It was the 9th of April: not only Easter Monday, but also Global Internet of Things Day. Most people will not have heard about it, but ultimately people in approximately 14 meetings in 13 places focused on issues related to the development and structuring of the Internet of Things.
On the way to the meeting in Rotterdam, in the café of the Netherlands Architecture Institute, I cannot ignore the first concrete manifestations of that Internet of Things in my daily living environment. My smartphone with camera and location service and web 2.0 capabilities, such as Twitter (I now follow tweets from the police helicopter), LinkedIn and WhatsApp, means that I as a person am always and everywhere connected to the internet (at least, if the provider cooperates). I can share information in the form of speech, text, images and music with whomever or whatever I choose, regardless of where he, she or it is. At the same time, my telephone forms my personal hub to various sensors in my environment that warn me of rain and keep me updated (I hope) on the progress in, for example, public transport. This time I am travelling by underground and I am using the OV chip card with RFID chip for entry and to make payment, and once I have arrived at the platform I am watched by cameras that are installed there with various good intentions and that follow me to the exit. An RFID chip has also been placed in the book that I'm reading to make it traceable as an item in stock. Now, these are all still separate elements in my environment that give me a sense of living in a digitised world.
Machine to machine
It is the sum of the connections between me, other people and objects on the internet that has increased tremendously in the past decade and that will only continue to grow, as Paul Dourish (1) and Genevieva Bell have already observed (2007). In reports from the European Union (2010) (2), as well, the assumption is made that by 2020 approximately 50 to 100 billion objects will be connected with the internet. All of these objects discern information in their environment and want to communicate this information with other objects and the rest of the world. In a report by the OECD (3) (2012), this form of communication between objects is referred to as ‘machine to machine’ communication. The reporters of the OECD describe this form of communication as the facility with which objects are or will be connected with each other and the world by means of various fixed and wireless networks. As I observe during my trip, the Internet of Things actually already exists and will only continue to grow in the coming years. As a result of this unstoppable growth, it will slowly but surely permeate our day-to-day lives, our personal lives and our working lives, and this will change them drastically. No longer will I be accompanied on my journey by separate digital elements; rather, these elements will communicate with each other and provide me with a framework of information during my trip, just as Heidegger (4) (1977) formulated decades ago.
Social challenges
It is not the technology that makes the Internet of Things possible that attracts the interest of and brings together the five visitors upon arrival at the Netherlands Architecture Institute. It is the new possibilities and the social challenges that the Internet of Things (IoT) offers that form the common theme in the afternoon’s discussion. What will the IoT mean, for example, for our physical environment and our experiences in it? Does the IoT have an impact on the rapidly progressing social developments, such as urbanisation or the aging population? What does it mean for us as people to live surrounded by technology in our everyday reality? Time and again we return to the question of what kind of influence can and will we exert on the development of the IoT and on what scale? The Netherlands is too small to truly be able to influence this global development. Cooperation within Europe appears to be the only practicable path if you don’t want to get trampled underfoot. Are there actually still traditional forms of management and control in this network-based development? Whether we want it or not, the development of the Internet of Things will raise new questions, for example, over the traditional form of organisations and the division of responsibilities between man and machine. In the development towards the Internet of Things, however, an unavoidable question formulated by Teun Hardjono and myself (5) (2011) will have a central focus, specifically: “Will there be somebody who has the ultimate power in the network and the connections and information within it, and if so, who will this be? Or will we have to bow to the virtual world in which we will then be living?”
Ben van Lier works at Centric as an account director and, in that function, is involved in research and analysis of developments in the areas of overlap between organisation and technology within the various market segments.
Ben van Lier works at Centric as an account director and, in that function, is involved in research and analysis of developments in the areas of overlap between organisation and technology within the various market segments.
Bell G. and Dourish P. (2007). "Yesterday's tomorrows: Notes on ubiquitous computing's dominant visison" Personal and Ubiquitous computing 11 (2): 133-143.
- Sundmaeker H. Guillemin P. Friess P. and Woelffle S. (2010). Vision and Challenges for realising the Internet of Things, Publication office of the European Union http://www.actif-europe.eu/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_details&gid=20&Itemid=68
- OECD (2012), “Machine-to-Machine Communications: Connecting Billions of Devices”, OECD Digital Economy Papers, No. 192, OECD Publishing. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/5k9gsh2gp043-en
- Heidegger M. (1977). The question concerning technology and other essays. New York, Harper & Row Publishers inc. ISBN 0061319694
- Lier v. B. and Hardjono T.W. (2011). "A system theoretical approach to interoperability of information " Systemic practice and action research. Vol. 24 pp. 479-497.
