It all began with a coffeepot

"In 1991, researchers at Cambridge University shared a single coffeepot among several floors. The researchers were frustrated by the fact that they would often climb several flights of stairs, only to find the coffeepot empty. They set up a video camera that broadcast a still image to their desktops about three times per minute — enough to determine the level of coffee in the glass pot. Several years later, that coffeepot had become one of the first Internet web cam sensations, with millions of hits worldwide. That coffeepot was a proof of concept for today’s networked objects and the Internet of Things." (HammerSmithgroup research report, 2010)

The idea of everything being connected to the internet is not new, but it’s increasingly becoming a reality. In 1999, the MIT Media Lab coined the term 'Internet of Things' (IoT), which is essentially the concept of physical objects connecting to the internet and becoming tangible social actors. In 2008, the number of things connected to the internet was greater than the number of people who were actually connected. There are 9 billion connected devices at present, and by 2020 that number is going to explode to 24 billion devices, according to new statistics released by GSMA, the global mobile industry trade group.   

These stats are pretty impressive, but I think I should show you just a few quick examples of what the internet of things is doing to our objects...

- ThingM designed WineM, an intelligent wine rack that lets you identify which one bottles match the terms of your selection criteria.

- Botanicalls enables plant-human communications, with a sensor to measure moisture in the soil with embedded ethernet connection which sends tweets such as “Water me please,” “You didn't water me enough,” or “Thank you for watering me!”

- BodyTrace is a networked bathroom scale that wirelessly uploads users’ weight to the BodyTrace website, generating weight and BMI charts and recommendations from the data.

- GlowCap, a networked screw-on cap for a standard prescription bottle that wirelessly links to the Internet through an embedded sensor and transmitter. GlowCap address the problem of patients who forget to take their prescriptions.  

I guess once we see where the concept of the Internet of Things came from and where this technology is headed, we need to look at the implications of it all... What are the stakes for possible users if our objects can upload, download, disseminate and stream meaningful things to the internet? How should we think of our objects when they start producing information online more actively than we do? A coffeepot was connected to the Internet (before it was even called the Internet) and provided information about its status (long before there was Twitter)... where to now then?   

Leave me your thoughts and comments below. Just want to say thanks for reading + commenting throughout this semester guys, it's been fun... Enjoy your holidays :)   

Other Sources

http://theconversation.edu.au/the-internet-of-things-this-is-where-were-going-3965

http://gigaom.com/cloud/internet-of-things-will-have-24-billion-devices-by-2020/

Will future wars be fought in cyberspace?

This week's voluntary reading 'A free irresponsible press: Wikileaks and the battle over the soul of the networked fourth estate', by Yochai Benkler - really got me thinking about the freedom of the internet and information. The Internet is essentially intended for networked individuals and associations to communicate and share information. But as well as this, users have began using our global communication networks as a window of opportunity to hack the network systems of private users, mainly for political causes. This fusion of hacking and activism is widely known as Hacktivism.

There have been various sources (like this one here) reporting that the rebellious website Wikileaks, has been in some distress over the past months, with a hacktivism cyber attack allegedly revealing the names of some top secret sources. According to the WikiLeaks Twitter feed, it lasted for several hours, and during that time, WikiLeaks apparently encouraged supporters to make donations to the whistle-blowing organization. This is an example of hacktivism at its best, where the hackers have forced entry, hugely disrupted the WikiLeaks online presence and provided their own benefit in terms of donations (also to make the non-for-profit organisation reel with fury i'm sure). It really makes you wonder, if hacktivists can easily gain entry to the back end of an top-secret organisation like Wikileaks, how susceptible are everyday users like you and me to cyber attacks? There are only so many preventions that can be undertaken by common computer users themselves, by making sure they have highly secure passwords on email accounts, never give out their banking details and not sharing passwords with anyone. But is this really enough?

 

According to the Herald Sun, cyber co-operation was added to Australia-US defence treaty last month, in order to increase military cooperation. They noted that the "US and Australian officials have decided to include cooperation on cybersecurity as part of their defence treaty, marking the first time the Obama administration has formally carved out that kind of partnership with a country outside NATO". This is clearly a bold move, with an increase in cyber threats from the Pacific region. But the article goes on to outline that "Cybersecurity experts have argued that the internet cannot become a safer place until nations implement international agreements that better define and regulate cybercrime, and set out new standards and rules for industry as it increasingly moves its business into the largely ungoverned online world."

So until these worldwide 'utopian' changes are made, the internet is still a possibly dangerous place, but is it destined to be a battlefield? Will future wars be fought in cyberspace? Leave your thoughts with me.

The State of the Internet 2011

Have a look at this phenonmenal infographic I found, which is based on the State of the Internet in 2011...


Created by: Online Schools

Let me know what you think! :)