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Why the Internet of Things Is More 1876 Than 1995
An anonymous reader writes "Some folks would like you to think that 1995 was the year everybody was brought online and that, starting this year, we'll bring everything else along for the ride. If that seems far fetched to you, Glen Martin writes about how the Internet of Things has more in common with the age of steam than the digital revolution: 'Philadelphia's Centennial Exposition of 1876 was America's first World's Fair, and was ostensibly held to mark the nation's 100th birthday. But it heralded the future as much as it celebrated the past, showcasing the country's strongest suit: technology. ... While the Internet changed everything, says Stogdill, "its changes came in waves, with scientists and alpha geeks affected first, followed by the early adopters who clamored to try it. It wasn’t until the Internet was ubiquitous that every Kansas farm boy went online. That 1876 Kansas farm boy may not have foreseen every innovation the Industrial Revolution would bring, but he knew — whether he liked it or not — that his world was changing."'"
Does Alpha geek really need to be a thing?
...when Goatse was real and scared everybody off my lawn. Now that was automation!
Table-ized A.I.
Can we stop using these ridiculous buzz words/phrases?
Internet of things? Really?
The one, single biggest weakness with the whole IoT-movement is the lack of any sorts of standards. Devices from one manufacturer use this protocol to talk to one another, the devices from another manufacturer use another protocol, neither of them can communicate with one another, and to top it off many devices even within a single manufacturer's own line of products don't know how to communicate amongst themselves. This means a huge, tangled mess of dozens of controlling applications and physical control-panels and whatnot, and it's all ripe with security-issues, too. With no standards or anything there's no logical way of controlling all of your IoT-devices in a unified way, let alone to control their security and updates.
On a similar note, there was recently talk on Ars Technica about this subject when the CEO of WIFI Alliance tried to make the case that all IoT-devices should simply use WIFI, but that would be folly. His primary argument was that even though WIFI uses more power than e.g. Bluetooth-LE it provides more bandwidth and that the amount of power WIFI uses is irrelevant. That argument obviously ignores the fact that if, on average, every household in the future had e.g. approximately 50 IoT-devices in their homes we would then see the power-drain on the electric-networks increase by 50 * 117M ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... ) * WIFI-power-drain just within the United States alone -- a definitely non-neglibigle amount. Also, your fridge, coffee-maker and the likes have absolutely zero need for all the bandwidth WIFI would bring, so Bluetooth-LE or something similar would be the saner choice -- less power-usage, still more than enough bandwidth for the small amount of data being transferred. However, you'd again need some sort of a bridge for bringing the WIFI-devices and Bluetooth-LE-devices together, and again, you'd need sane standards in order to come up with such bridges.
I'm ranting a little, I haven't been sleeping too well and my thoughts are racing, but my point here is that even if the tech was there for the big push for IoT-devices we lack standardisation efforts, we lack the need for such devices, and I'm not sure the environmental costs would be worth the advantages either at this point in time.
Look, I don't know what you kids are using these days, but I still buy all my games on Steam just like they did in 1876.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
steampunk
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
I think slashcott turned into trolldot when everyone realised that they could not stay away for even a single day.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
The article is just blithering without much useful content. They couldn't even get the right illustration. The steam engine shown is just some random engine with Corliss valve gear. This is the engine that powered much of the 1876 exhibition. It was big, impressive, and inefficient, even for that exhibition.
The "Internet of Things" may be the Next Big Thing from the industry that brought you 3D TV.
The "conflagrations" of the War Of 1812 had passed...
That's about as relevant as saying "The conflagrations of WW1 had passed..." in a piece about the US Bicentennial.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
When are they going to accept the fact that there is absolutely no need for 99.999% of the population to ever check the internet for the status of their dryer, their dishwasher, their fridge, their freezer, or their toaster oven and microwave.
It is the single most over-rated, over-sold, over-hyped, and absolutely useless concept ever brandished by the technocrati. The only ones who care about the concept at all are people who want to sell you stuff that is "internet aware."
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
What everyone misses is the magic of Kansas City. Everything's up to date in Kansas City. They gone about as fer as they can go. They went an' built a skyscraper seven stories high. About as high as a buildin' orta grow.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
I've a dozen eggs, true
But they're all cracked
My Frigidaire
A subtle hack
BURMA SHAVE
(Your turn, Smitty...)
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
The Internet betrayed us all. The shiny object of our admiration is now a honeypot for our enslavement and a means to monetize the smallest of our private activities.
Let's destroy it, while there's still a chance.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
My great-grandfather graduated from Milwaukee High School in 1878. He first attended a "normal school" with the intent of becoming a teacher, but found the opportunity to learn stenography and to operate a writing machine. The Scholes & Glidden machine had been developed in Milwaukee in 1874, and the manufacturers set up schools to teach students how to use them. These were very temperamental machines and were tricky to use. (At that time, you could not see the text that had been typed without lifting the platen). His first professional job was as a type-writer for the Winchester Repeating Arms Company in New Haven, Connecticut. Meanwhile, his long-time pen-pal in Chicago had learned how to use the machines at her father's office. They began exchanging letters in type-written form, which must have been considered, for that time, as high-tech as any Internet romance would have been in 1995. They were married in 1883. My great-grandfather and his brother-in-law went into business together, selling the machines across the Midwest.
What is, really, clearly and terribly useful about "the internet of things" to begin with? At most, it seems mildly more convenient. Would I like to control my thermostat via my phone? Sorta, kinda, a little. Would I like to check in my fridge via webcam for milk while I'm at the store? I guess that's a little neat. Would I like to control my toaster via my smartphone? Unless I can control the bread, and jam, and the knife spreading it, then no.
It's mild convenience at best. Don't know why people are getting so EXCITED! over it.
Powerline ethernet seems to be an established standard (I think you can use endpoints from different manufacturers?), it seems a way better network transmission source than WiFi, which has to be configured to access.
I would say perhaps they should consider light fixture networks, but often things like a fridge are not in an area where a light would be on when you'd want an alert from it (like the temperature had increased over a threshold).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
That works for the dryer, but not so well for the washing machine, unless you don't mind your clothes smelling a bit moldy.
I've accidentally left the wash in the washing machine for a few days, and it was fine... that's in Denver.
But I know exactly what you are talking about since I also at one point lived in Houston.
Anyone, not everyone has washed clothes needing critical attention.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Can I have that in a car analogy instead?
.
Yeah, it's like us realizing the inevitability of NASCAR turning into robot wars as Google perfects the self-driving car....
Generally I agree with you that most things do not need to be "Connected".
But I have to admit a microwave with a self-setting clock would be nice. And I also wouldn't mind a fridge that would alarm on component failure (as I just had a fridge go out).
But the degree to which they are connecting these things, is way over the top.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I think the smart fridge thing is more interesting for inventory management at your local grocery store, than for an individual person. It would be worth a lot to them to be able to track when people are going to run out of specific items, so they can have the right amount of inventory at right time.
OTOH, almost every time I go grocery shopping, I buy something I wouldn't have needed yet, simply because I didn't remember if I had it or not and get one just in case. So being able to check your fridge contents while at the store might also be useful.
Btw. Before trying it, I thought the beta hate might be just nerd rage, but I'm starting to understand.
In the beginning, everyone walked about on foot. People liked it; most stuff you needed was close enough, and if it occasionally rained on you, well, you needed to sleep more often, so what if you can't do everything all of the time.
Someone invented the train and it was well regarded; now even common people could travel far.
Then one day some reckless person thought of putting a train engine on a waggon and getting around without horses or tracks. It didn't appeal to most people; it was too expensive and didn't solve any real problems most people had. Plus it was dangerous and killed people. Some even more reckless person developed a way to make them cheap enough lots of people could afford them, but they were still dangerous and didn't really solve any real problem, so only avant gard people bothered to buy them.
[This is where Internet of Things is up to.]
So the most dangerous group of people—marketeerscame up with an evil plan to take over the world. They'd convince everyone that people who walked across streets without looking were backwards, and they'd mock memorials of children who idiot car drivers killed. They'd also make them a status symbol; girls wouldn't go for guys who walked, they were far too pedestrian!
Eventually the world became a completely different place because these people convinced us we wanted something that wasn't helpful—in fact, nowadays it takes people longer to get places with cars than it took to get there before cars—and kills people both directly (through, ahem, direct hits), indirectly (via side-swipes), via the pollution that the poor sods breathe in, and probably through climatatological effects.
[This is where Beta is up to. Slashdot destroyed a perfectly good letter of the internet, and all for what?]
Look out!
Dont forget the bit about spying on us all. All we need is for our appliances to begin sending our information, for free, to its manufacturers to, in turn, use against us and sell to others for THEIR profit. Yes, fuck the internet of things. I dont want them to know what food I eat, how often I wash my clothes, how much coffee I drink and any other whimsical crap they think they can make of it.
I dont buy the part about service information, nobody gives a crap if it doesnt run, the consumer only buys more when it breaks, so I dont buy the crap theyre selling. It a fucking lie. Just like the government would tell. Just what a coy geek would believe too.
What a load of bunk, when they want my intimate information, its commerce, when I go dig up their information, its espionage, because its private business methods, concerns,intellectual property and I cant sell it to interested parties like they do. Well fuck that! The second I find one of my things spying on me, I will go to fun lengths to invade the company and the private lives of those who made it and do embarrasingly extrovert things with the resultant info.
Fuck the world , I WIN! I always win, I will always win and the world can like it or eat shit!
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Can I have that in a car analogy instead?
.
Yeah, it's like us realizing the inevitability of NASCAR turning into robot wars as Google perfects the self-driving car....
More like seeing Amazon come in the middle of the night and replacing their SUVs with LeCars, from the sound of it.
That's why I'm keeping my bellbottoms.
In 1859, John Brown took over Harper's Ferry, capturing the Federal Armory, to ignite a war to abolish slavery.
Let's have an "Internet of Things" that is more like 1859. DDoS the soul-sucking machinery at Samsung and GoldStar.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Don't forget, emotional intelligence illuminates exponential excellence.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.