The Internet Of Things.

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Last year the ‘new thing’ that all the techies were talking about was the ‘Internet of Things’.

For those who are not up to speed on this ‘new thing’, the ‘Internet of Things’ is about getting all of our household devices connected online.

This is not just a ‘new thing’ but it’s a ‘BIG thing’ too.

Already there are about 10 billion net-connected devices and predictions are that by 2020, just five years from now, the number will have grown to 50 billion devices.

More importantly, for the businesses involved in this industry, and for investors, the ‘Internet of Things’ market will be worth at least three-quarters of a trillion dollars – that’s an ‘illion’ with a ‘tr’ in front of it!

As you would expect, the big technology players aren’t wasting any time getting involved.

Samsung has developed what it calls a ‘SmartThings Hub’ which will organize all of the connected devices in your home regardless of what platform they run on. The company’s CEO has promised that by 2017, 90% of its products would be connected to the Web.

The Samsung ‘SmartThings Hub’ is compatible with the Apple ‘HomeKit’ for iOS8, which was introduced last summer.

A lot of the ‘IoT’ devices are aimed at the home security market. Many of these are already available, but with the development of the ‘IoT’ they will become much more sophisticated, have additional features, such as cameras with facial recognition capabilities, and be more affordable for the average consumer. At the moment most of the better systems carry a hefty price tag and are aimed at the high-end market.

Another big market is babies, with a number of devices coming to the market that monitor almost everything about your baby and send that information to you wherever you are via a mobile device.

Other ‘IoT’ devices for the home include smart light bulbs, Bluetooth speakers, WiFi repeaters and lots of other home entertainment applications.

You will even be able to control your coffee maker or tea kettle via wifi.

And your pets have not been forgotten either. If you just can’t bear to be unconnected to your dog, for example, you can get a smart collar like the ‘Fitbark’ or ‘Motorola Scout 5000’. If this was pun day I’d tell you it came with a paws control.

It all sounds great, for those who like that kind of thing. And indeed some of the devices will be useful and hopefully cost effective and energy saving for the home. I don’t think you’re going to have any choice because new devices for the home will come with all this new technology built in.

The big problem will be sophisticated burglars and malicious tech savvy people, who will no doubt figure out ways of hacking your system and possibly gaining control of the whole set up.

A password like ‘password’ will no longer suffice in the era of the ‘Internet of Things’.

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Fasab Talks Techno – Part One, “Hello there!”

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Today I’m talking techo, well sort of.

As time moves on – and it’s moving on far too fast – more and more things tend to irritate me.

The stupidity and bureaucracy we have to endure is the thing that inspired this blog in the first place and that remains a huge thorn in my side. I have made many comments on that subject and given the opportunity will no doubt make many more.

But another thing that pisses me off more and more is almost the opposite of stupidity – it is people trying to be too damn smart.

Nowhere is this more noticeable than in the technology that we use today.

Now, I’m not a technophobe by any stretch of the imagination. I love my computers and the advent of the internet was one of the greatest things ever, as far as I was concerned. Indeed I have blogged in the past about my long love affair with computers  click here to read it.

Maybe it’s because of that long love affair, because I have been involved with computers for so many years, that what is happening now irritates me so much.

What I’m talking about is the fact that today’s personal computers and tablets and telephones and all the other periphery of techo gadgets try to do far too much for their owners. Everyone who has one of these machines is apparently a moron, or at least that’s how the manufacturers seem to treat us.

In the good old days you actually had to work at making your computer do things. Your telephone in those days made telephone calls and that was about it. And tablets were the things the doctor prescribed when you were feeling poorly.

To cut what could well turn into a very long list of current irritations into a manageable size, let me concentrate on just a few of the most horrible things that we now have to face.

In fact, rather than go on and on I’ll split this post over a few days.

Today it’s telephones.

Like I just said, I remember the days when phones were used to make phone calls – seemed logical enough to us at the time. Now they do all sorts of things. You can still phone people when you figure out how, but now you can also text, surf the internet, send and receive video messages and calls, play games, buy stuff – in fact almost everything you can do on your computer you can now do on a smart phone. And most of them have reasonable quality cameras too.

For a while those who could afford a cell phone were lumbered with a thing the size of a brick and it weighed almost as much too!

You can see one of those in the photo below (far left!). You can still get them, or rather a modern version if you want to draw a bit of attention to yourself – and there are always people who do.

As the years went on the phones kept getting smaller and smaller. That was good for a while. They became light and pocket sized. But miniaturization became the trend, and cell phones got really really really small to the extent that unless you had the fingers of a five year old child instead of chubby man paws it was a struggle to find the right numbers to make a call and a nightmare to send a text.

Then, mainly because of the advance of wifi and 3G and 4G and so forth, cell phones started to get bigger again to the extent that they are nearly back to the size of that brick again, albeit a lot thinner and lighter. Glasses are the next step, with a heads up view just like on the helmet visors of those jet fighters you see in the movies. And sometime in the not too distant future you will just need a silicone chip embedded at the back of your ear-hole. Not sure I’ll go for that last one though.

That’s a potted history of the cell phone, but now for the really irritating part.

When texting really took off and became the most popular form of communication when using a cell phone, someone – they won’t tell me his name probably for his own safety – decided that we needed help writing a text. Not what I call a “speel chekkar” that is available on your computer – which would have been acceptable – but a much more sinister and annoying invention.

Guessed what it is yet?

Yes, it’s “auto-correct” or as it likes to call itself “anal cortex”.

I hate this thing with a passion. I disconnect it on every device I can because it doesn’t work!

Auto-correct has not the slightest idea what you are trying to say. It is unnecessary, frustrating, irritating and useless.

It has only one saving grace that I have found.

Sometimes it’s funny.

If you are not likely to be offended by strong language, have a look at some of the examples below and you’ll see exactly what I mean.

Enjoy.

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Can You Believe It? I’ve Run Out Of Puns!!!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Okay, wipe that smirk off your faces.

Of course I haven’t run out of puns. Whoever would believe such a thing.

And just to prove it, here are some more.

Enjoy, I know you will.

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I ate the burger with relish.

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Q: Why did Mozart kill all his chickens ?

A: Because all they would say was ” Bach , Bach ………Bach , Bach”

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You say that this beverage is non-alcoholic.

But where is the proof?

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The best vitamin for making friends is B-1.

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When they said I was mad I went out and got drunk.

I guess it was a choice between having a bottle in front of me

or a frontal lobotomy.

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When the artist tried to draw a cube he had a mental block.

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Coffee is for mugs

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Just been on bigbustycoons.com

Damn, those guys have really good bus companies.

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My wife shouted upstairs, “The sun’s just come out.”

I thought great, threw on some shorts and

flip flops and shot down the stairs.

I was rather shocked when I got down to find

our lad holding hands with his mate Michael.

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There’s no denying it, Rap is 75% Crap

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I just saw an advert for the new film: ‘The Hole – Now in 3D!’

Well, surely it has to be in 3D otherwise it’s just a circle.

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You invented White Out didn’t you?

Correct me If I’m wrong….

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A lot of stupid people who don’t keep up with current

affairs still don’t know who Kim Jong Un is.

Duhhh, she is the leader of North Korea.

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An unnamed weatherman has reacted angrily to being

sacked because he always gives cold gloomy forecasts.

So I guess it’s no more mist and ice guy.

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Q. What makes a riot?

A. Three dyslexics.

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A colleague just burst into my office

while I was busy working

and demanded to know what an

electrical synapse in the human body was.

The nerve.

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Did you hear about the guy who got his thrills

by shoving resistors up his bottom.

He definitely sounds like an Ohmosexual to me.

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My internet bride got delivered today.

She’s the WiFi always dreamed of.

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If you were lost in fog, would you be mist?

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Finally some news from this week on the stock market.

Helium was up, but feathers were down.

Paper was stationary, but pencils lost a few points.

Elevators rose but escalators continued their slow decline.

Switches were off and mining equipment hit rock bottom.

The raisin market has dried up.

Pampers remained unchanged while Sun peaked at mid-day.

Andrex tissues touched a new bottom.

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