- A typical smartphone bought today will remain useful and usable for at least three years, but its system software support will tend to dry up after just 18 months.
This isn't surprising, of course. Samsung doesn't make any money from making your two-year-old phone better. Samsung makes its money when you buy a new Samsung phone. Improving the old phones with software updates would cost money, and that tends to limit sales of new phones. For Samsung, it's lose-lose.
Our fridges, cars, and TVs are not even on a two-year replacement cycle. Even if you do replace your TV after it's a couple years old, you probably won't throw the old one away. It will just migrate from the living room to the master bedroom, and then from the master bedroom to the kids' room. Likewise, it's rare that a three-year-old car is simply consigned to the scrap heap. It's given away or sold off for a second, third, or fourth "life" as someone else's primary vehicle. Your fridge and washing machine will probably be kept until they blow up or you move houses.
I do not want my fridge to be smart. It can shut the hell up and keep the food I stick in it cold. Anything else, and that appliance is overstepping its boundaries. Don't tell me when I am low on milk. I'll tell you when I am low on milk. Don't tell me when my yogurt expired. I don't give a shit, and I don't want to hear it. The last thing that I want is my fridge talking to anyone else, least of all the manufacturer.
Technology chugs along but a some point a reasonable person loses interest.
theadvancedapes - did you read this? Thoughts?The "Internet of things" stands a really good chance of turning into the "Internet of unmaintained, insecure, and dangerously hackable things."
Well the author is right in the he is addressing problems with the establishment of one of the most complex networks we have ever constructed. However, he commits the notorious flaw of linear thinkers (i.e. everyone who does not train themselves to realize that all ICT is evolving exponentially; not just one or two particular devices). He imagines a world where manufacturers in an IoT world operate as manufacturers have throughout the Industrial Age. Selection will ensure that's not the case (i.e., the companies that make sure his software concerns are not concerns will dominate the market and those that do not will be the next Blockbuster). Also, he should take his own advice as he offered solutions to the problems he raised towards the end of the article (he just left out the mechanisms to realize his solutions). But if our smart appliances need to be able to be cheap enough to be replaceable due to advances and upgrades in software, what could possibly make that a reality? Oh, 3D printers. Global Brain manufacturing will not be industrial in nature, it will be Global Brain in nature. You can't project Industrial Age system processes into the future and say "see! I'm not a Luddite I'm just pointing out problems and convincing you to be content with our inefficient and scarce status quo". And in response to mk, no one will force your fridge to talk to send you notifications. You'll have the option to turn all of that off just like you can turn off Social Media email notifications. But what you will like from smart appliances - and what the author of this article failed to mention - is the fact that IoT is going to massively reduce wasted energy as we'll be able to efficiently regulate what needs to be running and when. And the old argument about viruses being a problem for software of smart devices is a tired and boring argument, as the same argument was used to argue that the internet would fail.
Human nature does not change all that much if it is a market system that makes this future then the future will be made of things that are marketable smart toasters may not be part of that set. Where is the demand for an internet of things. I see us approaching a threshold were exponential does not matter does not make a noticeable difference color perception and frame rate are already there eventually bandwidth, storage and processing will join them. What is the practical perceivable difference between instantaneous and instantaneous / 100? The thing that changes everything in the computer age has nothing to do with computers. In the same way that the thing that changed everything in the Space-age had nothing to do with space. [aside in the late 80's there was a coke machine with an internet address we used to make it spit out free drinks by poking it.]
Much more worried about the article he mentions in passing about car tech safety. Wonder when/if we'll see car manufacturers joint-venturing with big-name software designers ... now that's a true indication of the "internet of things." Correct me if I'm wrong, but I can always choose to use my old fridge, my old washer set, my old tv, etc. They'll last a while and by the time they give out I imagine I'll have bigger problems with technology.