An Internet of People

Online activity dominates our lives to such an extent that it’s easy to forget just how early we are in its development. Exhibitors and visitors at IoT Global this week are attempting to draw up a road map for global connectivity in the years ahead, and while there are indicators to follow, nothing is set in stone.

Where do we want the Internet of Things to take us?

We might hope for a future of shared knowledge. That fits well with the development of Ubuntu, a Linux operating system published by Canonical, which is prominent at IoT as an exhibitor and sponsor. Ubuntu is named after a South African philosophy that translates as “I am what I am because of who we all are”.

It’s easy to talk about sharing and community building, but the Ubuntu project puts principles into practice. The system is community-developed, and users are encouraged to try free software, analyse it, improve it and share it. There’s no licencing fee and no cost to download or distribute, so businesses, communities and schools have everything to gain from its development and nothing to pay. If the Internet of Things can lead us in this direction, towards innovation and zero-cost sharing, then there’s no telling how far the benefits could ripple out. But there are still questions to answer about how we can advance.

There’s no broad set of applications that we can accurately call “the IoT”. And there lies the excitement and challenge in this next leap forward. Computing has already taken us from mainframes (one device, multiple users) to desktops (one device per user) to mobile (multiple devices per user). Now we’re connecting multiple devices to inanimate objects. And it’s not just the objects that bring variety. The devices have vastly different power levels, connectivity and bandwidth options and costs.

We can’t fully understand and serve different markets unless we treat them with close individual attention. And that’s why Absolute Translations offers services with confidence. Our partners at IoT Global know they need a language service provider that can react swiftly and precisely to their changing needs. With product development life-cycles getting shorter all the time, do you have a trusted partner that works as quickly and accurately as you? Ready to match your speed and agility, able to take your product to every market as soon as you’re ready to take it to one? You know who to call when you need one.

IoT Global has shown us the value of innovating, sharing and communicating. It’s shown us the value of technology bringing people together. The future of the Internet of Things isn’t a series of cold interfaces but a community of relationships that we can keep nurturing across industries, languages and cultures. It’s an Internet of People.