“Your Fridge does not allow you to order beer as it can impact your liver – your watch doesn’t allow you to eat sugar as you are diabetic – you can’t sleep more than 8 hours as your home automation system doesn’t allow. A connected world is coming our way. Prepare for it and prepare really well!”
All we have been doing till now is interacting with humans/animals or other living creatures. It’s only few years since we are interacting with computers also, but it was not a nuisance in our lives. But now, the humanity is moving to a stage where non-living objects will be talking to us in the form of alerting or stopping us from doing what we like. Just visualize – if your watch alerts you to not eat sweets as you are a diabetic. Your home automation system doesn’t allow you to order beer because you have liver condition.
Till now, we are not into such kind of restrictions. As humans beings, we are owners of our own decisions and actions. The next generation of technological advancement is going to put a lot of restrictions on humans which could be good as well as bad. Its just that we need to prepare well for this next wave of digital connectivity.
Why are we moving towards such a world – do we really need it?
The humans have a tendency to evolve – for the better or worse it is up to an individual to decide. Our very existence has been dependent on the our evolution to move ahead. On this course of evolution, we have done some really bad things to environment, fellow humans, animals, trees & plants etc. Its our expedition to move ahead which forces us to evolve whether its good or bad. There was a time of slavery where humans were kept as slaves to do industrial work. A time when we kept on releasing harmful gases which damaged our very protection from Sun – the ozone layer. When we started cutting trees to convert the places into concrete jungles. So, all these expeditions have seen some good and some bad stuff happening to all of us.
Even after going through rough times and difficult situations, we can’t ignore that we have progressed, developed, evolved during this very course. The next part of the evolution is a connected world where everything and everyone will be tracked and controlled through devices. You may like it or not but its coming our way and going to catch us.
IPification of everything and everyone
Now, what is IPification? It’s just a term which I am using where an IP address is being assigned to an object as well as human. We all know that IP addresses are used to communicate over internet and all the digital connected items have one to communicate. Here, I have added humans as well because there are inventions going on where connected device will be embedded in humans. And for these devices to communicate over internet it will be mandatory to have IP address. So, ideally it will become IPification of humans.
How far is it?
All evolution changes from mankind has taken quite longer duration but this one is coming really fast and will strike us soon in the next 10 years at a very large scale. Like other inventions and evolution, this will also come first in the west and then it will move to east. Even if early adoption will be in the west, but its mass production will be in surely be in the east (China or India). I see it coming sooner than the other changes, as we have mastered the art of moving ahead faster by involving Artificial Intelligence into our systems. We have also got quantum computers now which are million times faster than the current computer systems – I would say “the traditional hardware”. And also the greed of business/politicians will also play a crucial role in early adoption of such technologies.
“We are on the verge of fast paced life where divided opinions may not find a place – as everyone will have to accept the destiny to bind with the Digital World”