Project ‘Everywhere’ – Further Expansion Into The Realm of The IoT – Part 2 of 9

With reference to a previous post, ‘Introduction to The IoT‘, it is of significance to extend the research further to gain a more in depth understanding of the paradigm. From the beginnings of my research and asking myself some general questions about the IoT (mentioned on the previous blog post), it did allow me to pursue various tangible avenues thereafter. For example,  the video below is titled ‘Humans Need Not Apply’, and it is presented in a way that highlights the nature of technological progression to-date. Additionally, it suggests a hypothesis on future development within some industries due to the IoT.

To illustrate further by example, I shall use the horse and kart. Over the past century it was replaced within the transport industry by the emergence of vehicles and drivers (specifically lorries). Now over the past two years, Google’s self-driving vehicles are starting to appear, which will in turn, replace a large percentage of humans within the transport industry. Imagine if ‘Uber’, the taxi booking service, had their own fleet of autonomous taxis, what would it mean for the ‘Yellow Cabby’ driver in NYC for instance? Or, anywhere for that matter.

(Source: Humans Need Not Apply)¹

With the abundance of new technologies constantly emerging, it has instigated a larger diversity for their application.  The IoT realm has been steadily gaining traction, and it would not be an outlandish conclusion to arrive at, by suggesting that the IoT is a technological attempt at artificial self sustainability, in essence, a basic artificial intelligence. Another point to consider is the extension of new terminology that has emerged from the IoT such as; Ambient Technology, Pervasive/Ubiquitous Computing, Spime, Big Data, Calm Computing and Wearables were born.

(Image Source: Amazon’s Echo Speaker – The Smart Home Assistant)²

The term ‘Ambient Technology’ simply means technology that is invisible. Too add, extending the meaning, (Weber, Rabaey and Aarts, 2005)³ further explain: embedded in our natural surroundings, present whenever we need it, enabled by simple and effortless interactions, attuned to our senses, adapting to users and context-sensitive, whilst being autonomous. An example would be that of one of Amazon’s products called Echo. A speaker that is always listening, recognizes words and reacts to commands to perform actions with no human physical interaction needed. This can be seen in the image above.

Pervasive or Ubiquitous computing refers to the use of computing technology that can be accessed away from a single workstation by permitting human interaction (Resatsch, 2010),⁴ which is evident with the inception of SMART phones, Tablets PCs and other portable devices. Calm computing is a phrase that differs slightly from that of ubiquitous computing, as it could be regarded as an extension, whilst slightly resembling characteristics of Ambient Technology. Pagani (author of the Encyclopedia of multimedia technology and networking), acknowledges Weiser’, a technological visionary’s statement, regarding Calm Computing, by explaining: How will this technology disturb us? The concept assumes that computers should disappear into the ‘background’ of our architectural space, easily switching between the center and periphery of our attention – much like an ambient display, so that they appear less obtrusive (Pagani, 2009).⁵     

Another term that is hugely popular since the IoT came to be, is ‘Big Data’. It simply means the gathering of vast quantities of data that a business, company  or service could analyze and use, usually pertaining to its client base. Two examples would be; identifying trending products and marketing more specifically to gain a greater volume of sales (inciting future sales), or improving running efficiency in the form of cutting overheads. This all equivalates to streamlining a company/business or service.

Spime is a very interesting word, coined by Bruce Sterling in 2005. (Horst and Miller, 2013) suggested that: Spime represents a revolution in the relationship between humans, artifacts and the built environment.⁶ In addition, they emphasize that ‘Spime’ is an artifact whose history and contextual details of production, consumption and exchange have been embedded within the object itself and rendered legible to the user (Horst and Miller, 2013).⁷ Using Facebook as an example, it would be like sharing a photo with the community, of an object or ‘thing’ (a viral advert perhaps?),  and others would recognize/relate to the experience identified within that photo. Based by the identified technology, the object would have generated relevance/meaning.

After learning about the above terminology, it has certainly generated some ‘food for thought’ with regards to an IoT concept. In addition it provided me with a tangible avenue for development. The next post will expand on some initial concepts as well as contain some further research (reinforcing my decision) of which idea to peruse.

Reference List:-

1) Youtube.com (2015). [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU (accessed on October 20, 2015)

2) Blog.eleven2.com, (2015). [online] Available at: http://blog.eleven2.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Amazon-Echo-Questions.png [Accessed 20 Oct. 2015].

3) Weber, W., Rabaey, J., Aarts, E., P.1 (2005) Ambient Intelligence. Berlin: Springer.

4) Resatsch, F., P.16 (2010). Ubiquitous computing. Wiesbaden: Gabler.

5) Pagani, M., P.191 (2009). Encyclopedia of multimedia technology and networking. Hershey, PA: Information Science Reference.

6) Horst, H. and Miller, D., P.N/A (2013). Digital anthropology. London: Bloomsbury Academic, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

7) Horst, H. and Miller, D., P.N/A (2013). Digital anthropology. London: Bloomsbury Academic, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.