What is the Internet of Things? And why should you care? | Benson Hougland | TEDxTemecula

so my name is Benson and I'm a geek not a not a geek in the traditional sense certainly wouldn't call me an uber geek more of a more of a closet one but a geek nonetheless and here's why I love technology it fascinates me it's a big big part of my life it's it's driven my career and frankly it's fun and that's why I'm here today geek tum' and technology is poised for a huge leap forward in its name the Internet of Things so what is this Internet of Things and why should you care well here the Internet has been around for a while but it's been mostly the product of people so all the data and and images and recordings and games books and commerce and all of that was created by people for people and about people see the Internet is one of the most important and transformative technologies ever invented I happen to know a few people who couldn't live without it all kidding aside the Internet is like a digital fabric that's woven into the lives of all of us in one way or another the Internet of people change the world well there's a new internet emerging and it's poised to change the world again you see this new Internet is not just about connecting people it's about connecting things and so it's named the Internet of Things okay so connecting things to the Internet big deal right well it kind of is and here's why because things can start to share their experiences with other things whoa wait what how's that work right well it works like this you take things and then you add the ability to sense and communicate and touch and control and there you get an opportunity for things to interact and collaborate with other things so take a bit like this we as human beings we interact and contribute and collaborate other people in our own environment through our five senses we have seeing and and smelling and an in touch and taste in hearing right well imagine things with the ability to sense and to touch and then add the ability to communicate and that's where the Internet of people and the Internet of Things intersect so what are some examples of these things well let's start here how about your smart phone you wouldn't believe it how many senses your smart phone has it knows where you are it knows if you're moving it knows how you're holding it it knows how much lights in the room it knows how close it is to your face it knows what you're saying to it and it even has an eye so it can see its surroundings oh and it also has ability to communicate on a wireless network okay so that's probably an obvious example how about this one my bracelet I'm wearing it up here right now it tracks my steps it tracks my activity it even knows how well I've slept and it can communicate on a network okay all of us probably have one of these in our homes maybe a version of one of these it's a thermostat but this thermostat does way more than just know the temperature in the room it knows whether I'm in the room or not and it learns and tracks my home and away patterns to ensure my comfort and save energy and it communicates on a network so I can control it from afar so these light bulbs with these light bulbs I can create all kinds of moods with brightness in and light and and dimming and so on but because they communicate on a network they know how to listen so I can tell them or other things can tell them to turn on/off or blink this garage door opener opens the largest door in my home and because it communicates on a network every time it does it lets me know get it open or closed or I can open or close it from anywhere now this thing is the scale that I can step on and it automatically records my weight and puts it in a fitness app but this thing is not it's broken it does the data is never right so this thing is something that fits on my dog's collar it's called a whistle and it tracks my dog's activities the same way that I do now there's a lot of things that were manufactured and built before the internet of things and the good news is we have tools and systems that allow you to add sensing and communications capabilities to existing things the device on the left is called an Arduino board and it's pretty common in hobbyist circles and prototype applications the device on the right is called a programmable automation controller and this device also gives things the ability to sense and communicate in fact I use this device in my own home so what are some real-world examples of these things in the real world well allow me to take you on a pictorial of my typical day or my typical morning in the internet of things there I am lying blissfully asleep and you can see I have my armband on and the beauty of that is it's sensing my sleep cycles and it knows the most opportune moment to gracefully wake me up by gently vibrating and blinking a light well that when that happens my bracelet sends a message to other things in my home and pretty soon a chain of events starts to occur where my things are talking to other things for example my thermostat goes up to 80 as my whole house fans start up and draw all the cool morning air into my home which pre cools my home allows me to not turn on my air conditioning for later in the afternoon saves me a boatload electricity and my coffeemaker starts up and my bedside lamp fades too bright so then I'm kind of curious how did I sleep last night so I roll over and grab my phone and the good news is I exceeded my goal then I like to get up in the morning and take my dog for a walk so I put his whistle thing on his collar i hook him up to the leash and off we go healthy dog is a happy dog and the fresh air does this both a lot of good so while I'm walking I get an email and it says that my spa just turned on you see in my day job we build Internet of Things products for industrial applications so sometimes my home is used as a demonstration so I go over into my app for my spa and I ensure that the spa was turned back off and then while I'm here I thought you know I wonder how much water went on my lawn this morning you see my sprinkler thing communicates with the local Water District's thing that senses a bunch of parameters and tells my sprinkler system how much water to apply to my lawn well that's really important today with our current drought conditions so it's certainly conserving water and I say I save on my water bill as well and then while I'm here why not check out my wine aging in a barrel at my friend cellar 45 miles away all within my app so I get back from my walk I eat my breakfast and I scan my breakfast eggs it right into my food diary everything is good they're kind of wrapping things up it's time to hug my kids and I have hug sensors in my shirt that measures how many hugs like I'm kidding I'm monk oh that's not true I don't have hug sensors of my shirt but the Internet of Things does include smart textiles and clothing so be looking out for that and as I pull away to work I get a message on my phone that my garage door successfully closed behind me so I could go on and on about my day's events and how it correlates and interacts with the Internet of Things but I think you get my point and of course I did warn you I was a little bit geeky so who cares that's probably what you're asking yourselves right now who cares about all this well let's start here big business cares and they care to the tune of billions of dollars they're making huge investments you could say they're betting the farm on the Internet of Things so even General Electric just came out with a two minute commercial be running on network television called the boy that beeps you got to check it out it's very cool and iBM has been in this space for a long time although under the banner of smarter planet but there's a couple of recent developments that I think are worth noting first is Samsung they make the handsets among other things and they just purchased a company called smart things for two hundred million dollars this company didn't even exist two and a half years ago and in other news Google purchased a company called one of the largest acquisitions in the internet-of-things space for 3.2 billion dollars this is a company makes thermostats and smoke detectors so obviously these companies think there's something big on the horizon they're willing to put a lot of money on the line of course this week we also heard from Apple they just announced two new phones and they also announced a watch and they also have a couple software development kits so well a health kit and home kit so I expect a slew of apps and and products that will target home and wellness how big is the Internet of Things well it's been said that the the Internet of Things was born at the point in time where there were more things on the Internet than people and that occurred around 2008 today there's over 10 billion devices things on the Internet or about 1.5 for every person on the planet that's expected to balloon to 50 billion by 2020 and that's going to course uh sure in dramatic the billions of dollars of economic growth in utilities and and automotive and electronics and health care I get it I get it big business tech giants geeks like me we care right we're in it we're thrilled by this it's the next big thing but why should you care well we all want to live better lives and the technologies that are inherent in the Internet of Things like the ability to sense communicate acquire data and so on will help us build processes and systems that will deliver better healthcare through remote diagnostics and monitoring and and bring a safer environment with like early warning systems for tsunami or or earthquake and and Tech's already has a proven track record of providing new levels of comfort for us and certainly convenience in automating everyday tasks but wisdom what's that about so let's reference the knowledge pyramid we all know that wisdom comes from sensing the world around us and collecting all that raw data and seeing how it comes together with patterns and trends and that turns into knowledge and of course what we derive from knowledge is wisdom so yes I believe that the Internet of Things well is the perfect thing to collect a lot of this data turn it into wisdom and move the human race forward here's an example of knowledge today our data to knowledge Google Flu you heard of this this is cool so what you know what Google has done is they started tracking the location and frequency of search terms related to the flu flu symptoms flu diseases food treatments and what they found is that there was a pattern that existed between these search terms and where flu activity was recently so they built this website and it's used by hospital personnel urgent care centers and medical professionals all kinds to understand what's occurring because we all know that the early detection of a disease can reduce the effect on a lot of us so it's it's certainly another case where the Internet of Things can be the way to aggregate the state data and help us all okay so the Internet of Things kind of big a lot of people are interested in it looks like there might be some real real world use cases maybe even some great potential but are there challenges are there pitfalls are there blind spots we don't even see yet the answer is yes to all three first it's human nature to resist change or is depicted in this slide who moved my cheese syndrome we've seen it time and again over the course of history you've got electricity and automobiles and airplane travel in the telephone and oh it took years from the point of invention to the point of widespread adoption but it's all part of our normal lives today so I that one of the challenges of the Internet of Things is to overcome this notion or belief that you know what everything's just fine the way it is maybe so but then there's another component a technical side to this and it's that the Internet of Things is way too complex I'd love to say that I'm a user of the Internet of Things in reality I'm an integrator it took me countless hours to put all that stuff together most people are not going to do that in fact it was in 1991 at mark Weiser ripe wrote an article for the Scientific American that said the most profound technologies are those that disappear they weave themselves in the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it I 100% agree Tec is its most useful when it disappears then no conversation about the Internet of Things is complete without discussing security and privacy privacy is paramount hey I don't mind if my my thermostat knows if I'm in the home or not but it better not share that data with anybody else and data in the aggregate like we saw with the Google Flu example that's probably okay as long as no personally identifiable information is shared as well so security is also very very important in other words I think a lot of us in here and certainly I am very comfortable with doing banking online because I know that my banks have implemented security policies and technologies that ensure that I have a very secure connection with them can you say the same about my arm ban or my garage door opener I don't know maybe not yet something I think we all need to work on but what if what if there was some applications some some significant boost to our quality of life would that be enough to prompt us to move ahead with the Internet of Things let's go back to my morning and there I am again lying blissfully asleep or so it seems turns out the sensors in my arm been sent something's very wrong my heart rate is going up my breathing is has become erratic and instead of this time gently waking me it vibrates aggressively to get my attention and as I I roll over I I'm grabbing my chest and I'm I'm like what's going on so I reach over to my phone and I pull it up and sure enough there's a message it says I'm having high blood pressure and my breathing is erratic and and it suggests that I take a two aspirin right away and then goes on to say it says all my vital signs have been recorded in electronically transmitted to my medical provider so back at the back at the hospital the doctors already evaluating my data and in his professional opinion I need to get in the hospital right away so we electronically dispatches EMT directly to my home including pertinent data about my current medical situation so they know how to take care of me and I even get a notice or a message from the EMT that they're about to arrive I'm whisking to the hospital and I'm put under Karen observation the good news is later that morning that doctor comes and says you're going to be fine you were suffering a heart attack and we avoided any major damage because you got the treatment you needed in just the nick of time so now is the internet-of-things worth it maybe all because things can talk to other things or what we call the Internet of Things thank you

Channel: TEDx Talks

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Keywords: ted talks, ted x, English, ted talk, tedx, Health, tedx talk, Energy, Technology, United States, Computer Science, Lifestyle, Psychology, ted, TEDxTalks, tedx talks

Id: _AlcRoqS65E

Length: 16min 38sec (998 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 17 2014