The Internet of Things

Subject: Living in IT era

Instructor: Nathalie Joy Galla
Written by: Jomar Panimdim Balaman

Benson Hougland and Ashkan Fardost introduced the internet of things in a

16-minute video where they explained the concept of the internet of things and what to
expect in the fast progression of the technologies in the future. It is completely inconceivable
that something amazing like that is possible. Benson Hougland and explained how the
internet of things made his life so comfortable and efficient. It also shows how the internet of
things helped him when he suffered a heart attack and it showed how efficient the internet of
things. And not even forgetting the fact that this is less time consuming since there is no
need to manually work everything yourself. Given the fact that other things can exchange
information with other things. .Other things can suggest other things about what to do and so
on.

As people living in an age where technologies bloom faster than you can predict.
Most people can only sigh in the wonders of humankind's ability to create. It is always an
established notion that humans have five senses and what sets us apart is we can
communicate or express. Then what if I told you that things can now be bestowed with the
ability to sense and communicate? Affirmative, things can now indeed be bestowed with the
ability to sense and communicate. One example of that is a remote control in your home.
Just a click at the off button and your Television will automatically be out. This is just one
example and this made me realize that we do not question how a particular technology
works and how it was made possible. Like how do sounds can be heard when you play your
cassette player and how does it do that? Like how does our smartphone can message and
call others a thousand miles away? Did it ever get to your mind this question when all these
things became completely integrated into our everyday lives? These questions popping
inside my head made me agree to the claim that the best technologies are those that
disappear. Why? because there's this strange notion that we feel that everything is natural
and we stopped thinking about what and how it came to be? Yes, we may question how this
thing does that but that's it, we do not ponder upon it deeply and most of the people in this
era do that. Of course excluding those who dabbled in technologies and other related fields.
But imagine what will happen when a farmer in the stone age era had simple steel hoes?
Imagine guns appearing in the period where steel weapons like sword are the mainstream
weapons used in the war? The effects are unimaginable. That's how strong the influence of
technologies is in our everyday lives just like how Ashkan Fardost used technologies to get
his goal as a music producer.
This made it clear that technologies are progressing faster than we could think of.
And this video is made from five years ago and I am not even aware of this if I was not
required to watch this. This set alights the idea that the world is advancing as we go ahead
in the future. Making me feel bitter because such an amazing creation and I am not even
aware has me terrified since not anyone can adapt to such fast progression of technology.
There's a chance that the Philippines can be left behind in this fast-progressing world. Since
technology is not only helpful in making life convenient but can influence other fields as well.
Especially education, don’t forget that technology is important in medicine as well. Not even
excluding the fact that it has a huge impact on the economy as well. If I am to give an
analogy of how vast the difference between the Philippines and technologically advanced
countries are. It is like how a kid is waving a stick but a kid in other towns is already playing
with a sword. The comparison is horrible to look at and what’s even more heartbreaking is
we have brilliant Filipino inventors and they are not even being recognized here. One
example is Diosdado Banatao who invented the first single-chip graphical interface
accelerator that made computer process data faster and instead of large boards, he
replaced it with small chips. He is just one example of the many inventors but the irony here
is that most of their work benefited other countries more than the Philippines.
Now, one thing that was stuck in my head was when Askan Fardost asked just how
fast technology is? The answer did not fail to amaze. Starting from the stone age to the
present time, the time it took for mankind to invent technologies got shorter and shorter. This
answer laid out the notion that technologies will get faster and faster as time goes on. This
had us expect that technologies will become even more amazing. Now, there’s this space
elevator concept that can only be seen in sci-fi movies and is unknown if it can be possible
for real-world applications. The space elevator was proposed by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky in
1895. A space elevator is a long cable that stretches up to space and will replace rockets if
ever conceived to reality. Now a bit of searching and the space tower plan is already set in
motion in 2050. That is practically another elevation to the already fast progressing world. If
this ever gets built, mankind’s progression to space will speed up and the time mankind
personally steps into space will not be long. Maybe we can catch up to that time but the point
here is that an era different from this will come and we can’t even halt its progress.
Technologies regardless of its pros and cons. You cannot deny the impact it has on our
society. Especially, when we already cannot abandon it. I mean it's not an overstatement to
say that we are already reliant on it. Since technology is built on the purpose of solving any
problems a person is not capable of solving.