For someone who in the past found it necessary to keep up to date on the latest technology, I’ve found myself recently looking up technical terms and acronyms that I have absolutely no idea what they mean.
This last week, I found myself doing “extensive research” on IoT. The acronym means “Internet of Things.” I suppose that in the broadest of terms, it encompasses everything that’s connected to the Internet. My research uncovered (I’m not making this up) smart toasters, rectal thermometers and fitness collars for dogs — things I would call “dumb items” — that are being connected to the web as part of IoT.
Obviously this is the trend — if you make something, be sure it has an Internet connection. I’m not sure yet, but I think my opinion is that just because something can be connected to the Internet, doesn’t mean it should be.
At least theoretically IoT presents an opportunity to be more efficient in how we do things, saving us both time and money. Almost all electronic devices contain one or more sensors. Your iPhone has sensors to detect temperature and other things — I only recently learned that my iPhone had been tracking my steps — that capability is built in and I didn’t even know it was there.
Of course everything that’s connected to the Internet can be hacked, so the security issues that need to be addressed boggle my mind.
So now that I know what it is, I’m not particularly comfortable having the “things” around me gathering all sorts of data and “sharing” it on the Internet. I’m just not sure our refrigerator needs to have a Facebook account…..
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