The radiator, television, bicycle pump and scales smoking on the "Internet of Things" with your mobile phone and computer. The development is in full gang.Professor Knud Erik Skouby head of CMI (Center for Communication, Media and Information Technologies) at Aalborg University Copenhagen, who leads the university's major commitment to help develop the next revolution in our electronic environment . The revolution is called "Internet of Things" or the Danish "Internet of Things" and it has just been the subject of an international conference on CMI. The idea behind the "Internet of Things" is simply that all our things in different ways must be able to perceive, think and communicate. Also with each other so that they can arrange things, which need not involve us. But the revolution holds some challenges when we need to talk to things. A scare-example can be something as banal as to adjust the temperature: - I would like to have it a little warmer, we say to the radiator. - Who are you? match it. - Recognize, however, my voice - certification password is 639GLYmX1234! we reply. - Verified. I would point out that increasing the temperature is in contradiction with certified temperature levels, you want to continue? It is situations like the professor Knud Erik Skouby avoid: - Our best contribution to this development will be a focus on making the technology easy to use. In Scandinavia, we have a tradition of designing with people at the center, and I think I can give some qualities to the development of the "Internet of Things". It's is not just that things must be easy to use, but also for the user, for example, retain control of its data, and may also control the intelligent thing itself.
The thinking things
Some of what we already know: The refrigerator that can read items in it and update the shopping list, is an old acquaintance. Cars that can drive themselves, is one of the more advanced scenarios for the technology. The computer has already shown us that everything we do can be done better, if we use a computer to it. How we will probably find that all things work better if they can sense and communicate. - At CMI, we go all around with a feeling that the Internet of Things is about to explode in growth, says Knud Erik Skouby. - It is as if we are in the same place as with the Internet twenty years ago and the mobile phone ten years ago - just before a revolution that changes our lives.
Plenty of devices
Professor Knud Erik Skouby: - We have huge hopes for this technology. Studies show that we already spend 30 to 50 sets per day, which is or can immediately get on the "Internet of Things". Computer and mobile phone, it is already, and still more music system and TV come on. Many other things are on the way, and their functionality will be much better when they can communicate with the rest of things. The other appliances and things can be anything from gas burners and bicycle pump to the music player and district heating. Let's take bicycle pump, which is not the most obvious candidate to become more intelligent: It may well be that we still have to put effort in, but why would not talk to the deck, so it knows how hard it is to be pumped ? And maybe talk also with our bathroom scales so that it can adjust the pressure to the load - possibly by retrieving a table from the tire manufacturer's website. Almost every one of our things have this opportunity to be smarter if we have the imagination to think of how it can be done. The technology is being developed in rapid speed and is becoming cheaper. Scientists try to predict how many intelligent things we eventually will need. They concluded that in the course of the next ten years might have as many as a thousand different things to as many different ways will help us in our daily lives.
Sensory network
Sensors are one of the key elements of this "Internet of Things". We already know the sensors from our smart phones, which often have a whole collection. That way they can adjust screen brightness, change the direction of viewing screen and off screen when we hold it to your ear. It's simple sensors, but there are great expectations for more advanced sensors for use in, for example hospital beds. They can monitor the patient much better than we can now, and determine whether the person has dropped out or are in the process of normal / acceptable activity, without any device touching the patient. Within elderly care work with technologies where for example a mirror very early can spot signs of diseases like Alzheimer's. That way, people can be treated before they realize they are sick. Also, industry can leverage technology in a big way. For example, there trg with oil drilling, where the drills are "intelligent" - that is filled with sensors that can tell where the oil is pregnant, so as to manage drilled there. There are also high hopes that the more intelligent every step of the production is, the better it will succeed to conserve the resources to be used.
It is also dangerous
An important focus of CMI's security. "Internet of Things" provides new possibilities for monitoring. But the problem we already know from the mobile phone and internet. "Internet of Things", however, new - and interesting - opportunities to get into trouble. Many things can make decisions based on what their sensors pick up. An entity may for example, have installed a system for ventilating, which automatically open the windows if it gets hot. If someone can hack into the sensor measuring temperature, they might get the building to even open a window if they want to enter. Or if someone wants to sabotage an oil pipeline, then it might be enough to get the overflow sensor to believe that there is a leak of oil. So shuts itself pumps down until the fault is found - and so can the perpetrators of the just trigger it again somewhere else.
Talk to the radiator
The International Conference on CMI focused on the "Internet of Things" - a broad concept with large konsekvenser.Der is a long way to go before we can argue with our radiator, but it is likely that exactly the radiator is one of the first common sets where we may experience a more intelligent version. As has been demonstrated at the conference on CMI, Danish Danfoss example already made their first versions of intelligent thermostatic valves. They can not regulate the heat, but also talk sensibly. For example, if a valve in a space marks a rapid temperature drop, it will conclude that anyone opened a window. So it should not turn up the heat, but wait until the window is closed again. The valve can tell the other valves in the room so they do not turn up. It can also learn how long it takes to heat a room. So if we set it to be warm in the kitchen at six o'clock in the morning, then perhaps the first time open an hour early for the heat, but eventually it will find the right time, so the temperature in the kitchen when 21 degrees exactly at. six and not an hour before. Danfoss has been made independent calculations showing how this technology offers great potential for energy savings. Compared with a conventional valve, the improved versions gifted save up to 23 percent. It is enough to meet half of the Kyoto targets for 2020 if the kind of thermostats sat on all radiators in Europe. The researchers expect that these new technologies could have as great an impact on all the other areas that they can be used on. - We have huge hopes for this technology, says Professor Knud Erik Skouby. - It could be used anywhere and will be able to make our daily lives better.
Source: AAU 
