This Connected Life
I’m back in the city after my last post — both physically and figuratively. While my last post was written on a train journey to Norwich, this one was started in London and finished in Manchester.
I was in London to talk about the future connected life with experts from Gemalto and other commentators from around the world, including Dan Kaplan and Helen Keegan. It was a cracking chat, ranging from connected cars to biometrics, wearables to security. You can catch some of it here: https://www.crowdchat.net/chat/c3BvdF9vYmpfMTkyOQ
Two of the key topics for me were about how we and our devices connect to each other, and how we control the flow of our personal data into this mesh of services.
On the former point there seemed to be general acceptance that 5G won’t be a single network standard but rather a collection of different services or technologies that together provide the right speed, latency and consistency of service for the application at hand. That might be a sensor that only needs an intermittent, low bandwidth connection to dump cached readings. It might be a TV or tablet that needs an incredibly high bandwidth connection to stream UHD content. Or it might be a user conducting a video (or even holographic) call on the move.
On the latter point we all seemed to concur that for true security and privacy, we need to return control of personal data to the individual. Today the social networks and other leverage huge value from our personal data and we have little control over how it’s used or what value is returned to us. Huge corporate stores of our personal data present incredibly attractive targets for hackers. This all has to change.
In order for this change to happen, there will have to be advances on a number of fronts: legislation, education, and technology: we simply don’t have the tools to broker access to our data as required right now.
In summary, life in 2025 is likely to be even more connected than it is today. Our clothes, devices, furniture, cars, even toilets will be online. But there’s a lot of work needed to deliver the connectivity this new era requires, and even more to secure our data.
