Blog 15: The IoT in Real Life

The last chapter of Greengards leaves us with more of a question than an answer. Where does the IoT go from here? The applications for the IoT are infinite, as long as more companies come into existence there will always be opportunity to optimize with technology. Also, the IoT's applications aren't at all limited to the industrial. As of late, the IoT has been steadily creeping into the everyday lives of people like you and I.

Greengard concludes his book with areas where he believes the IoT would really flourish. One of these areas was transportation, and the application really shows why. Every year there are nearly 1 million traffic fatalities. Incorporating the IoT into the transportation system could cut this number by a significant fraction. Self-driving cars that are able to communicate to each other over the Internet have a lot of potential to prevent crashes due to human error. The issue with self-driving cars, however, are the rare incidents when computers would have to make decisions on how to react. This means that there could possibly be scenario in which every outcome involves someone getting injured. In that case, how would the computer choose what action to take?

Works Cited
Greengard, Samuel. The Internet of Things. Chaparral:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2015. Print.