Blog 13: Exponential Technology Advancement, With a Side of Confusion

You know, the more I think about it, the more I realize how fast we’re going through these books now. Technically speaking we’re still only reading about two chapters a blog but with this book and the previous, reading two chapters is finishing a third of the title overall! The reason why I mention this is cause I can’t help but think it’s a little interesting how us reading through these novels faster and faster mimics how we’ve advanced faster and faster in turning everyday tools into another part of the “Internet of Things” this book talks about. Chapter 4 talks about this kind of stuff and I totally agree with this. For example: A quick google search says that the car was invented in 1769. Around the 80’s and 90’s we started to see the kinds of cars we have today. Recently we were experimenting with solar power cars, and apparently the search to create fully automated self driving cars is still a progress. It’s just really nuts how fast technology advances now, meanwhile most people don’t even bat an eye about it. Stuff like this is why I can’t help but wonder how connected is technology gonna be in the future with how everyday lives.

But speaking self driving cars, one thing I noticed is that I’m have a bit difficult of a time grasping the idea of the “Industrial Internet”. At the core level I understand that it’s like Internet of Things but with sensors it can use to interpret data, but beyond things like self driving cars or the examples given in the book I’m not sure how such a concept applies to the average person...maybe that’s the point? That the Industrial Internet is more something Companies use rather than the average person?  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Sidenote: I included the Back to the Future gif at the beginning cause I thought it was funny how applying a time machine onto a DeLorean that can be controlled remotely is just an extreme version of what we’ve been talking about so far.

Questions:

• When you think about it, what technology would you say you take for granted?
• It can be argued that the last “game changing” invention was the smartphone, and even then at it’s core it’s merely a phone with added features. Do you think we’ll ever have another truely “game changing” invention (a.k.a. the washing machine/car/light blub/etc. of this era)?

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