Aashish Mishra

New media, like smartphones, computer-related appliances, the internet and various internet-based platforms like websites, apps, social media, are no longer new. They are giving way to newer and better media that are more interconnected. In fact, interconnectivity is the future as experts estimate that we have more than 50 billion devices around the world that are connected to the internet and each other.
While a third of them are devices like smartphones, tablets, televisions, refrigerators and cars-- i.e., technology we are already familiar with, the remaining two-thirds are recently invented intelligent devices that claim to be able to monitor, control, analyse and optimise our world. Such interconnectivity of devices, making them “smarter” and able to actively shape our reality, is called the Internet of Things (IoT) and it looks set to grow and expand in the coming days.
IoT can be properly defined as the network of interconnected sensor-equipped electronic devices that collect data, communicate with each other and can be monitored or controlled remotely over the internet. In simple words, the Internet of Things is exactly what the name suggests – an interconnected network of normal everyday objects.
IoT can be compared to a Google search. When we look up something using Google’s search engine, it remembers our choice and then uses this data to give us predictions in our future searches. It also gives us recommendations and advertises to us based on our search profile and what it believes to be our preference.
We can also sign in to our Google account from anywhere at any time and from any device as long as it is connected to the internet and we have our password. With the Internet of Things, operating something like our oven will be the same. If we heat pizza every day for dinner at 9 pm, the oven will be smart enough to detect this pattern and set itself to the right temperature at the required time on its own. If we regularly heat a specific kind of pizza, then it will suggest various restaurants that serve that kind of pizza, thus, judging our preference. Moreover, we will be able to turn our oven on or off from our phones or tablets through the internet from anywhere without actually having to be physically present in front of it. This analogy sums up the basic concept of IoT.
The main goal of IoT is to connect the physical and virtual worlds and reduce the need for human interventions in technology. The Internet of Things will offer a new life to our devices and enable them to communicate with each other. Using the analogy of the oven again, the oven will “ask” the refrigerator what food items it has, the refrigerator will “respond” and the oven will anticipate what will be cooked and set itself accordingly.
It might even go so far as to recommend the owner what to cook based on the groceries he already has at home. In a sense, our appliances will be “intelligent” mini-robots.
IoT can plausibly be called the future of new media without sounding like something out of science fiction because the process has already begun. Our phones are becoming smarter and smarter, we have already reached the level of 5G, cloud computing is catching on and data analytics software are advancing at an exponential rate.
There are major platforms and discoveries that have had a rich wage of complexity, global reach and novelty.
But the IoT is, for sure, a trend that takes the development of new media to a whole another level.