On Trusting Your Socks
to Find Each Other
Elizabeth F. Churchill
Yahoo! Research | churchill@acm.org
I was recently told that we are
moving toward a world of “the
Internet of Things.” I affectionately call this “the arrival of the
IoTs” (pronounced “eeyuts”). It
seems this revolution will be
most helpful specifically in the
creation of the “aware home.”
For example, if I am traveling, I can still vigilantly watch
what is going on in my abode.
I can control ventilation and
heating. My front door will open
for approved visitors even when
I am not there. And hopefully it
won’t be long before all my misplaced possessions start messaging me about their whereabouts. Going further, we all
know that ordering food over
the Internet has become commonplace. However, imagine if
my fridge decides I don’t have
enough food and sends me a
message to ask if it should place
a delivery food order. It could
even place the order without
consulting me, with delivery
set for my usual arrival. Maybe
my laundry basket will start
crowing for attention because it
is too full. Currently, these systems work separately, but we
are fast approaching a world in
which the systems will speak to
one another. Goodness knows
what will happen when they
all start talking to each other.
Am I going to be embarrassed
when my fridge and laundry
basket confer and decide I fit
the programmed-for persona
of a slob and therefore require
an upgrade of commodity
decision-making on my behalf?
This is a whole different kind of
commodity product agency.
Before I continue elaborating scenarios for this emerging
IoTs world, it is worth saying a
little more about what is meant
by the “Internet of Things.” A
somewhat rough Wikipedia
entry states the following:
“In computing, the Internet of
Things refers to a, usually wireless and self-configuring, wireless
network between objects, such as
household appliances.”
It goes on to speculate that
such connected objects would
be things like “cans, books,
shoes or parts of cars,” all of
which would be “equipped with
minuscule identifying devices.”
How is this going to be possible? A proposed change is
the move from IPv4 (Internet
Protocol Version 4), the infrastructure of our current
Internet world, to IPv6 (Internet
Protocol Version 6). IPv4 was
completed in the 1970s, and
many networking experts
believe we are almost out of
the four billion addresses that
are available in IPv4. IPv6 offers
expanded addressing, moving from a 32-bit address to
a 128-bit addressing method,
so we can identify many more
objects. Although the driving scenario for the enthusiastic Wikipedian authors is
the reduction of stock shortages and wasted products, the
dream has more layers.
The weak Io Ts hypothesis (version lite) is that most
objects will be addressable so
devices can be “pinged” to see
where they are and what they
are up to. In the version-lite
world, this is likely to be a network of dumb things that can
be pinged and located; these
locatable objects can’t, except
in the most minimal ways,
answer back. Furthermore,
aside from the most rudimentary data exchange, there will be
little connection between the
objects in the network. These
objects will not be able to make
decisions for themselves or
chatter amongst themselves.
The strong IoTs hypothesis
(the “full fat” version) includes
the world of “spime”—a concept
invoked first by science fiction
writer Bruce Sterling. In 2004
Sterling painted an image of
an interactive device that is
enhanced with RFID and GPS
tracking and can thus track
its history of use. As more
objects become addressable
and develop more intelligence
and agency, we will have a
world of autonomous, sort-of
sentient devices that commu-
