The Blank Collar
  • ABOUT
  • CONSULTING
  • KEYNOTES
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Innovation
  • Blockchain
  • Future of Work
  • Smart Data
  • Internet of Things
Social Links
YouTube 382 Subscribers
Instagram 809 Followers
Twitter 103 Followers
LinkedIn
Facebook 144 Likes
Pinterest 1 Followers
  • ABOUT
  • CONSULTING
  • KEYNOTES
The Blank Collar
The Blank Collar
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Innovation
  • Blockchain
  • Future of Work
  • Smart Data
  • Internet of Things
  • Internet of Things
  • Magazine

From Terrible Dial-Up to Seamless IoT

  • March 26, 2019
  • 1.3K views
  • 3 minute read
  • Kristian Kabashi
Total
0
Shares
0
0
0

Remember yelling at your brother to get off the phone so that you could get on the internet? Before the instant cloud downloads and ultra-fast streaming, you had to wait for your dial-up to connect. Nowadays, waiting for a laggy YouTube clip to load causes critical levels of frustration. It all runs so smoothly that it’s hard to imagine that there were massive struggles and changes the world underwent to get the technology behind the internet working. But the truth is, we’ve had to evolve our infrastructural systems a hundred times over to support this change. The Internet of Things is no exception to that rule.

 

The flip

Before we get into IoT talk, let’s make an important distinction. Infrastructure inversion is a switch in mindset, kind of like a foreground-background switch. For example, let’s consider the case of the bicycle. Early critics considered it to be a dangerous substitute for a horse—a fad and a nuisance along narrow city streets. Despite that initial fear, however, we’ve now got cities like Copenhagen. Our lifestyles and urban spaces have been completely revitalized by bicycles. The solution, in this case, was not to make the bikes more narrow-street-friendly but to build a new infrastructure to support it. This is what we mean when we say “infrastructure inversion”— the process of flipping the way we look at the problems of novel technology. It’s a productive way to analyze our tech problems and results in plenty of opportunities for invention and innovation of bigger, better, faster, and smarter things.

 

Support for the IoT

So how does this apply to the IoT? Judging by the fact that we all didn’t get to work on time today in perfectly-synced autonomous vehicles, there are still a ton of limitations to IoT technology. People like to talk about how it’s too complex, or just isn’t useful. But consider this: in the IoT, objects share massive amounts of data with each other in real-time. They’re connected via Bluetooth chips, wifi, radio— all of our existing infrastructure. But these narrow city streets will no longer do! Just like with bicycles, if we change the way our infrastructure functions and communicates, we can make things like commuting to work more efficient and eco-friendly.

 

Paving the way

It’s not the objects, it’s their environment. Powerful IoT objects like smart speakers still rely on something as finicky as your router. It’s high time we focus our efforts on a new infrastructure where machine-enhanced objects form a network, like a Smart City. If we try to look for new channels, we might even be able to change the whole economy: most products in the future will be manufactured with the IoT in mind. That means a chip in nearly everything you own— and already, projections show the number of IoT devices will exceed 75 billion by 2025. That’s ten IoT devices for every one person on Earth.

 

Growing pains

No one liked the internet when it first came out. And it’s easy to see why. The earliest versions of the internet were built to run on the infrastructure we already had— and cramming large amounts of data through your phone line doesn’t work very well at all. And so people didn’t trust it right away. But you know how that story went: as the internet grew, so did the need for dedicated internet technology— and the new internet infrastructure caused a massive boom in technological and societal innovation. Now, we do it all online. And soon enough, the IoT will have its day. Let’s look forward to our seamless future.

Total
0
Shares
Share 0
Tweet 0
Share 0
Share 0
Kristian Kabashi

I recognize emerging business opportunities before they emerge. And I have a knack for quickly turning ideas into innovations. Because if you want to be first, you have to bring an idea from infancy to adulthood with speed and agility. My years working in tech and creative worlds has taught me the importance of the right mixture of science and art. And I’ve learned firsthand the most important factor of innovation: human insight. You don’t question what people already have, you ask what they’re missing. What are you missing out on?

Previous Article
  • Internet of Things

Let’s talk autonomous cars

  • March 25, 2019
  • Kristian Kabashi
View Post
Next Article
  • Artificial Intelligence

Are AI Assistants the Face of Singularity?

  • June 27, 2019
  • Kristian Kabashi
View Post
You May Also Like
View Post
  • Internet of Things

IOT is creating a measurable world

  • July 1, 2019
  • Kristian Kabashi
View Post
  • Internet of Things

Let’s talk autonomous cars

  • March 25, 2019
  • Kristian Kabashi
View Post
  • Internet of Things

Should the future be frictionless?

  • March 23, 2019
  • Kristian Kabashi
View Post
  • Future of Work
  • Magazine

The Digital Revolution IRL

  • March 20, 2019
  • Kristian Kabashi
View Post
  • Internet of Things

Smart Everything: Welcome to the IOT

  • July 23, 2018
  • Kristian Kabashi
View Post
  • Innovation
  • Magazine

AR: An Underdog

  • July 16, 2018
  • Kristian Kabashi
View Post
  • Future of Work
  • Magazine

The Sunny Side of Side Hustle

  • June 12, 2018
  • Kristian Kabashi
View Post
  • Future of Work
  • Magazine

The New Robot in the Office

  • May 2, 2018
  • Kristian Kabashi

Sign Up for Our Newsletters

A weekly summary from the web about the future work of work

  • About
  • Terms
  • Impressum

Work is for Bots, Life is for Humans

Disclaimer & Privacy>

Input your search keywords and press Enter.