Click here for the First Part of this article.

Exactly How Green?

There’s no doubt about the greening consequences of the Internet of Things.  As data flows in real time, our devices can make urgent decisions just as soon, saving us time and effort.  That’s very intuitive, yes.

How green exactly is the Internet of Things?
(Image from www.djokic.org)

But do we really need this many so many devices connected to the Internet 24/7?  Whether we like it or not, all those connected devices use up energy, no matter how low at sleep setting, so that they can jump back to life anytime we need them to.  The prospect of millions of always-online devices all over the world sucking up energy isn’t very green at all. 

For a building, yes we can understand the need for perpetual round-the-clock interconnectedness, but maybe not so much in the homes—unless luxury is what we’re after. 

 And then there’s Security (or Lack Thereof)

Last November 2013, Target’s financial systems was hacked through an IoT third-party vendor specializing in HVAC.  The sensor that was supposed to gather data regarding store temperature and duration of a customer’s stay, but for some reason hackers were able to exploit a vulnerability in the system. 

Target store (Image from www.platformnation.com)

That’s the thing about the Internet of Things: as we make all sorts of data freely available to the machines (credit card number, geographic location, energy use pattern, the times we leave and arrive at home, body mass index, even our preferred brand of canned sardines, and so much more data we think are trivial), we essentially give up our privacy.  It only takes a cunning hacker to piece together those data, and take control of say our homes and buildings’ alarm system via our smart fridge. 

Much of the problem in the security of the Internet of Things lie in the difficulty to patch vulnerabilities in our connected devices.  Right now, manufacturers are bent on producing ever new devices to the market, yet forget to support the old ones they’ve brought out.  And if patches ever get made, users aren’t too keen on updating.

And with so much data to mine nowadays, hackers are getting excited.

That’s not to say only our fellow humans can do us harm.  As machines get more intelligent, far more intelligent than us, it just might be possible for them to become self-aware and even self-replicate, and in due time, take over us.  Artificial intelligence has always been the stuff of science fiction—think The Matrix, Terminator, I Robot, R.U.R., etc.  It’s scary, and yet it’s an all-too-real prospect.   

Jetsons World, Here We Come!  Soon. 

So what we can say is this: The Internet of Things is here—and in a way—is also not yet here but is well on its way.  With so many stumbling blocks out there, the promise of a Jetsons world with its intuitive gadgets and smart built world is not yet happening.  Thankfully, developers and engineers are paving the way, changing and fine-tuning the details as they go on.  As a result, a lot of stuff in this article might not hold true in a few years’ time.  In fact a lot of stuff that’s been written so far about the Internet of Things, are still subject to change, and that’s understandable for a nascent technology.

For now, all we have are disparate, ever-sensing smart devices trying to communicate to us, and us trying to make sense of it all.