Learning to Love Data Science

Chapter 4. When Hardware Meets Software

Topline Summary

Until recently, the term “smart machines” evoked thoughts of R2-D2, HAL, or the Terminator. Today, we’re more likely to think of thermostats, wearable fitness trackers, and automobiles. Hardware and software have moved closer together, blurring the lines that traditionally separated developers, designers, manufacturers, and users.

This report, written in the spring of 2014, describes how the Internet of Things, 3D printing, and the Maker Movement are transforming the world of product development and laying the foundation for a new generation of “indie” manufacturers and tech startups.

Welcome to the Age of Indie Hardware

In the Internet of Things, what’s old is new, and what’s new happens much faster.

When most of us first caught up with the Internet, it seemed like a magical door to a virtual reality played out in the infinite reaches of cyberspace. Today, it seems as though everyone is talking about the Internet in terms of its ability to get things done in the physical world of meat and machinery. We hear people talking about the Internet of Things, the Industrial Internet, and the Internet of Everything.

Is the Internet a wonderful rabbit hole into the infinite mind of the cosmos or the unsexy front end of a new industrial age? As Al Pacino puts it so eloquently in The Godfather Part III, “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.”

For those of us in the trenches of the Internet counterrevolution, the apparent ...