We have been pretty busy speaking at various events in this past month. Starting with Internetome, the first event dedicated to the Internet of Things in the UK, which assembled speakers from various industry players, Intel, Qualcomm, IBM, organizations like Privacy International, and Lancaster University. The day after we attended the open ceremony with Vint Cerf of 6UK, the organization aiming to accelerate the adoption of the fundamentally important IPv6 protocol in the UK.
The Internet of Things meme is heating up, and next week we will be in Brussels, speaking at TEDx, and at the Royal Academy of Science.
Leandro Agro, CEO of WideTag, has been interviewed by WIRED Italy, and the Venice Biennale of Architecture. Here is a piece of the interview (which is not yet online):
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Tomorrow a social object might be associated with Italy not because of its aesthetic value but because of its level of “sociality”
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By 2050 I imagine the Internet of Things will have become a reality. A wider and deeper internet than Web 2.0, on a planetary scale, capable of taking on GAIA, the Earth, and enabling both humans and their “machines” to become part of social networks.
This third Internet wave will NOT simply relate to the Future, it is in fact rooted in the past: it had already made its entrance into people’s homes by 2010, speeding up the systematic reinvention of objects. Rethinking everyday objects, much as was the case with the advent of plastic, and reshaping them to fit the future we hope to live: it is this opportunity that Italy – more than so many other systems and countries – is cut out to grasp.
A strategic opportunity, not just to avoid disappearing altogether, but also to pave the way for a new Renaissance, of which we ourselves will be the protagonists.
Objects in daily use serve as our archaeological history and our mirror. So why and how should we reinvent them now?
Every object should tell its own story. The story of its past (what it is made of, where it was produced, how it is used) and its future (how to differentiate it, how to take it apart, how to recycle it). It should be actively self-aware (being sentient or at least having some idea of the time and place for its own use), be connected and social, in other words it should belong to us humans, “living” as part of our digital and social network.
Technology remains a fundamental pillar of this third Internet wave, and it will take multidisciplinary teams working together to create sensible products.
This has been the case for years in design schools.
It is now time to take these approaches into companies and use them to power the country. Design should become just as important as craftsmanship, which is what has set our top designer brands apart thus far. The artisan sector and software engineering need to work hand in hand.
It is not beyond the realms of possibility that over the next 40 years Made In Italy will encompass a technological dimension, evolving from style to interaction.
Thus, tomorrow, a social object could be associated with Italy not merely for the sake of its appearance but particularly for its level of “sociality”.
In a nation of inventors (as well as engineers, interaction designers, and creators of every sort and kind) time is always on the side of the future.”
