The Internet of Thingamajigs in Imagine Park

ImaginePark

Kicking off Imagine Park this year was a panel discussing just how connected our things have become. And not just our smartphones and computers, but the myriad objects that now (and seemingly all of the sudden) can connect to the Internet.

Qualcomm’s Rob Chandhok was first up and revealed how Qualcomm is tackling the future of connected objects. He made the point that in many ways, the future of the Internet of Things is less about the things themselves and more the platform on which they function. And for Rob, that means proximity. The Internet is already very good at pulling in data from far away places, so the next wave of technology, he says, will have to tackle how to engage with the devices only a few feet away. Conceptually, there’s no limit to type of data that can be shared between devices.

JT Taylor from Cisco imagines a world where a wearable piece of tech can interact with the packaged food we eat, possibly even alerting us to potential food allergens.

And in an impressive validation of the efficiency of creating connected devices, Karthik Ranjan and his team from ARM showed off a little device that automatically dims the room lights as an individual plays or pauses a movie. This seemingly simple demonstration revealed how tiny and endless the possibilities are when we begin to connect everything together.

And though details weren’t divulged, the presenters expressed how quickly and inexpensively this little gadget was made. Referring to it even as “disposable pricing”. The growth of digital things is predicted to push us to 25 billion permanently connected devices by 2020.  The question is not whether the Internet of Things will happen or even when it will happen, but whether or not we’ll be prepared both culturally and technologically when it does.

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