 for example, we might wear devices that signal an unwillingness to be followed, or to have promotional messages pushed at us without our consent. Likewise, a store might recognize us as an existing customer with an established and understood relationship. Google Glass today is a very early prototype and has little, if any, social manners built-in, which is why it freaks people out. New manners-friendly systems, and the protocols to go with them, will be worked out over the next five or so years.”
7. Interfaces will be about more than kung fu fighting
We’re already getting an idea of how we can interact with smart watches and augmented glasses, but what about a much wider range of connected devices?
“We look like kung fu fighters with no visible opponents now, but soon, the personalised interface issues will settle on a combination of gestures and voice. Thought-driven? Not by 2025, but not yet out of the question for a further future,” said ibiblio.org founder and university professor Paul Jones.
“Glass and watch interfaces are a start at this combination of strokes, acceleration, voice, and even shaking and touching device-to-device. The key will be separating random human actions from intentional ones, then translating those into machine commands—search, call, direct, etc.”
8. Health tech will be a big beneficiary
Fitbit is just the start of it, seemingly. “Health apps will be the most significant change. Things such as the Fitbit will evolve to allow passive monitoring of blood sugar, caloric intake, etc., as well as to be specialized for specific ailments in individuals—these will allow those who want to improve their heath to do so,” said Jim Hendler, professor of computer science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
“Household objects online will have ways of being part of a broadcast network that can allow owners to be informed in case of recalls, problems, etc. Over time, there will be more direct inputs to the digital world. Technologies that can improve health monitoring will also allow a certain amount of signaling to computers—implanted chips for control will be just coming along in the 2025 timeframe (evolving in part from better prosthetic controllers), so I expect wearables, more than implantables, to be part of life by 2025.”
By 2023, tech journalists will be writing countless stories predicting Apple’s first iBrainchip, in other words.
9. All this stuff may break. Often.
Warning: the Internet of Things won’t always be the Internet of Smoothly-Working Things…
“I warned in my 2002 book Smart Mobs that a new kind of animism (first voiced by Mark Pesce) might arise: what child will be able to know that a doorknob that recognizes their face doesn’t also know many other things?” said author Howard Rheingold. “We will live in a world where many things won’t work, and nobody will know how to fix them.”
He was backed up by Relationship Economy eXpedition (REX) founder Jerry Michalski. “The Internet of Things (IoT) is too complex. It will break, over and over… Most of the devices exposed on the Internet will be vulnerable. They will also be prone to unintended consequences: they will do things nobody designed for beforehand, most of which will be undesirable,” he said.
“We aren’t evolved enough as a species or society to create apps and services that are useful to humanity in the Internet of Things. We’ll try to create efficiencies but be thwarted by nature’s complexity.”
10. Don’t forget about the people whose Things aren’t connected
We should think beyond the developed western world when considering the impact of the Internet of Things, pointed out some respondents.
“The Internet of Things will add to the comfort of people living in developed countries by 2025. It will also have a measurable impact in utilities markets like energy and water. Unfortunately, it might not help people in developing countries with developmental issues, mainly because of the tendency in many developing countries to focus on the short term and not on the long term,” said Miguel Alcaine, International Telecommunication Union area repre