When I stumbled on an article with this title on the NY Times website, I stopped everything I was doing to read it. I can give a number of guesses to your reaction of this catchy title… lol! Anyways, imagine receiving a phone call or coming home one day to your spouse, a parent or friend holding up your favorite blanket with a big grin on the face saying “… I programmed the blanket”. A blanket that can send the readings of your body vitals to your spouses/parent’s/friend’s mobile device even thousands of kilometers away. “Hey! John’s gonna be having a fever”, etc… As crazy as this may sound, this is bound to happen in the near future. At least, in this part of the world, because it’s basically happening elsewhere. Somebody is definitely going to programme your blanket.
Imagine this technology becoming a basic home gadget like a TV set. This possibility is what brings us to the theme of this piece, “Internet Of Things (IOT)”. Frankly this should have been the title but it’s not as catchy… just too geeky.
Internet of Things (IOT) is fast becoming the future of ICT, going beyond data connectivity, networking, digital communications and the likes. As a matter of fact, the integration of data connectivity, networking, data – analysis, digital communications… is what I call IOT. Inter-connecting all these to provide solutions for everyday, basic needs to complex computations for large and small scale industrial use.
To some extent, we are already using this technology in this part of the world. Having our computing devices do daily backups at certain times, having our data saved to the cloud (google drive, iCloud, OneDrive etc), having apps on our phones that monitors our heart rate, apps that measures how many steps we take a day etc. However, the anyalysis for actual usage of this information gathered for objective decision making is where we still lag behind.
Effective usage of the Health app on your iPhone would be gathering the data and automatically sending it to your doctor, who then makes use of the data and prescribe treatments, or advise on better healthy living.
Your smart TVs all have these capabilities, collecting data from the internet and suggesting them to you- sending notifications to your smart phones when you’re away from the house and your kids tune onto adult channels. Imagine if your kids at home could get a call from you, “… why are you guys watching Big Brother Africa at this time of the night when you should be in bed? Turn that TV off and go to bed!”
Imagine controlling the temperature of your house, the lighting, your gas cooker, dish washer, flushing your toilet, turning on the vacuum cleaner etc, when you’re not even in the house.
Technology is constantly seeking new ways, and there are new innovations daily to help better/improve our lives. Vehicles are being built with IOT abilities, driverless cars, cars with microprocessors that control the breaking systems, accelerators dashboards, location settings etc. Cars that adjust its seat/temperature each time a different person seats in to drive.
IOT is the future and smart businesses have started exploring business opportunities here. As awesome as this is, I leave you with one solid question: Is this technology safe? Whatever your answer maybe, one thing is for sure, Cyber security business is going to flourish in the IOT era!
Author: Ameh James
