(This is Article #3 in the series. All 3 articles are in continuation, I suggest you read the previous two articles before starting with this one.
Click here to read Article #2)
*In the first & second articles, I have presented ideas on how your ‘smart’ day will look like in not many years from now. We shall go a step further with this concluding article.*
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You wave your hand and the light goes off, the smart ring on your finger has done the trick.
The future might bring so much of smartness all around. Sick of reading the word ‘smart’ already in the previous two parts of the article? Well, apart from the 45 smart gadgets that were a part of your daily life as described in the previous two articles, there are many more things which will get smarter in the coming years.
Smarter street lamps – smarter billing – smarter VR experiences – smarter printing – smarter robots – smart diapers – smart stadiums – smart classrooms – smart sport centres – smart coaching institutes – smart eye gear – smart thermostat – smart fans – smart air quality control systems – smart water usage devices – smart stoves – smart utensils – smart pen – smart books – smart papers – smart chargers – smart drones – smart piggy banks – smart pet education software – smart self-healing concrete – smart kettles – smart routers – smart smoke detectors – so on and so forth.
Just look around you right now and whatever you see will be transformed soon & become smart. You will be able to do much more everyday with such enormous multi-tasking capabilities. What kind of possibilities & what kind of limitations do you think this transformation would bring along? Will IoT give rise to a bigger Silicon Valley? Or will it be the big daddy of Silicon Valley and guide it on the path of becoming smarter? And what kind of prospects lie when this technology synergizes with other break-through technologies of our time?
Now further imagine the possibilities once IoT merges with innovations like AI, Big Data, Virtual Reality and 3D printing. 3D printed IoT devices will bring along the biggest disruption in the market I reckon. You could manufacture all these smart devices at your home in real-time and as per demand. Smart 3D printer would constantly collect data from the IoT devices it shares the network with. Analyzing this data, the printer will keep a track of all the components in any of our devices that need to be replaced and that component will be printed live in front of your eyes. Now, you might wonder how could we 3D print smart devices! Yes, that’s a question innovators have recently answered positively. Ever heard about InfraStructs project? Based on terahertz-imaging technology, they have developed tags that embed machine-readable information into physical objects! That’s how we will 3D print intelligent devices.
Now, we have already 3D printed models of human heart! Thinking out loud, imagine a day when we will 3D print a heart embedded with terahertz tags! “Networked Hearts” or “Machine-readable Hearts”, what opportunities would this present to us? Will our machines someday read our hearts? Will my mobile phone show to me in visuals whatever is in my heart? Will I be able to project my emotions using a smart VR device connected with my heart? Will my personal AI reach out to the personal AI of the girl I love to check whether she feels the same? Will this lead to our transition to transhumans & cyborgs?
While AI, 3D printing, VR & IoT are fighting it out, Big Data (not Big Brother, pun intended) is smiling silently in reassurance, saying “the scenarios described here are closer to reality than we think”!
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I’ll end this series with one question!
Now that we know the possibilities are infinite, what more ideas can you conjure up for IoT?
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PS: Do not forget to check out the links in the ‘Further Tripping’ section if you still have an appetite for further mind-screwing!
Further Tripping:
Read more about the greatest collaboration of technologies – IoT & 3D Printing
Read more about the synergy of IoT & Big Data here
Check out the best IoT products of CES 2016 here
Some more IoT gadgets from CES 2016
Some more IoT innovations that already exist
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Image Sources: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
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