The Internet of Things is a vision to build a world where every object can be approached both analogue and digital. Nearly all objects that are being sold hold barcodes. That identifies them in a batch. In the coming years we will see a logistic ecology of barcodes, 2and 3Dbarcodes (that you can read with software you download on your mobile phone), Ipv6, 6Lowpan, and radio frequency identification (rfid). These are tiny chips that are passive (no batteries) uniquely identifying the objects (every can of coke has its own name) through the radio waves generated by either fixed (shops, work) rfid readers or mobile ones soon to be embedded in mobile phones. The small antenna picks up the waves from the reader and sends back its unique number. It says ‘here I am’.
This is a ‘hit’ in a database. Somewhere, it could be quite local in the memory of the reader, or in a local computer in a store, or quite global as nearly all of these devices are online all the time, a real unique number pops up in some xml-like file. Hi there, the number says. And whenever a number pops up, reveals itself in the database, a certain value can be attached to that number, a certain action can be attached to that number, a certain note can be attached to that number. This, after all, is the whole purpose of the system. To script some sense of order into a world in such a state, it can only be described as a mess.
This basically means that all thinking before the IOT comes alive becomes meaning less. The IOT is the death of any subject-object relationship. From the moment it goes live, all and every relationship of me and my surroundings, objects, clothes, mobility… w h a t e v e r, will have an added component, a digital potentiality that is outside of my control. Things are in threes now, forever. So what you say. Every generation builds it own add-ons to the notions of reality, to what it believes are the foundations of the real. What makes this move so different?
There is a table. On the table a glass. A glass of tea, jasmine? Jasmine tea. Hmm, good tea. I reach for the glass in a hurry, I gotta run. My hand, it feels like sweeping it off the table yet gently grasp it. I am not in a hurry at ll. I can take it in my hand and admire the engravings. I can see drops of condensed water gently not quite sliding over the edge. I am not in a hurry. I pour you a glass. I offer it to you. Here, a glass of Jasmine tea. There are a great number of ways to reach out for a glass. And now this glass is the one your grandmother gave to you on her dying bed. You put it on the table. Pour out jasmine tea. The affordances of a lifetime, the scope of a generation, as your reach out for the cup, the gesture itself becomes the reality that bridges worlds. No kidding. Just what it is. Try to argue with that! I’m not afraid to write this.
Let me tell you what will happen, quickly, as all things will be going quickly. A child will grow up and see a table. A glass on that table. She will put her mobile phone/device/cuddle next to the glass. She wants to find out what it is, what it means. She will for evermore and from the beginning of time do this with and through mediating devices. And lo and behold, a movie starts playing on her cuddle, triggered buy the tag embedded in the glass. The movie is scripted by the jasmine tea providers who tell the stories they want to tell. Finally the real has become scriptable and the scriptable becomes the real.
I believe this has already started. Probably it will take only a few generations.
Rob van Kranenburg
