Designing for the Internet of Things

Chapter 10. Software Above the Level of a Single Device: The Implications

The following document is adapted from the keynote address by Tim O’Reilly, Software Above the Level of a Single Device: The Implications, given at the Solid 2014 conference. Follow along to learn how you can best take advantage of new technology known as the Internet of Things.

Highlights

• Humans and machines work together in a complex pattern, where data is captured through human activity, stored in the cloud, pre-processed, and then used by a robot in the Internet of Things.
• If we really want it to be an Internet, as opposed to a set of Intranets, we have to think about interoperability.
• The smartphone that we carry in our pockets is filled with sensors, and it’s filled with capabilities, which is the key component to so many of these things.

There is some pretty amazing stuff we are seeing here at the Solid 2014 Conference. I want to give you a little bit of perspective, though.

One of my favorite quotes is this one from Edwin Schlossberg. If you’ve heard me talk, you’ve heard it before: “The skill of writing is to create a context in which other people can think.”

And that means that the way we talk about things is a kind of map. And like any map, it can either take us to the right place, or it can lead us astray. I want to talk a little bit about some of the words that we use in the current context and start thinking about what we might be missing.

I did a word cloud of the Internet of Things article ...