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