Back in the old days, the 1960’s and 1970’s, people wanted to talk more with their computers. I remember my first computer — it was just me and my programs. We had good times together, just the two of us, but we were lonely. We wanted some more friends to talk to.
Then one day, someone, or a few of those someone’s, a military person over there, a presidential aspirant here, a professor and a corporate guy and gal said, at their different locations and somewhat different times, but in pretty much the same way: “Let’s have more fun! Let’s talk to each other! Not that limited/centralized/proprietary corporate/government/academic proper talk that we do at work with just a few fellow employees. Let’s all talk together without restrictions.”
The Internet was born in the basements, garages, boardrooms and backrooms of those far-thinkers.
This is my definition of the Internet: “An open, linked, electronic, digitalized, information-sharing network between users and sources.” This was the first Internet, the first information highway, the Internet “1”. Sources made their information available to one and to all. With their servers, they served up a menu of diverse thoughts to anyone with an appetite.
In response, the all of us upgraded our computers and services to reach those servers and their information. One rule bound the many: No rules, no barriers, no red tape, no corporate protocols, no government regulations, no costs beyond the costs of getting on and taking the ride, and no limits. Today, the Internet “1” is as close to limitless as a thing of man and woman can be. It is the stuff of dreams that links us all to all us persons and our things.
Remember “The Brave Little Toaster.” It was a 1980 novel and 1987 movie. A small cabin in the woods is the home of a toaster, a lamp, an electric blanket, a radio and a vacuum cleaner. Their master has left, and the household appliances are lonely and feeling left out. One day, the little friends talk things over and decide to go on an adventure. What follows is the great and grand quest of the talking gadgets to find and communicate with their person. It was a wonder of a story, and it was the start of another and new Internet.
Yes, there is a new Internet on the way to you.
The new Internet of Things is approaching.
Get prepared to meet your appliances.
Internet “1” was between you and me and our data, between the 1st big people of the airways. As a person, you’re on it now, reading this blog. You are the user. This is a source of information (hopefully somewhat entertaining). You reached here over an open, linked, electronic, digitalized network. You are on the traditional, old-fashioned, people-to-people Internet “1.”
Get ready for Internet “0” — “0” because the Internet is now available to the smallest of things.
It’s all possible because of the new microcontrollers. These are tiny computers for appliances. The size of a pen tip, they cost a few small coins and use almost no power. In a nutshell, they fit the budget of just about everything in your home: the light bulb you’re reading by, the coffee maker over there on the counter, the switch on the wall, the exercise machine you haven’t used in a while, that over-heated TV in the corner, and even your new electronic tooth brush. Toasters, lamps, electric blankets, radios (do we still have radios?) and vacuum cleaners can now speak directly to each other, not just across the cabin in the woods, but to each other around the world. And, we can listen in. And, smart processors can design new programs to use all that data-chatter our appliances are exchanging.
It is the brave new world of the Internet of Things, Internet “0.”
What will they think of next?
And, who?
Grandpa Jim