Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Internet of Things (IoT) Future

Internet of Things is the new buzzword. The word Internet has itself become so ubiquitous, that we do not even think twice before using it. Also, this is one word which has become pervasive across the whole world, in every level of society. This is one of the phenomena in history which is affecting each and every one of the human beings with speed and intensity. Those who are not touched yet, it's a matter of time than anything else. To figure out if I am alive or not, people are checking the heartbeats on their smartwatch. 

The Internet makes all the computing devices to talk to each other. The Internet of things proposes to take it to next level. Everything in the world will be connected to each other. Everything means everything possible, be it living or non-living. There will be sensors embedded everywhere. These sensors itself are mini computing platforms, but with the advancement in technology, they will become as powerful as any of the present day computing platforms. With a layer of AI on top of the data, the world will be largely driven in a predictive sense. Maybe the prediction will be executed as a command and we will have a deterministic world, till God will strike time and again.
Imagine a smart sensor fitted in you also. That device will be your identification. It will carry all the details about you. When you stand in front of your door, there will be another sensor on the door which will negotiate the authentication and authorization with you and the door and will let you in. You stand in front of the car and the car's sensor will talk to your sensor and let you in. Of course, it will be a driverless car, so sit back and relax. You can even let your friend use your car on a need basis by authorizing him temporarily with the central authentication server controlling the car. If you hate him, you might revoke the authority in the middle of nowhere, right in the middle of a forest. The car would just stop, and the doors will open. The moment your friend will come out to check if everything is fine, the doors will shut back and the car will race back to your garage. When he will meet you back, you plan to present yourself with a long face and saying sorry profusely and blaming the car for everything. A sweet little revenge for not sharing the beer last weekend.

However, don't think your friend is lost. He is going to raise an alarm using his sensor may be using a small interface which he is wearing as a watch. The signal will raise an alert on the backend server which deals with emergencies and a chopper or another car might be racing towards him. It will even signal him that he needs to climb a tree before help arrives as there is a Lion spotted at a distance of around half a mile. Of course, humans would have put a sensor in the Lion also in the name of wildlife conservation.

Even your dog will carry the smart sensor so he does not needs a dog opening in your door. The moment he comes to the door, the door will open and let him in. Once the dog is in, the door will shut behind. It's a different thing that the dog would still identify you by smell and other biological cues. So much so for human engineering, the things that are in the realm of god will remain so.

It will be difficult to do mischievous things as your movements are tracked everywhere. The evidence of crime scenes will be a set of data logs showing the exact paths of movement of criminals. You buy anything and the bills will be automatically generated. The money transfer between parties will be just movement of numbers in some server as virtual currency (blockchain). No paper currency. Imagine what would happen if just after a dinner in a restaurant, during money transfer you start getting "No route to Host" or "Access denied error", because of a bug. Never forget the art of dish cleaning. It's always a handy skill.

Though I think the human mind will still find a way to short-circuit things as a new breed of hackers might come into existence. The disadvantage of such complex systems is that it will be difficult for a human mind to comprehend it. The humans will depend on its outcome and if someone can hack into the system, the world may change in a drastic way, without anyone even noticing it for a long time to come. People would be happily following the outputs. A matrix may I say.

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