Internet of Things – Evrythng

in case you’re wandering why,  well Andy is an erstwhile boss,  and one of the most creative and open thinkers I have come across.

Some thoughts from his speech.

He sees that if we were to provide everything with a Unique identifier then we can start to make everying a digital media.

Every object can have a relationship with you.

For example he talks about his guitar and how he can “register” that it is his, and so he can now begin to pull in relevant information about that guitar.  Not Generic stuff, personalised things that are special to the user.

This would lead to a

“Transactional economy with object information exchange”

His vision is the unique identity allows you to enable personalization, triggered at the right moment,  powered by real time social data.

His guitar is not just a Gibson 330 it’s Andy’s Gibson 330,  and so it can show him how to play it, links to music, and all brought to Andy in a more relevant and useful way.  A world of digital content services.

This mostly works for “passion products”, ie things people care about,  and was a considered purchase, and is a part of their lifestyle.  This creates an opportunity to create a “value exchange”.

Combine that with other data sets and you start to get an Internet of things.  He asks us to think about a facebook for things, related to other things and their owner(s)

So in summary they see a world where you are able to show a digital ownership of a range of products and things, such as bottles of olive oil,  the room in which you work,  the chair on which you sit etc.

So what do I think of the proposition

well to me the use of these identifiers will be more restricted that shown,  however I agree with the “special” argument,  because these are the the items we will be motivated to extend into the virtual world.

I think there will be some user training required so that folks become used to the idea of using the tags to tie their precious objects,  and if the early services are not compelling,  then the idea will die on its feet for quite a while.  In the end though I think it will take off,   and in my simple little head the likes of NFC and RFID tags will help a lot in hooking up the real to the virtual.  That said object recognition with cameras is getting better,  and if you could mark your object in an invisible way this would be a cool way to effect a frictionless recognition.

So your guitar could notify you that you’re due to practice, and then when you do record what you’ve done, and send it away for analysis.  all without any effort beyond the actual practicing.

ohh and Andy. if you’re listening,  go find some vowels <grin>