicious actions done to them

such as depleting batteries and

administering incorrect

pacings we periodically hear in the news

about our video systems being hacked

baby monitors home security systems

webcams

however as these vulnerabilities are

discovered

their fixes are developed i believe this

is part

of the development process and no doubt

security and privacy needs to be

integrated to this process from the

start

consider an iot program that we may

create for a factory

if toilet paper supply at store x is low

increase toilet paper production

deploy delivery to x here we can assume

that the factory can just use an

instruction to check

the supply level of toilet paper at a

store

there’s also another instruction to

increase the priority level of

production

and then there’s a separate instruction

to deploy delivery

to some store in the store

employees do not need to count toilet

paper because

each one is located and identified

and yes if we added wi-fi to toilet

paper we’ll probably ask

do we really need that however in this

example

toilet paper crisis is avoided because

production

and consumption is balanced out in real

time

here’s another program if low-level

serotonin

play let it go in flip-flops print your

wonderful

in toast remember that the nice thing

about this

is not that my breakfast will cheer me

up when i’m down

but that we can easily create such a

program

once the infrastructure is in place

just as easily i can have the hot tub

turn on while i’m coming home and body

sensors detect that my pulse and

respiratory signals

indicate that i’m stressed and fatigued

even more exciting is what we don’t know

someone creative could come along and

create a program

that will address all of our stress

factors

if and when a new need arises

such as the needs that came up when the

covet 19 pandemic hit

we have the capability of creating a

program

that will address those it remains to be

seen which

iot services and devices of the future

will be deemed

necessary and useful and which ones will

be deemed

silly and useless and even harmful

however what we do know is the full

potential of iot

can only be realized the more devices we

have

they have the capabilities of

identification

sensing networking computation and

actuation

and even though yes you probably don’t

need that smart tooth brush

when i look at it i think well that

toothbrush

certainly has more of those capabilities

than an old-fashioned one