Connected Objects

The Set Up
Imagine the world our parents grew up in, assuming they grew up sometime
between the 1950s and the 70s. They walked around with cash money to make
purchases. Dinner was ready because it was prepared by the homemaker. When it
was hot, they turned on the air conditioner and manually adjusted the thermostat
as needed. Some people even had to *gasp* get up to change the TV channel or
adjust the antenna.

Now think of the world your children will grow up in. Physical money – a thing of
the past because their credit card (or phone) handles the transaction. Dinner is
prepared by the appliances in your house – the same one that regulates the
temperature of the house based on your biometrics. And the way media is
delivered and controlled? Straight into our brains.

OK, the last one is a bit of a stretch. But these other advances will be made
possible by the connected devices. That is, a network of things that “talk” to each
other without human intervention. These connected devices have built-in
communication and processing capabilities, which means things like milk cartons
tell a refrigerator when it’s low or expiring, which then tells the grocery list on
your phone so you know when you need another carton. The number of
connected objects grows everyday, which has the ability to impact our lives in a
profound way, both personally and as a society. For the purposes of this article,
we’re defining the way these devices interact with each other on a local,
personalized level – the Web of Things, which are more along the lines of
sensored items you find in the home. Then, there are devices that talk to each
other on a global scale – the Internet of Things. These are large systems that
operate, relay information and change conditions by exchanging data over the
Internet.

Background Check
Some of the most efficient self-configuring networks date back to ancient
civilizations. The Romans built aqueducts to transport water through the city,
while the Incans built the water supply drainage system of Machu Picchu. These
systems worked independently of human involvement for human usage and were
necessary not only for convenience and efficiency, but also to help move those
societies forward.

In modern times, the origin of networked devices dates back to 1969 when the
first two computer nodes were interconnected between UCLA’s School of
Engineering and SRI International in Menlo Park, California. These connections
laid the groundwork for ARPANET, which was the precursor to the Internet.
However, these devices were controlled by people who had to input information
to make them “talk” to each other. While it took some 25 more years for the
Internet to grow to a point where it gained a foothold in popular culture, that
gave it time to develop protocols and languages necessary for communicating
with each other, which allows for today’s devices to do the same.

Ping Me, I’m Dreaming
Outside of the Internet, another method of connecting to objects is with radio-
frequency identification or RFID, which is essentially a tag with a signal and an
antenna that transmits data saying “I’m here.” The signal is usually passive and
so a tag usually sits there waiting to be pinged.

In 1999, a research group called the Auto-ID Labs started looking into the idea of
networked RFID as a means of tracking items. This group was funded by
manufacturers like Proctor and Gamble who saw the value in managing large
amounts of inventory via RFID.

Apply this to our own personal inventory. We’re surrounded by thousands of
things. All the stuff around you: money, books, clothing, pens, bikes, furniture,
food and more – imagine that those things have a sensor in them and those
sensors relay information back and forth to a reader (server/program/device).
These tags can create a Web of Things in your life along with a reader that
monitors their location and status, which would learn behavior and adapt to suit
yours.

Besides RFID, there are a number of other technologies allowing devices to
connect and share information: Near Field Communication (NFC) and Electronic
Product Codes (EPC).

NFC allows the exchange of data between devices over a distance of up to four
inches. This is done via wireless technology and an intuitive interface that
contains a smart-card and a reader. It’s mainly used in mobile phones and allows
users to make contactless payments or benefit from reward programs without
using a card. Additionally, devices can trigger one another; NFC allows the
sharing of business card information between devices. From an advertising
standpoint, this technology allows people to access promotional discounts or
engage with interactive media.

A modern version of the barcode, an EPC is a unique number used to identify a
specific item. Information such as place, origination or date of production can be
assigned to each EPC. These will benefit both consumers and businesses by
managing inventory to such a degree that it can eliminate out-of-stock products
as well as monitor food freshness or quickly determine the origin of food-borne
illnesses.

State of the Web of Things
These technologies expand the Web of Things as they affect us and our personal
network of items. This growth has spurred innovation with several companies
taking an early lead in moving the ball forward:

And while not a company, there’s an API enabling devices to connect and
communicate with us. Representational State Transfer or REST allows you to
obtain domain-specific data simply by pointing a URL to a specific location. For
our purposes, that’s the most important function. Twitter currently provides a
REST API so Web developers can enable their users to access the various features
that a Twitter site provides, such as BakerTweet, which allows bakers to keep
their customers informed by using an automated device that tracks what’s in the
oven and when it’s done.

Thinking Bigger: The Internet of Things
Looking at the world around us, there are devices that communicate with each
other everywhere – mostly all invisible to the human eye. They’re in our
infrastructure like water mains monitoring levels and problems, they’re in taxis
and buses transmitting location, and they’re in traffic systems managing
transportation. Everywhere. Imagine these systems becoming intertwined to
form a complex set of relationships and the data patterns that emerge from them.
While the network can exist municipally, zoom out and think of a global field of
data: an entire planet generating data that can be harnessed for the greater good.
The opportunities for greater efficiencies and new innovations are nearly
limitless. The challenge is to take all that data and do something with it. There’s a
commonly known pyramid about building on raw data (DIKW). Once it’s
collected, you compile it to create information, with that you have knowledge and
what you do with it is wisdom. While the Internet of Things operates
independently of human intervention, we still need to take the information that
comes out of it to create new efficiencies and better means of living.

The Crystal Ball
Right now, the Internet of Things is operating on a very small scale, but like any
industry it has to find its legs before it really takes off. Many companies are
jockeying for a seat at the table or to emerge as the leader. Several factors should
be considered when picking a direction for the tech behind the Web/Internet of
Things.
1. WWWD – What Will Wal-Mart Do? There’s no doubt that Wal-Mart can really
control this market, both on the retail and manufacturing side. First, they can
dictate the terms with their suppliers as to what technology they want to
utilize that creates the most efficient supply chain as they did with RFID.
Second, they could literally own the home with the items they sell –
electronics, food and anything else under their roof. If we’re talking about
things, no one sells more of them than Wal-Mart.
2. What do people want? Does anyone really need tweeting appliances? Once the
novelty of the early adopters fades, the real and true potential of these
technologies will come into play. The Web/Internet of things start to play off each other. A home networked to create energy efficiencies using biometrics
has measurable value. Taking that single home and then plugging it into the
millions of others on the power grid creates an extraordinary opportunity for
achieving a greener planet by reducing energy consumption.
3. Wireless networks – phone companies are starting to see the power of their
networks and how they can communicate information between devices. These
are established global networks ready to dive into the pool of global connected
devices.
Given the numerous technologies and rapid innovations in the marketplace, it’s
entirely within the realm of possibilities that the Web/Internet of Things will be
fully operational in the next five years. Based on that, we envision a couple of
scenarios that could affect our lives:

Web of Things: Imagine your home is fully connected. Appliances, computing
devices, gaming/entertainment systems, HVAC – all of it. We’ve also reached the
point where your personal items, like clothing have been tagged with RFID. Your
car has GPS transmitters in it. An evening might go like this: When you leave
work and get in your car, the GPS transmits your location to your home. If you
have a family dinner planned, your home’s network will heat up the oven so
you’re ready to begin cooking once you arrive home. If you need anything for the
meal, your refrigerator will send you a message letting you know what
ingredients to pick up at the store (unless you have groceries delivered). The store
has sensors in the cart that recognize items as you put them in. This then crosses
them off your list as well as checks you out at the same time by completing the
transaction via your phone. After your meal and the kids are sleeping, you sit down to do some work on the couch. Your house has been monitoring and
adjusting the lighting/temperature while you’ve been home. It’s cooler in the
kids’ room, since they’re under blankets, and warmer where you are, but as you
relax and start to nod off, your biometrics change and the sensors in your
clothing tells this to your home network. As a result, the volume of the TV lowers
and the lights dim. You may even have it set up for the couch to vibrate if you’ve
been asleep more than 20 minutes so you can actually get up and go to bed.

Internet of Things: Connected devices on the Internet could change the way
insurance is calculated. Right now, actuarial science determines rate at a group
level, but connected devices could change the methodology. Communication
devices could be added to your car that you would allow the insurance company
access. From that, they would know when you’re driving, how fast, how much in
what kinds of situations and, depending on your skills, what condition you’re in
while driving home at 2AM. All these would be pooled, compared to other drivers
in your same class and you’d receive a rate based on that. This rate would be
flexible and adaptable to your habits.
Similarly, changes to health care and the way it’s administered could be advanced
through this method. Recently, microchips with nano-antennas have been
inserted into medication which lets physicians monitor whether patients have
taken their pills. Looking ahead, nanites could send all kinds of biometrics to
health care providers: BMI, blood sugar, sleep patterns, blood pressure and
more.
This information would be collected by providers, analyzed and matched against family history.
Based on that, physicians would have data allowing them
to schedule appointments. Additionally, by monitoring heart rate, they would
know when you’ve been exercising. Future advancements in connectivity would
strengthen preventative care and work to make us healthier.

Wrap Up
While the future is unknown, current developments and innovations on the
horizon allow us to speculate that these scenarios are possible. As long as this
field continues inventing and coming up with unique applications that harness
the incredible amounts of data being generated, we’ll see a world that starts to
operate entirely behind the scenes.

About the Authors:
These four people graduated from VCU Brandcenter.

Name: Alexander Ridoré
Bio: Creator. Innovator. Athlete.
Location: Beltsville, MD
Company: Freelance Digital Art Director/Designer
Blog – personal site: http://mindofalexr.com/

Name: Cecilia Bogardus
Bio: CT/AD
Location: NYC
Company: Ogilvy
Blog – personal site: www.ceciliabogardus.com

Name: Drew Dayberry
Bio: Bios are silly, i don’t know what to say.
Location: Portland, OR
Company: Wieden + Kennedy
Blog – personal site: www.drewdayberry.com

Name: Don Sticksel
Bio: VCU Brandcenter Grad. Creative Technologist. Thinker. Maker.
Western Shirt Wearer.
Location: Brooklyn, NY
Company: Momentum Worldwide
Blog – personal site: donnieonthespot.com