I don’t care how gung ho you are about the Internet of Things, it’s impossible not to feel a pang of anxiety about the onslaught of automation.
With much of modern life becoming digitised, it’s reassuring that some ancient traditions are making a comeback. Hand writing, vinyl records and even keeping chickens are becoming increasingly popular. But they could all be improved by a subtle addition of M2M technology, without neutralising their appeal.
Fountain pen sales have consistently risen for five consecutive years, according to manufacturer Parker. People are beginning to appreciate the traditional advantages the amount of personalisation and warmth that can be conveyed by the nuances of the writer’s calligraphy.
Vinyl record sales are up 38 per cent in 2014, according to Digital Music News. The sound quality is a factor, but the joy of owning a tactile mini artwork is a major part of their appeal. The record industry spent decades perfecting the craft of creating the perfect album cover, then they ditched all that knowledge in favour of hideous, self destructing plastic CD cases. Vinyl records are still played by machines, so there’s no reason why they can’t be improved by being online.
Keeping chickens isn’t practical for many town dwellers, but I’m hoping to realise this dream with M2M. All I need is a farmer who will host my menagerie for me, so I could manage them from my desktop. They could be monitored by CCTV, feeding could be initiated by a commands sent from my laptop to a corn dispenser and, if a fox appeared in the vicinity, sensors and a mechanical guard dog could create some of sort of automated armed response.
I imagined this remote farming / chicken hosting idea would remain a fanciful pipedream until meeting Alistair Davies, the technical specialist for the Zoological Society of London (ZSL). As part of its Project Instant Wild, ZSL is using M2M technology to reduce the number of casualties as the old and new worlds collide. In most cases, the casualties are animals as the human population, driven by automation and digitisation, expands into the ever shrinking spaces occupied by our endangered animal species.
Both Elephants and polar bears, for example, find it increasingly difficult not to wander into areas occupied by humans as they become boxed in. This can lead to them unwittingly trampling crops, or even creating human casualties. These events normally end tragically for the animals too, as villages react to the threat in the only way they know. However ZSL’s pioneering of M2M is limiting the number of clashes. Sensors and cameras will warn villagers of the approach of an elephant or bear in advance, and they can take preventative measures that don’t involve a painful confrontation. The animal and the villagers avoid death and their crops don’t get destroyed.
Similarly, endangered rhinos are being protected by M2M technology. Magnetic sensors (disguised as rocks) alert the authorities to the presence of cars and weapons in a remote area, which helps them to automate a response that interrupts poachers. In another project, the public are invited to monitor the Penguin population in the Antarctic. Crowdsourcing the management of animal populations, through web sites like EdgeOfeXistence.org, will not only help preserve our endangered species, but they will make the Internet of Things less of a scary proposition. The Mozilla Foundation, pioneer of open source computing, is a driving force behind these initiatives and is particularly keen to reclaim the Internet of things for the people, rather than corporations.
Meanwhile, in the UK, the old fashioned practice of rustling is making a comeback, according to farming insurance firm NFU Mutual. Technology has made house breaking and car theft a lot harder, so criminals are heading for the country, where the property – such as sheep – is unlikely to be connected to any alarm system. So there’s another potential application for M2M. It’s only logical that Ram goes online.
According to my own surname, my ancestors would have lived in a hut (AKA a Booth) in the hills and looked after animals. I’m rather hoping I can do this from my desktop, thanks to advances in M2M technology.
