The Future of Internet - Are we ready?

Internet. Internet. Internet.
We've sure come a long way, from Web 1.0 to 2.0 and I think we're already headed towards 3.0?

So what's Web 3.0?

The Internet of Things, but what exactly is it?

Let's do a tiny little recap, Web 1.0 is 'read-only', Web 2.0 is 'collaboration' and 'content sharing'.
Web 3.0 is like another level higher, with semantic Web technologies.

Imagine your fridge talking to you the moment you step into the kitchen, asking for what you want to eat!

Imagine receiving a text regarding the latest offers in the shopping mall that you are currently at! How cool is that! It even saves you the hassle from searching it on Google!

As the Internet becomes more intelligent, more connected and open, it will become another life-changer, just like when the Internet rose to its current state.

To be honest, I have no idea what will the future of Internet be, other than one fact that humans might become more lazy and observant to our surroundings. We rely on our devices so much nowadays, if we were to even rely almost completely on what we call our “smart" technology, the ones getting more dumb would be us, humans.

One of the definition of the Internet of Things states that:

By embedding short-range mobile transceivers into a wide array of additional gadgets and everyday items, enabling new forms of communication between people and things, and between things themselves.

And this is most evident in the Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID)

RFID is the wireless use of electromagnetic fields to transfer data, for the purposes of automatically identifying and tracking tags attached to objects. The tags contain electronically stored information. 

I'm sure all of you would have been in contact with such tags before! As I was enlightened, these tags are really, really common, like the part where you scan your library books also has an RFID tag. Though that wouldn't really fulfil the definition above.
I've experienced one that enable communication between themselves, low and behold for....
the changing colour lightsticks.

Seeeeeeeeeee! It's so awesome! Such cool technology being applied here

From what I know, the lightstick contains the RFID tag, and it is controlled by the production crew.

1. The production crew sets a fixed frequency for a specified colour
2. The colour comes on, altogether, when the crew sets it to that particular frequency. This is why the whole arena changes colour instantly, WITHOUT the control of the fans.
(Although some remains the default blue, either because of defect or counterfeit issues apparently)

I own one of these lightsticks, and that really kept me intrigued till the point I even went to look up about it and realized it had to do with RFID. Here's what experts have to say about it (Can't find a video that demonstrates and explains this in English, so I shall make do with Taiwan news coverage!)

Though this isn't in English, it's basically what I've mentioned above!

Perhaps this isn't quite related to the Internet, but it definitely counts as one the the developments of technology that lays the foundation for the Internet of Things. One day, we might find ourselves going to shopping malls where the goods will start talking to you! Maybe we don't need promoters anymore (Ohgosh, job retrenchment coming up?)

I can't help but feel a tinge of negativity about embracing IoT though, it's like humans trying to be smart with all these new technologies, but in fact we might be the ones getting more dumb? 

And it will be quite overwhelming if the products all came after one customer, then the next one walks in then you'll hear the overcrowding of voices again and again?

As innovation progresses, managing these innovations is crucial and a challenging process for governments. There's so many potential implications out there, threats waiting to unfold. Well, if goods can talk to you, I believe people can make use of such technology to do evil too, or spread hoax messages, and create a state of panic.

Coupled with the recent events happening around the world, even if we are a small little dot on the map, the lack of collaboration and governance will have terrible consequences. Perhaps the fact that we are small, makes us even more vulnerable to the many challenges of IoT such as tracking each and everyone of you down 

So, do you want your future of the Internet to be like this:

Maybe it's really time to think about the future of our Internet.....

How do we convince users that the IoT technology is able to protect their data and privacy? How can we ensure that users are safe? 

What is OUR future of the Internet? Are we ready to accept it?