The Consumer Electronics Show kicks off in Las Vegas this week. On view almost 2 million square feet of the latest consumer gadgets and one of this year’s themes is the Internet of Things.
You know what the internet is, right? Well, the Internet of Things?
“So the Internet of Things is basically this idea that everyday objects will be able to connect to the Internet, will be able to communicate with each other,” said Scott Jacobson is a venture capitalist at the Madrona Venture Group.
And the more we connect the Internet to things like thermostats, refrigerators and even cars, the idea is, the smarter they get. Jacobson says a few things are driving this trend. Sensors have gotten really cheap and so you can detect sound and take images with almost any electronic gadget. And then, there’s the cloud.
“And so once they get connected, all the computing that needs to be done for these things can be done in the cloud,” Jacobson said.
Frank Gillett, an analyst at Forrester research, says expect to see a lot of Internet of Things around the home at the consumer electronics show this week.
“There’s a range of things here, there’s door locks that can be wifi enabled that you can unlock from your phone,” Gillet said.
But Gillet says, the real question is how do we make everything work together. It’s like the conundrum of the million remote controls you need to make your TV work. And that one has yet to be solved.
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