Internet of Things: an army of smart objects will revolutionize our daily lives

There is an idea of the future that any of us have internalized in their youth in vivid images, the result of books and  predictive movies, usually belonging to the genre of science fiction. Today that past, not that far away chronologically, there seems no closer, as it is in truth, but already remote, as if it belonged to the last century.
Objects, houses, clothes seem in fact closer to those images once "fantastic" that the Western world spread with its pop culture, while our everyday life then seems almost prehistoric.
In between there was the Internet revolution, whose long wave pushes us ever more quickly to new amazing landings. It is the Internet of Things, the world of the Web and new technologies extended to objects that connect with us and between them, with a potential impact on our lives everyday intended to solve many problems, but perhaps at relieving many others. 

The phenomenon is booming. The last report of the Observatory Internet of Things at the Politecnico di Milano in Italy refers to data in growth in the year 2014: 8 million objects connected via the cellular network, an increase of 33% compared 2013, to 1.15 billion euro of value coming to EUR 1.55 billion if you add the other connections.Worldwide instead connected objects are 7 billion and are estimated figures in the tens of billions by 2020.

The areas of application are the largest, from the humorous to the serious, you might say. Last June was held Computex 2015 , the most important fair of the sector of the Asian world, where many items were smart products or awaiting development. Not only the well known smartwatch, but many simple objects that portend the future widespread dissemination of this type of new "things". From the canteen informing on the amount and purity of water drunk, the ring that communicates with your smartphone data on our health, and also serves to open doors, pay, remember passwords.
If we think of the developments in areas such as home automation, transport, environment, the organization of cities, agriculture, cultural heritage - just to name a few - we understand the true extent innovative for our everyday life, in terms of simplification, economic growth, energy saving and safety.

The scenarios most promising, because they can actually change the lives of everyone, are the ones that lie ahead for the health and personal autonomy. IoT and wearables in support of the elderly and disabled, for example. The wearables, accessories and high-tech suits, are a particular segment of the smart object that already has a promising future in many areas, such as sports. Clothes, watches and related APP - real digital coach - that collect biometric parameters of the athletes are already a reality.
The same systems promise to be of great use to social categories of people who are ill or dependent. Since the wearable devices that can detect the state of health of the elderly, provide for possible emergencies and contact health and family, with a potentially positive fallout for a society that is increasingly getting older.
But also the technology in support of disability is the focus of many research projects, such as helmets and exoskeletons connected to the brain, bionic limbs, sensors for touch and chips that reconstruct damaged tissue, software to support visually impaired.It is some time ago a news story about a famous case, that of Stephen Hawkins. For the well-known astrophysicist, which communicates with the outside world through a synthesizer and an infrared sensor attached to it, was developed a keyboard that allows the scientist to enter only a small part of what he intends to express: the keyboard itself does the rest , "tuned" on language and cultural traditions of Hawkins because educated through his writings.
The new frontiers of technology applied to medicine seem to be able to go beyond the borders of the body: Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin have disclosed the production of a micro robot of DNA that can move around and may in the future do so in the human body to detect any tumors or to "deliver" drugs as it were on site.

The world of the Internet of Things has however also possible implications of critical issues. If one side - looking at the issue from the point of view of production, namely in terms of future business scenarios - the so-called Industry 4.0 is an opportunity, it is still a challenge to be overcome with substantial investments in terms of technological infrastructure and research support and the startup, without which the issue of digital divide is likely to become more and more sensitive.
It should also be noted that a technology so interconnected our lives it raises inevitable questions related to the use of the mass of data and information flows transferred from these objects in dialogue that will fill our homes and our cities.
Legislative activity in regulating various levels will probably be essential, not only for the obvious reasons of privacy and intimacy of each, but also on matters of individual and collective security.

It should in fact that the Internet of "things" continues to have the focus on the "people".
We will succeed? It's not for sure. It is not even certain that this is good: if the machines, however, turn out to be the most human of us ???

For Italian Article click on: https://mapsgroup.it/internet-of-things