I’ve always liked the idea of the Internet of Things, but in practice, it’s too close to a Cory Doctorow novel. Imagine your phone tracking your Strava runs and sending it to your healthcare provider, letting them know you’ve not been for that run you promised you were going to go on? Or your online shopping service being able to manipulate the price of cream to make you spend more if it knows, from your smart fridge, that you have a load of strawberries in the fridge? It could be excellent, but the future has unfortunately been hijacked by a couple of big companies that depend on advertising revenues. This is why we can’t have nice things. Unless we make them ourselves: the smart fridge in issue 43 (10 IoT Projects – Pg 47) is a perfect example of what we could and should have.
Robin, Toronto
(HackSpace Magazine)