The internet of things | Jordan Duffy | TEDxSouthBank

The future is here. In this talk, Jordan Duffy, a serial entrepreneur and technology innovation expert, explores how the internet of things is changing our lives in ways we don't even recognise.  

Jordan Duffy is a serial entrepreneur, technology innovation expert and, at the age of 21, co-owns Buckham & Duffy, an innovation and rapid development firm with 18 employees. Jordan’s passion for technology and business started at home assembling computers, and his entrepreneurial journey started at age 14 with business partner Alex Buckham. Alex and Jordan have been growing businesses for eight years. Business aside, Jordan is an avid self-educator and driven change maker. He has seen 15 countries, battled cancer and chronic pain, and played drums on the Great Wall of China in the 2008 Olympic Orchestra.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

So, the Internet of Things

Who loves the Internet?

If you didn't put your hand up, get out.

If you haven't used Google at work to do
your job better, then you are wrong.

And who loves things?

The chairs you are sitting in

the glasses you are wearing,
friends you hold

pretty much everyone,

some weird people down here.

Well, the Internet of Things

there's a lot to it.

I'm gonna try to breeze through this
in 7 minutes

But let's jump into it.

Let's jump into what Internet of Things,
IoT really is.

Now in the digital world, we can make
everything talk to each other.

We can make our phones talk to each other

We can make Facebook talk to each other

And in the physical world, not so much.

This is where our lives and technological
development kind of stopped.

But now, we are able to build a network

so, multiple of physical objects

your chair, your table, your lounge

those tim tams in the fridge

they are connected to the Internet.

If you don't know what the Internet is
you same weird people who said no, get out

It allows you to send

so you can create and transmit

receive,
so that you can receive and interpret

and exchange data

exchange data, you can have conversations
with things around you

so IoT will allow multiple physical
objects, like the tim tams

to be connected to the Internet

They can send just how good tim tams are

to other tim tams and to you.

And they can receive just how many people
want those damn tim tams.

And they can have a conversation with
other items in your fridge.

So we are entering a very exciting time

where we will have chairs, couches

pretty much everything that's in your
home connected to the Internet

or at least have conversations with
things around you.

Now, still very ominous right?

even though we have a definition that
I may or may not

have gotten off urban dictionary

But, let's break it into four sections.

Hardware

Little bits and pieces like this.

The hardware is what actually allows us to
connect digital items to physical objects.

So I can put this on a door

and it will tell me when the door opens

This is a dollar by the way, a dollar.

So we have hardware that senses things.

We have data.

Data actually starts

to make sense of what all this is.

It's things we push around all the time

everyday we don't really think about.

But for example,

this piece of hardware here

creates ECG data.

It tells me how fast my heart is beating.

Let's actually check that out right now.

Yeah, okay, 110, great.

Essentially this has also changed
over the last 10 years.

We used to push data around

in heavy, kinda standardized format.

We're seeing a lot of different ways
of doing this now

We see JSON strings.

Let's see you interpret that, Marky.

J-S-O-N, yeah

And now data is getting leaner.

We can say more with less.

And data is becoming
the universal language.

Not English, not Chinese, not Auslan

But the universal language of things.

And software

What we do once we have that communication

once we have that piece of information?

The software is what interprets it,
it's what controls it.

It's what analyzes it and
allow it to do stuff.

It's Facebook.

It's your Instagram.

It's the things that actually
take pieces of data

from these pieces of hardware and
makes it do stuff that is valuable to you.

And the last step

without all of this stuff,

if it wasn't connected,

it wouldn't mean anything

And connectivity of the last 10 years
we've seen go from

cellular phones that were size of bricks,

through to Wi-Fi to ethernet,

to 2G GSM 4G.

All these different acronyms
that are awesome

But essentially it has gotten cheaper

It has gotten faster.

This is an RF transmitter.

This is a dollar fifty.

I can attach these to one of these sensors
with this little bit in the middle

and I can start beaming information
to other things around me

with no ongoing cost,

with electricity cost as much as

one cent a month for one of these.

And I can start to have a conversation

in a language that is not English
or Auslan,

but in data.

And once we have all of these things
connected and get it up to the cloud

like these things here,
we can actually start to use them.

The thing on the top left

I call them things cause
they are on the Internet

The thing on the top left
is a bluetooth beacon

It is used for marking things.

These are four dollars.

I can place it on any object

and use it as a proximity marker

as well as an identifier.

I can put this in my fridge

so that I know when mom went inside
and ate 16 of these tim tams.

And for four dollars I can also
put it outside

and know when my girlfriend gets home

that she got safely through the valley
and into my apartment

On the bottom left is
an air quality censor

This is on the top end of the
costly electronics

But that's a 6-dollar censor

that allows me to tell if there is ammonia

Is there carbon dioxide or harmful gases
in the environment around me?

And in the middle,

a galvanic skin response system

This allows me to measure
the conductivity in my skin

down to the micro level

where I can know before my brain does

that I'm stressed

that I got adrenaline pumping

or that I'm on stage.

And on the right

we have consumerized version of these
up to the 10 dollar mark

that allow anyone in their homes to start
building the systems I'm talking about

out of the box, using softwares
that are readily available.

And it's all in the wonderful cloud.

We can do it anywhere.

We can do it for ultra low cost.

We don't have to worry about
maintaining it

and you don't have to be an expert
to use it.

Now you may or may not know
that this already exists in your home

and if it doesn't,
you should already have it.

These systems allow us to walk up
to our front door and not use a key.

But purely to

actually measure "Is Jordan there?

Has he walked up in a particular way

Is it him?

and unlock the door for me.

I can turn my TV on to channel 7
in the Simpsons

just as I get home and I like to
in the afternoon.

I can actually measure
how many people are in my room.

What's the humidity

what's the temperature outside

and automatically set my air conditioning.

I can talk to an unit

and turn my Philips hue lights
at the right time

to the right color for my mood

and if I leave them on when I leave

it will take care of them for me

So what does this all mean?
Why this big problem, right?

Why does it present so many
different opportunities?

The thing is that now

we've gotten to a point

where this is such an available

and realistic opportunity

that it's going to explode.

And it's only gonna happen in 10 years.

Who loves their job at the moment?

Ah, a few of you are like, no.

Who thinks I'll be in the same job
for the next five years?

Oh, you are all wrong!

Who thinks I'll be in the same job
for ten years?

Even worse.

We are entering in a stage
where everything will be connected.

And the impact of IoT will be
$11 trillion a year by 2025

across factories, cities, human

identification and interaction

health care, work sites,
and general safety

offices and vehicles.

And why now?

Because of the ultra low cost of
this hardware,

the high availability of resources,

the low level of difficulty to compile
them and put them

together and highly digital
and connected universe

that is driving us toward

not just connecting our digital space

in our digital lives,

but our physical space

and the things we actually
deal with everyday.

This is a vertical farm

The only human interaction needed

is placing the seeds into the soil.

Watering, trimming, harvesting

is all taking care of by IoT systems.

And Barcelona Smart City

over the last ten years

has made one of the most IoT integrated
smart city in the world

By placing sensors that tell people
where parking spots are

They've increased revenues for parking

over $50 million dollars per year.

They've decreased their energy cost
by $37 Million a year

purely by having IoT in lights

to tell them when they actually
need to turn on

and when people are there to use them.

Their Smart Gardens saved them
$58 Million a year

in water usage

just by watering in the right places
at the right time.

And now think about your home.

All those things I mentioned in your house

I already do in mine.

It's here.

It's not a futuristic object or an idea.

It's a reality.

So as we welcome the whole universe
to the next era of connectivity

I ask

once all our tasks are automated

when the things we currently do everyday

the jobs the half of you love
and half of you hate

are actually replaced by IoT devices

artificial intelligence,

interconnected systems

What do we do?

We come back to creativity, innovation,
and humanity.

We cannot replace our need to
create new things

to improve them

and to build interpersonal relationships.

We invent,

we build,

we optimise,

we operate,

we innovate.

And we remember to enjoy sometimes

before we invent again.

IoT is the beginning of a new era.

Thank you!

(applause)