Reality can surpass fiction in unexpected ways : The IoT issue
Perspectives about the future can be eccentric and this is especially true on the tech field. Maybe flying cars are not popular (yet) but certainly tech devices and all about the systems developed to give them sense rule our lives and its impact grows every day. Maybe we can’t live more than 100 years because of our medicine but we have more possibilities for a healthier life than 100 years before. Maybe we don’t have a unique and huge device which manage our lives, instead we have tons of small devices able to measure many kinds of attributes, allowing us to make decisions based on this data. We live in the Internet of Things (IoT) era.
What is IoT?
Kevin Ashton, an Procter & Gamble engineer, coined the term IoT on 1999. At that moment he considered the Radio Frequency identification and its possibilities for personal computers to handle with small devices. IoT on this days refers to the connectivity between devices, able to see other ones and interact with them via Internet. Based in things/people ratio between 2003 to 2010, Cisco Systems estimates the born of IoT between 2008 and 2009.
But “what” is IoT? How does it works?
In order to get things connected to the internet and interacting with other devices, the IoT works based in three components: a) Devices (includes sensors and actuators) which connect with the second component: b) the edge gateway (which includes all related to pre processing data and communication with the third component, c) the cloud. This final component includes all the software and hardware which receives and processes device’s data and answer to the remote device based on that data. The interaction between two devices through these components is called communication Machine to Machine (M2M).
Is really “everywhere”?
Nowadays? Yes. One of the most popular usages of IoT is measuring so you can find it in some stores which detects low levels of some product (this is the very first usage considered by Kevin Ashton back in 1999), in the popular smartwatches which takes into account your steps, your heartrate, even they can check patterns in your sleeping. Think about the weather forecast. There are some sensors in the weather stations that checks for humidity, wind speed and direction, atmospheric pressure and other variables and send it to a central where this data is computed to create a weather forecast report and to add it to weather statistics. IoT makes processes automation easier.
Is IoT safe? What about my privacy?
Tough issues. Despite IoT is everywhere, standards for IoT are still building and security is not an exception. At this point all the work on standards matter has been going to assure device — cloud or device — device connections so data theft haven’t been a priority.
People usually say that they don’t have nothing to hide so security concerns are not a priority for them. Think about your Smart TV or your Smart Fridge. You may think that stranger people finding about your food or music tastes is not that dangerous. But what about your location or your daily routine? You can customize its functionalities via the program that handles it (aka the API) and that’s it. You can control at certain point your personal data taken from this kind of devices. But, think about your medical data. Think about a future when all our medical statistics can be extracted from all kind of devices. It would be nice if a doctor can get it in case of emergency, but what about strange people?
Besides these extreme situations, what about the relationship between data and marketing? Through IoT some consume patterns can be found and that’s amazing for marketing: they can develop products and services based on those patterns, but what about us as consumers? How can we use our own data? How can control what we’re sending and what not? How can be manage our privacy with these devices?
Perspectives:
Here in Colombia IoT usage is growing: for 2018 only 13,8% of companies are using IoT. You can find systems to track down resources, employees or cars. On huge companies, stock managing is made via IoT. Why on XXI century Colombia has been dealing with huge issues regarding IoT? This is mainly infrastructure and geography issues. Internet coverage is still growing on this country, the Internet Service Providers (ISP) are few and building infrastructure for Internet access can be challenging here. For location data, for example, mobile internet infrastructure is pivotal but incipient. IoT’s possibilities are huge but its development requires coordinated efforts and investment from state institutions and business as a whole. Besides this, the development of security and privacy issues must be watched carefully as these problems get solutions built based on our context.
Resources:
https://www2.deloitte.com/es/es/pages/technology/articles/IoT-internet-of-things.html
