*There are few things I enjoy so much as some action from the Internet of European Things.
http://www.theinternetofthings.eu/content/g%25C3%25A9rald-santucci-internet-things-window-our-future
The Internet of Things: A Window to Our Future
by Gérald Santucci
Gérald Santucci is Head of Unit Internet of Things and Future Internet Enterprise Systems, European Commission
(((this speech also to be found in this exceedingly cool tech-art mag.)))
http://www.digitalarti.com/files/Digitalarti-5_UK-site-internet-MD.pdf
“It is not enough to understand, or to see clearly. The future will be shaped in the arena of human activity, by those willing to commit their minds and their bodies to the task.”
Robert F. Kennedy
"We are living through one of history’s swerves. Over the past decade billions of people have hooked themselves up to the Internet via the computer and more recently mobile devices. This communication revolution is now extending to objects as well as people. Object-to-object communications has been long predicted, but has always seemed to be perched safely on the horizon. Now it is rushing into the present. The so-called Internet of things (IoT) is, after the modern computer (1946) and the Internet (1972), the world's third wave of the ICT industry.
"Although the concept of IoT was expressed in the form of ‘computers everywhere’ by Professor Ken Sakamura (University of Tokyo) in 1984 and ‘ubiquitous computing’ by Mark Weiser (Xerox PARC) in 1988, the phrase ‘Internet of things’ was coined by Kevin Ashton (Procter & Gamble) in 1998 and developed by the Auto-ID Centre at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, USA, from 2003. Ashton then described the IoT as “a standardized way for computers to understand the real world.”
"So far, our view of the Internet has been human-centric. It is quite likely that sooner or later the majority of items connected to the Internet will not be humans, but things. The IoT will primarily expand communication from the seven billion people around the world to the estimated 50-70 billion machines. Ericsson envisions a world of 50 billion connections within the current decade. This means significant opportunities for the telecom industry to surpass population and develop new ‘subscribers’. (Future historians will probably look back at 2010 as the year when Internet connected devices like digital picture frames, web-connected GPS devices and broadband TVs, came online in greater numbers than new human subscribers did. Electricity meters, dishwashers, refrigerators, home heating units and several other objects with tiny sensors are next in line.)
"This advancement signifies a massive shift in human development, from an ‘electronic society’ to a ‘ubiquitous society’, in which everything is connected and everything can be accessed anywhere. Supported by IPv6 and eventually the Future Internet Architecture, the IoT would have the potential of connecting the 100,000 billion things that are deemed to exist on Earth! Regarding the things – physical or virtual – created by humans, visionary authors like Bruce Sterling, Julian Bleecker, Adam Greenfield or Rob van Kranenburg point out, each with his own style but always in a similar way, to a conceptual change of the object as an artefact (a farmer’s tool), then a machine (a customer’s device), then a product (a customer’s purchase), then a gizmo (today’s end-user’s platform or interface), then a spime (tomorrow’s networked object that is constantly tracking its location, usage history, and environment), and finally, by year 2060, a biot (an object at the interface of cybernetics, biotechnology, and cognition – something which is both the object and us). Internet-aware objects become ‘social objects’, i.e. enablers for new forms of human interaction.
"Going even further, (((if that's possible, but never mind little me))) by acquiring an identity as well as self-management, self-healing, and self-configuration capabilities, future interconnected and uniquely addressable objects will take the properties of subjects.
"Our apprehension of the reality will be deeply affected by the metamorphosis of objects. Our relationship to electronic devices has changed so radically in the last few years that designers are beginning to think about our attachments to smart devices such as smartphones and tablets. The idea seems weird: how can we love an electronic device made of glass, silicon and plastic? Smart devices are becoming an extension of ourselves — not in the sense that an object says something about what it is (cybernetic dimension), which technology supports it (semantic dimension), whom we want to be by owning it (semiological dimension), but as an actual part of our conscious self (relational dimension). Computers, mobile phones, tablets and e-readers do something that no car, garment or toaster can do (at least so far): they tell us things we never knew, like the quickest way to reach our destination, where to get a discount or where our friends are right now. So it is not surprising that people feel lost or actually grieve when they lose a personal electronic device. As the frame of a smart device keeps getting smaller, the ‘window’ gets larger and clearer..."
