I wrote The Real Internet of Things to answer the question of where all this consumer tech was eventually going to lead us. I think I mostly captured it there, but wanted to summarize here. I’m not sure where Microsoft is in this, and neither is anyone else. Right now we basically have Apple and Google fighting for…

These are published chapters from my book The real Internet of Things, published on January 1st, 2017. Thanks to Saša Zdjelar, Andrew Ringlein, and Jason Haddix for reading various versions and fragments of this text. Your input and support throughout this precarious first-book experience was deeply felt and appreciated. Thanks especially to Saša for enthusiastically talking through many…

These are published chapters from my book The real Internet of Things, published on January 1st, 2017. San Francisco CA, London UK, Newark CA 2016 macOS Sierra Vim Markdown Pandoc Zomby, Glitch Mob, Technoboy, Ratatat, Cryptex, Behemoth, Opeth, Gojira CHAPTER NAVIGATION

These are published chapters from my book The real Internet of Things, published on January 1st, 2017. There are many who will read this book and see nothing but dystopia. In certain moods, I’m one of those people. What’s important to understand, however, is that I’m not conjuring this reality into existence. I’m not enabling it to happen.…

These are published chapters from my book The real Internet of Things, published on January 1st, 2017. So we’ve talked through the various concepts. But what does this all get us? How is this the future of technology and humanity? There have been three main themes throughout this book: That we can predict the future of technology through…

These are published chapters from my book The real Internet of Things, published on January 1st, 2017. We covered a lot of ideas here, so let’s just review the main points. There are basic trends in technology that we can see crystallizing: centralized to peer-to-peer, forced to natural, obvious to invisible, manual to automatic, periodic to continuous, scheduled…

These are published chapters from my book The real Internet of Things, published on January 1st, 2017. Each of the chapters you’ve read so far have introduced a single concept per section. I did this to make the concept crisp and simple, which isn’t possible if you start talking about how it might be implemented. In this section…

These are published chapters from my book The real Internet of Things, published on January 1st, 2017. We’ve talked about how the future of work is largely person-to-person interaction mediated by a daemon-powered tech layer, but the peer-to-peer model goes far beyond employment. What daemonized peer-to-peer really enables is less reliance on centralized institutions. If you are in…

These are published chapters from my book The real Internet of Things, published on January 1st, 2017. Now that we’ve talked about the infrastructure for collecting, analyzing, and presenting information, we can move on to a concept I call Desired Outcome Management (DOM). The assumption underpinning DOM is the simple claim that we want to improve things but…

These are published chapters from my book The real Internet of Things, published on January 1st, 2017. Once we are powered by realtime data and the infrastructure that makes use of it, the intelligence of our algorithms will become paramount. Two areas seem particularly promising: machine learning and evolutionary algorithms. Machine Learning Machine Learning is basically the upgrade…

These are published chapters from my book The real Internet of Things, published on January 1st, 2017. There are many different information technologies that will be invented and adopted in the coming decades, but I believe there are four (4) primary categories that they will all fall into. Realtime Data Data Transfer Analysis Algorithms Presentation Interfaces Realtime Data…

These are published chapters from my book The real Internet of Things, published on January 1st, 2017. Daemonization will fundamentally alter how people work. Businesses will continue shedding human jobs because humans will become increasingly costly, inconsistent, and low-quality compared to algorithms. The future of work is the exchange of value between individuals and groups of individuals, which…

These are published chapters from my book The real Internet of Things, published on January 1st, 2017. The algorithm is the centerpiece of expertise. It’s ultimately the way of doing something, and that’s what makes one offering better than another. In the past, the core algorithm of a business has been combined with a massive number of other…

These are published chapters from my book The real Internet of Things, published on January 1st, 2017. The combination of daemonization and digital assistants will have another application (beyond providing monitoring for safety) that will prove extremely compelling: They will give people extraordinary powers of perception, knowledge, and even action. As you move through the world on a…

These are published chapters from my book The real Internet of Things, published on January 1st, 2017. We’ve already discussed the concept of continuous advocacy, whereby the digital assistant is constantly studying the world, curating, and presenting you context-sensitive data that might help you in your life. But there’s another use case for your digital assistant being continuously…

These are published chapters from my book The real Internet of Things, published on January 1st, 2017. Connecting algorithms to sensors is going to have a profound impact on how we parse reality, and this effect will be magnified exponentially as people start lifecasting. Lifecasting, as I wrote about in 2008, is where a significant percentage of the…

These are published chapters from my book The real Internet of Things, published on January 1st, 2017. In addition to curation and advocacy, digital assistants will also provide another key type of experience enhancement—continuous customization of our environment according to one’s desires and preferences. When you consider all potentially customizable elements of a restaurant, a vehicle, a workplace,…

These are published chapters from my book The real Internet of Things, published on January 1st, 2017. Once identity (supported by proper authentication) is thoroughly established, the next thing it’ll enable is a rich reputation infrastructure. Reputation has been a crucial human attribute for thousands of years. Whether you’re in a village, a family, or a corporation, your…

These are published chapters from my book The real Internet of Things, published on January 1st, 2017. A key component of daemonization is the fact that each person’s (or object’s) daemon represents their unique and centralized identity online, and all object daemons are speaking authoritatively as themselves. So when a DA requests to see products, requests a ride,…

These are published chapters from my book The real Internet of Things, published on January 1st, 2017. Augmented Reality is a particularly important addition to the combination of Daemonization and Digital Assistants, as it will give humans entirely new ways of seeing and interacting with the world. When you look at a strange person in a non-augmented (NAUG)…

These are published chapters from my book The real Internet of Things, published on January 1st, 2017. One of the most powerful aspects of Digital Assistants is that they will be constant and inexhaustible consumers of the world’s services on behalf of their principals. What music should you listen to? What food should you try? Who should you…

These are published chapters from my book The real Internet of Things, published on January 1st, 2017. The most visible and significant role that Synthetic Intelligence will play in the near future will be serving as the interface between humans and the world. To clarify, I don’t mean the ever-promised, conscious, and self-improving brand of SI that so…

These are published chapters from my book The real Internet of Things, published on January 1st, 2017. We’ve seen the benefits of realtime data for gathering information about the world, but the interactive part of daemons will prove even more powerful. Daemons will likely begin as REST APIs, and all manner of intuitive endpoints will be available depending…

These are published chapters from my book The real Internet of Things, published on January 1st, 2017. Perhaps the best way to think of a daemonized world is to imagine a fabric of interactive and interconnected nodes made up of every object. Then imagine each of these nodes having instant access to the state of every other node…

These are published chapters from my book The real Internet of Things, published on January 1st, 2017. There currently isn’t a good way to maintain real-time information about objects in the world. The way it’s currently done is indirect in a way that will seem primitive once we leave it behind. If you want information about a human,…

These are published chapters from my book The real Internet of Things, published on January 1st, 2017. Before we discuss the main concepts, I want to call out a number of technological and civilizational trends that are useful to notice and observe. While the forces are somewhat independent, they often interact with one another, and when grouped together…

These are published chapters from my book The real Internet of Things, published on January 1st, 2017. The “Internet of Things” means many different things to many different people, so let’s start with what this book is and is not. This book is not about the transient technical details that will inevitably transition over the next few years.…

A while back I wrote that Evolutionary Algorithms Could be More Significant Than Machine Learning. The reason for this is that they keep improving towards a specific goal, without additional input, by leveraging the powers of evolution, i.e., reproduction, variation, heritability, and differential success. Reinforcement Learning is considered a subset of Machine Learning by many, so this isn’t…

I keep thinking of interesting use cases for Machine Learning at various stages of its development (near and more distant future), and I figured I’d capture them. I’ll also include common ones and interesting ones I’ve heard elsewhere. Extract faces from video, and tell you 1) if they’re known criminals, 2) if their agitated in some way that…

People mean many different things when they use the term Net Neutrality, but I think what they generally reduce to is, “Maintaining an internet that is fair and useful for all users.” That’s hard to disagree with, and I certainly don’t. If that’s what it means, then I’m 100% for it. But some people think Net Neutrality means…

I think there’s confusion around two distinct and practical benefits of Machine Learning (which is somewhat distinct from Artificial Intelligence). Listen to the Audio Version of this essay. Superior Analysis — A Machine Learning solution is being compared to a human with the best training in the world, e.g., a recognized oncologist, and they’re going head to head…