PCB007 Magazine

PCB-June2016

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100 The PCB Magazine • June 2016 the son hesitates, the father picks up his phone and does it all remotely. There's even a smart doorbell that lets you answer the door from an- other location when traveling to foil would-be burglars. Our IoT lives! Our Connected Lives When I finally talked my wife into getting her first cellphone, she was convinced it was "only for emergencies." It took exactly three days for her to be calling her mom everyday on the way home from work, checking on the kids every couple of hours and finding out if I would be home on time for supper. Even my mom, who is not on a first-name basis with technol- ogy, is never seen without her cellphone and iPad within reach to keep in constant contact with the grandkids. I am embarrassed to say that our kids will text or call us from the other side of the living room wall to ask something instead of walking around. What would we do without our technology? Our IoT lives! No off Switch During one interview Steve Jobs famously revealed how his ambiguous thoughts on the afterlife influenced his designs, saying, "Yeah but sometimes I think it's like an on-off switch. Click, and you're gone," he said. Then, after a pause, he added, "And that's why I don't put on-off switches on Apple devices." In - stead, the devices simply go into "standby" or "sleep" modes when inactive. Take a walk around your house and you might be surprised at the number of things that never really shut down, always drawing power, ready at a mo- ment's notice for our instant gratification. TVs, DVRs, microwaves, ovens, coffee makers, alarm clocks, routers, modems, servers, print- ers, washers and dryers, to name just a few. Our IoT lives indeed! PCB Steve Williams is the president of The Right Approach Consulting LLC. To read past columns, or to contact Williams, click here. to all of my other devices back in Slinger, Wis- consin. Think about that for a minute! Just the Shazam part of it blows my mind—and with voice recognition I don't even have to touch my phone. Our IoT lives! I thought I was a pretty informed guy with all of the daily intelligence I get from my friend Walt Custer and various news outlets, but I have learned the hard way that I am always a step behind my wife and daughter when it comes to what is happening in the world. The news- feeds continuously pushed to their devices via Facebook and Twitter provide such a vast and instant update on seemingly everything that I rarely surprise them on anything newsworthy. "Oh, I saw that yesterday on Facebook, honey, didn't you?" Newsfeeds are simply machines talking directly to other machines (M2M) as news and entertainment outlets push this in- formation to our devices. Social media is truly the way we get our news and information to- day. Our IoT lives! Our Connected Homes We have smart phones, smart watches, smart TVs, smart cars, smart security, smart climate controls, smart this and smart that… all talking to each other without human intervention. We can control our inside and outside lights, con- sumer electronics, heating and cooling, security, access our music and video libraries, watch and program our DVRs from the comfort of our sofa or a hotel room 1,000 miles away. We have all seen the commercial with the son joining the family for a weekend away and the father asks if he remembered to turn off the water, leave certain lights on and turn down the heat. When OUR IoT LIVES " Newsfeeds are simply machines talking directly to other machines (M2M) as news and entertainment outlets push this information to our devices. "

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