You and the Internet of Things

A Practical Guide to Understanding and Integrating the IoT into Your Daily Life

Vicki McLeod

• Publisher: Self-Counsel Press
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781770405080
• Topic: Informatique
• Subtopic: Sciences générales de l'informatique

As a result of advances in sophisticated artificial intelligence and machine learning, automation and augmented reality, the Internet landscape is undergoing massive change. It's no longer just about accessing information via electronic devices like laptops, smartphones, and tablets. From toasters to transit systems, we are now in the age of the Internet of Things where interconnected devices and objects are fully networked and communicate data back and forth. Devices and objects learn from these data exchanges and adapt and respond to our personal needs and preferences.From "smart" houses to "smart" cars, from cashless banking to wearable sensors that gather personal health data, new technological innovations and the Internet of Things is integrated with nearly all aspects of daily living, impacting health, home, transportation, shopping, travel and entertainment. Soon, everything with be "smart".What does this mean for you? This book is a guide to understanding the way soon-to-be common technologies affect your daily life and how to use these technologies for increased safety, security, convenience, and quality of life. If you are a mainstream user of technology, part of the sandwich generation, or a baby boomer trying to navigate the IoT age, this book is your roadmap.

Chapter 1

The Internet: Then and Now

As discussed in the introduction, we are in a new age where everything is connected to everything else. Before we get into detail about the revolutionary changes and adaptations enabled by the age of the IoT and how these might make your life easier, simpler, and more productive (or more fun!), let’s spend some time examining where we currently find ourselves in terms of the digital world.

The early stages of the internet connected people to devices, data, and data management processes. Through personal computers we could connect not only to a staggering amount of information and data, but also to each other, first via message boards and email, and during the last decade, through initial social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Today, 40 percent of the world’s population uses the internet. That is more than 3.9 billion people. More than 570 new websites are created every 60 seconds, and there are over 3.5 billion daily searches on Google. Per minute, 340,000 tweets are sent, with 500 million sent every day. Facebook has more than 2 billion active users with an average of 155 friends. Nearly 90 percent of the world’s data has been created in the last two to three years. Most of us know and have used the internet as a tool for research, planning, and communication.

1. The Internet As a Research Tool

You are likely not a high school or university student, but perhaps you are a parent or grandparent of one. If you think back to your own student days, you probably spent long hours in the school, campus, or community library. You developed a good relationship with the local librarian or other subject matter experts and kept copious written or typed notes to track your research. Perhaps you conducted in-person or telephone interviews, and recorded them on a tape recorder or Dictaphone, later transcribing your notes to paper, filed by topic, name, or date.

If you were an academic or professional, you had access to journals or trade magazines and publications. Perhaps you did field research. Depending on your age, you may have had access to microfiche, or video, cassette, or film libraries as well. Back in the day, access to research was external — housed in institutions and somewhat difficult to access.

Even if you weren’t a student, teacher, or industry professional, but simply a layperson with a practical need — say, for example you were planning a trip, or looking for a specific kind of professional or useful assistance — you needed either a referral from a trustworthy source, or you went to an expert, such as a travel agent, for example. Remember the Yellow Pages, the thick printed directory of businesses organized by category?

The internet changed all that. Essentially, the world wide web put the world of information at our fingertips. Via personal computers, we now have a single source for information. In reality, nearly everyone can get any information they need from a single desktop computer, laptop, tablet, or smartphone. You can easily store and archive anything that you need or that captures your interest, whether for personal, educational, or professional use. Digital information is here to stay, not subject to the degradation process that affects print and various kinds of film and tape. While the technology itself may change (remember floppy disks?), most hardware and software providers offer regular upgrades and updates to keep present-day technology current. The kind of information we have access to has also changed dramatically. Unlike traditional books, journals, or recordings, we can now access real-time audio, video, and live streaming on nearly any subject. This is “just-in-time” knowledge.

In terms of the internet as a research tool, it is not without concerns. Information on the internet changes and multiplies at a dizzying pace. The upside is that information can be constantly updated to maintain currency, and staying up to date is simplified for the researcher. The downside is that these resources are ephemeral. Websites may be neglected, and valuable information can be lost or ignored. Systems that are owned by government, nonprofits, businesses, schools, or individuals require human or financial resources and these may not be sustained over time. As well, a typical web search will return thousands of hits. Search algorithms have become extremely sophisticated (we’ll deal more with this later) but it is still incumbent on the user to filter through the sites to weed out those that may be useless.

There is also an ongoing concern about the veracity or authority of online sources. Most professional or trade journals have a vetting process that includes meeting certain editorial standards for publication. Libraries and institutions have selection criteria for the purchasing of resources. The internet does not have these safeguards in place. In a way, the internet is a kind of wild west, enabling anyone with an opinion and basic technology skills the opportunity to present themselves as a subject matter expert via personal websites, blogs, or engagement in online forums and chat threads. In terms of online research, it is user beware. Users must exercise diligence and healthy skepticism in selecting online references and sources.

As I write this on my trusty laptop, I am referencing the work of other authors that I have downloaded onto my Kindle app on my tablet. My smartphone is by my side for quick Google searches. Several website tabs are open, and I am clipping references and resources to Evernote, appropriately tagged and notated. As a professional writer, the internet and its tools have made my job vastly easier. While early microprocessors purchased for home use were largely employed as video game consoles, rapid advances in technology and its applications, followed by the emergence of the Internet — the global system of interconnected networks and protocols that linked devices worldwide — enabled almost instant real-time communication. This convergence gave birth to new services such as email, internet telephony, internet television, online music, digital newspapers, and video streaming websites.

2. The Internet As a Communication Tool

For much of the last two decades our linked devices have provided us with an unparalleled ability to communicate across the planet. In 2004, Mark Zuckerberg and a group of friends at Harvard University devised an innovative social networking platform that connected fellow students in an online community. Today, Facebook has more than 2.2 billion users worldwide.

From the early days of Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) to email to the phenomenon that is social networking, the internet is a communication tool like no other and it has radically changed the way we communicate. In the last two decades, our devices and their enabling technology have proven to be a boon to person-to-person communication, but it is also changing how we engage with and access services and entertainment. Throughout this book we’ll talk about how emerging technologies and machine learning are now enabling communication not only between people, but between devices, and the impact that this will have on our daily lives. For now, let’s concentrate on how we’ve used the Internet as a human-to-human communication tool in the near past.

Do you remember your first email account? Mine was a personal account with AOL (America Online). One of the early pioneers of the internet in the mid-1990s, AOL originally provided a dial-up service to millions of early adapters. Dial-up services allowed connectivity to the internet through a standard telephone line. Shortly thereafter, my company obtained our first business email address. Our professional address was a lengthy one — about 25 characters. At the time we had absolutely no idea how much we would come to use that email address. Email started as a kind of a novelty, with most business then being conducted in person, by telephone, or through the fax machine.

For most mainstream home users of the internet, the motivation to obtain a home computer was driven by the desire to communicate with friends and family via the convenience of email. The continual evolution of communication technologies means we can now send, receive, and archive emails from our smartphones as well as access other communication tools such as Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and Twitter, and text apps such as WhatsApp, WeChat, LINE, and Viber. These days, almost the last thing we use our smartphones for is as a telephone. FaceTime, Skype, Zoom, and other face-to-face video technologies enable us to connect across time and space in real-time conversations with anyone at any time.

3. The Internet As a Planning Tool

Partly because of their power to connect us to one another and partly because of their astonishing capacity to store and process data and information, computers and the internet have become the central pillars of personal and project planning. Over the last two decades we’ve come to rely on these tools in nearly every kind of business and industry. On the personal side, we use computers, laptops, tablets, smartphones and smartwatches to control our calendars, manage our money, shop, coordinate travel, and keep track of family and friends across the globe.

Leaving aside business and professional uses, can you imagine planning a family vacation without using the internet? What about booking service appointments, scheduling classes and leisure activities, or planning a party? Because internet use has become so completely integrated with the tasks of ordinary day-to-day life, we take for granted the scope of our reliance on it to support our basic needs and goals.

At this point it would be useful for you to take some time to assess your own (or your family’s) internet use. It will help as you move toward making choices and decisions about increasing your commitment to learning about and integrating smart technologies into your daily life. Use Worksheet 1: Internet Use: Current Personal and Family Priorities to determine how much (or how little) you use the internet for research, planning, and communication now and how you anticipate using it in the future.

Worksheet 1: Internet Use: Current Personal and Family Priorities

This kind of assessment will also help you identify your priorities. For example, perhaps you live in an area where home security is a major concern, or you have aging parents or relatives in your home who would like simplified internet access. Maybe you would like to streamline grocery shopping or meal planning? Working through a personal assessment should provide you with insight into what will work best for you and your family. It is the first step in making a simple and personalized plan for an integrated network. Keep in mind as you go, that the way you are using the internet today is not necessarily the way you will be using it tomorrow.

4. Welcome to the Internet of Things

For many years, I’ve had the pleasure of writing a regular digital lifestyle column for my local newspaper, one of Canada’s Black Press publications. In a column in the early spring of 2019, I wrote about “domotics.” Domotics (from the Latin word “domus,” meaning house) combines domus with robotics, and is the term used to describe all phases of smarthome technology. It is the process or set of tools and devices that make up a “smart” home, comprising information technology, microtechnology, and electronics, including sensors and controls that monitor and automate temperature, lighting, security systems, and much else.

A smart house is one where highly automated systems govern the functions listed above. The list doesn’t stop there. The integration of these technologies goes beyond obvious tasks such as turning lights off and on at preprogrammed times or automatically adjusting air conditioning or heating. Highly advanced systems will allow us to monitor and inventory the foodstuffs in our fridges, track menus and meal plans, and routinely order groceries, for example.

Domotics is only one aspect of the Internet of Things. It is a good place to start as our homes are such an important element of our lives. The home is the center of family life. It provides sanctuary and comfort, and it is the place from which we launch the practical aspects of our lives — where we eat, sleep, relax, and prepare ourselves to go out into the world of work and engage with the demands of daily life. We also have some control in our homes, and we are able to decide for ourselves how much, or how little, we will augment our domestic lives with technology.

In an article for ThoughtCo, a leading online reference and education site, author Jackie Craven suggests that, “The smarthome systems might even ensure a continuously cleaned cat litter box or a house plant that is forever watered.” (“Exploring Home Automation and Domotics,” ThoughtCo.com, February 19, 2019.) Further, wearable sensors can monitor which members of the family are at home, and where they are, adjusting the home environment based on the needs and preferences of the wearer. We already commonly use such tracking devices to keep track of iPhones, keys, and pets.

How might this improve the lifestyle and safety of the elderly aging-in-place, or people with disabilities? Geofencing is being widely used in the IoT, creating virtual perimeters in real-world geographic areas, activating alerts or messages, triggered by location-based data.

Of course, many of our choices are dictated by the available technology. A rotary-dial phone is now only a collector’s item. Telephone landlines are becoming a rarity, and data caps can limit smartphone use. Further, our personal choices are and will be limited (or expanded) by the positions taken by laws and regulations. For example, the introduction of emission controls on automobiles in the 1960s made certain kinds of car exhaust systems obsolete. The greening of the economy has forced automobile and other manufacturers to look for alternatives.

Social and economic trends, and changing legislation combined with advances in technology, can force consumer adaptation in the marketplace. The rise of electric propulsion fueled partly by government regulation and incentives is complemented by the increasing complexity of vehicles as environments for work and relaxation. Most of us are already using smart technology in our daily commute to make it more comfortable and time effective. We comfortably use the Global Positioning System (GPS) a satellite-based radio navigation system. Owned by the United States military, this is the technology that will enable driverless cars. Our cars are self-monitoring, notifying us when fuel or tires are low, or the engine needs servicing. Our smartphones are connected via Bluetooth to our car’s audio systems, allowing us to personalize in-car entertainment, access the internet, and talk on our phones safely. We begin to take this kind of technology for granted soon after it is introduced.

Entertainment choices are already undergoing rapid change. For many, typical cable television is already obsolete, gone the way of the telephone landline. Known as cord-cutters, many television consumers are cancelling their cable accounts and moving to wholly internet TV-user apps such as Apple TV, Chromecast, or Amazon Fire TV. Live television streaming services such as Sling TV and DirecTV in the United States allow you to get most of your favorite stations streamed over the internet. Generally speaking, the fees are minimal compared to the average cable package and puts control of content in the hands of the consumer. Platforms such as Spotify and Apple Music make it possible to access millions of artists and playlists for a small monthly fee. Because of the IoT, you can listen to your favorite songs, podcasts, or radio programs on your smartphone, portable speakers, car, computer, or television set.

The world’s libraries are at our fingertips via e-reader devices and apps. I believe that paper books will al...