DIGITAL - The Internet of Things: What's Next?

The Internet of Things (IoT) promises smart systems for consumers, businesses, and governments – a growing network of objects connecting and communicating with each other in response to the people using them.

(dreamstime.com)

 

This network of devices already includes wearables such as smartwatches, fitness trackers, and health monitors, nearables such as app-interactive cars, voice-responsive appliances, and home automation systems, and more remote applications such as the many sensors and devices that make up smart cities.

The future of the Internet of Things is, in some ways, easy to predict. It will continue to grow, with an estimated 38 billion connected devices by 2020, giving users more along the existing trajectory of connectivity and data collection.

But knowing that it will continue to grow doesn’t mean knowing how and in what directions it will grow.

Although much of the infrastructure is already in place, accessibility and reliability are ongoing issues and will demand creative answers that may further revolutionize the Internet of Things.

New devices, and new ways to use existing devices, mean that change happens rapidly and sometimes unpredictably.

The coffee pot is an example of the trajectory of the Internet of Things.

In 1991, even before the World Wide Web, the Trojan Room Coffee Pot inspired the first Internet of Things application. Using a video frame-grabber, a camera, and some newly written programs, students at the University of Cambridge were able to check whether there was coffee in the pot before making the trek to the machine.

The Trojan Room Coffee Pot inspired the development of the first web cam, and coffee technology continues to develop.

Coffee pots today are wifi-connectable, programmable, and can be controlled by alarm clocks or phone apps. Coffee-addicted nerds know where their priorities lie.

That’s the fundamental principle behind the Internet of Things – the idea that devices can collect data that allows users to be more efficient, more informed, and better able to access what they need or want.

Whether it’s coffee or consumer data, the Internet of Things will give users more of it, more efficiently, using more devices connected in creative ways.

Data is the lifeblood of the Internet of Things.

Home automation relies on devices collecting and conveying data about use habits, and adjusting lights, temperature, locks, humidity, and a variety of other factors in response.

Smart cities similarly rely on use data to help governments provide services more effectively. Traffic control is one area where the data collected through the Internet of Things impacts civic planning – the road sensors, connected cars, even drivers’ phones providing GPS information all combine to give governments a better idea of how roads are used and how best to manage them.

It doesn’t stop with traffic control, though. The Internet of Things will impact every aspect of modern life, and already does.

Sensors in fridges will be able to tell when the milk has gone off, sensors in airports will be able to determine the presence of dangerous substances, cars (such as the Tesla) will continue to become more and more connected and data-loaded.

Humans are already surrounded by things, and those things are beginning to connect to each other in ways that will make life interesting, exciting, and potentially very risky.

By Tiffany Sostar

Tiffany is a writer, editor, academic, and animal lover who came late to her appreciation of pets. At 18, a rescue pup named Tasha saved her from a depression and she hasn't looked back. She has worked as the canine behaviour program coordinator for the Calgary Humane Society, and was a dog trainer specializing in working with fearful and reactive dogs for many years. She doesn't have any pets right now, but makes up for it by giving her petsitting clients (and any dogs she comes across on her frequent coffee shop adventures) extra snuggles.

DIGITAL - What Exactly is the 'Internet of Things'?

Defining the Internet is a challenge.

Is the internet what it contains? If so, it is a massive accumulation of data encompassing everything from the most esoteric to the most mundane, from digitized historical documents and academic research to community forums and personal content.

Is the internet the infrastructure that supports it? If that’s the case, then it is a global framework of servers, bundles of wires, routers, switches and satellites that enable devices to access the data of the internet.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is an ongoing evolution of the internet that expands both the content and the infrastructure of the internet.

According to a 2016 Special Report on Technology by Accountancy SA, “The next evolution in connectivity is creating a network of interconnected 'objects'.”

This interconnected network of objects is the Internet of Things, and it is already changing the way people interact with their homes, malls, cars, and even cities.

This network depends on “smart” devices – any electronic device that can connect to the internet or to other devices. These can be as simple as a device with an on/off switch that can be triggered by another device, or as complex as a device equipped with sensors and other information-gathering equipment.

People are already using utilities like location-based reminders on phones, which use a combination of GPS in the phone and reminder software to let users know when they’re near the grocery store, or give them a reminder to take dinner out to thaw when they arrive home.

These smart devices communicate with each other and with existing networks, gather information from the surrounding environment (both physical and digital), and work with other objects to create an interactive network of connected devices.

Upcoming projects like Knocki, which promises to turn any wall or table or solid object into a smart device, are expanding the IoT beyond devices that are designed to be “smart.”

Devices like Trackr and Tile similarly turn non-smart devices (such as a wallet, keys, or purse) into smart devices that are part of the Internet of Things.

These small attachables can be activated via smartphone app, and beep to help users find lost keys. They can also give alert users if their phone moves too far away from, say, their purse.

These two devices also use “crowd GPS,” meaning that the tracking device can use the GPS information from other people’s app-enabled smartphones to give users information about where items are even if the user is out of Bluetooth range.

Other evolutions in the Internet of Things include shelves that automatically order when stock is low, home appliances that order their own supplies or adjust their own settings (HP’s “Instant Ink” service is one example).

And, of course, Niantic’s wildly popular Pokémon GO is connecting the ephemeral Internet of data and servers to the physical Internet of Things by putting poké stops and gyms at physical locations, using GPS data to determine players’ movements, and typing specific types of Pokémon to specific locations. 

This internet evolution has wide-ranging implications for individuals, businesses, and professionals. Watch for future articles about what the next stage of this internet evolution might include.

By Tiffany Sostar

Tiffany is a writer, editor, academic, and animal lover who came late to her appreciation of pets. At 18, a rescue pup named Tasha saved her from a depression and she hasn't looked back. She has worked as the canine behaviour program coordinator for the Calgary Humane Society, and was a dog trainer specializing in working with fearful and reactive dogs for many years. She doesn't have any pets right now, but makes up for it by giving her petsitting clients (and any dogs she comes across on her frequent coffee shop adventures) extra snuggles.

RESEARCH - Siberian Dog Burial Ground Holds Clues to Evolution of Human-Dog Bond

That special look goes a lot further than a little tickle or talk when it comes to bonding with your dog.

In fact, that gaze of so-called puppy-dog eyes dates back thousands of years and speaks to an enduring kindredship between canines and humans, says University of Alberta anthropologist, Robert Losey.

Last year, a research team in Japan found scientific evidence backing the claim that the shared 'look' underscores a very real connection given both species release the oxytocin hormone when they gaze into one another’s eyes – the same hormone released when a woman looks at her baby.

And while petting or talking to your pooch is undeniably a common form of communication, researchers found dogs respond more than anything to the look of love from its human cohort.

"It's a very compelling study, that even on a chemical basis we get this kind of biological impulse to bond, and animals have the same impulse to bond with us," Losey tells phys.org.

He says the biochemical bonding impulse is one thing but there are also thousands of years of cultural bonding between the species, too.

While many dote on their dogs today, Losey found evidence dating back long, long ago to illustrate that to be the case.

Just a dog? Nope.

Looking at an excavation of dog remains between 5,000 and 8,000 years old at Lake Baikal, Siberia, Losey says it appears dogs were “being treated just like people when they died,” and found dogs and humans were often buried side by side, even discovering a man in a grave with two dogs at his side.

"They were being carefully placed in a grave, some of them wearing decorative collars, or next to other items like spoons, with the idea being potentially that they had souls and an afterlife,” Losey says.

"Globally, you can see there are more dog burials in prehistory than any other animals, including cats or horses. Dogs seem to have a very special place in human communities in the past. As soon as we see skeletal remains that look like the modern dog - say 14,000 years ago - we see dogs being buried."

Evidence also shows how important dogs were to humans in life, too.

It is believed dogs evolved from the Eurasian grey wolf which began interacting, or dare we say befriending, humans about 30,000 to 40,000 years ago.

It likely began with wolves lured to human campsites in search of food, growing less inhibited and thus starting the evolution towards the modern dog with humans tapping into their potential as companions and workmates by domesticating and selectively breeding them.

"Early on there's evidence to suggest people loved and cared for their dogs in much the same way we do now, but they were also working companions, involved in all of our daily tasks," Losey says. "Thousands of years ago there were even lapdogs - the Romans had them. Clearly, people long ago began breeding dogs for specific purposes."

Currently, working at a Siberian Arctic site of dog burials with more than 100 dog specimens (the largest archeological collection of dogs in the Arctic region) his focus is on how the past can shed light on present relationships people have with dogs.

And while Losey went looking to the deepest freshwater lake in the world to make impressive findings - many dog owners already know the bond with their four-legged friend is certainly something special.

By Nadia Moharib

Nadia Moharib is an animal lover who has adopted everything from birds to hamsters, salamanders, rabbits, fish and felines. She has written about all-things-pets for years and was a long-time editor of a pet magazine in a daily newspaper which featured a Q & A column, Ask Whit, penned by her pooch (ghost written, of course.) The serial dog owner lives in Calgary, Alberta and most days can be found at a dog park picking up after her rescue pooch, Scoots.

Study: Climate Change Drove Canine Evolution

Researchers have been studying the evolution of canids and some have come to the conclusion that canid evolution was driven by climate change. Fossils from 40 million years ago (mya) reveal that canids were similar to mongooses. They had small bodies and short limbs that made them efficient ambush predators in warm forests. Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Dr. Christine Janis said, “There’s no point in doing a dash and a pounce in a forest. They’ll smack into a tree.”

Several million years later the climate began to change and forests became grasslands. In the changing environment ambush predation was less efficient and canids evolved into “pursuit-pounce” predators similar to modern coyotes and foxes.

Two early dogs, Hesperocyon on the left (42.5 mya to 31 mya), and Sunkahetanka on the right (30.8 mya to 26.3 mya), were both ambush-style predators. Credit: Mauricio Anton    

Included in the study were fossils from 32 canid species ranging from 40 mya to 2 mya. The researchers discovered changes in elbow anatomy during a climate change. Dr. Janis said, “The elbow is a really good proxy for what carnivores are doing with their forelimbs, which tells their entire locomotion repertoire. It’s reinforcing the idea that predators may be as directly sensitive to climate and habitat as herbivores. Although this seems logical, it hadn’t been demonstrated before.”

Now that research has shown that carnivores have historically adapted to a changing climate it is possible that they will continue to do so. “Now we’re looking into the future at anthropogenic changes,” said Janis.

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