Many of us thought by the time 2012 came around, we would be living in a scene from Back to the Future Part II: flying cars, robot waiters and automatic shoelaces. While we still have a ways to go in a few regards, some of the 1989 film’s predictions were not far off. Scenes depicted flat-panel T.V. screens mounted to walls, video games commanded by body movements instead of hand controllers and a multi-party video conference call resulting in Marty McFly being fired via a real-time fax.
Of course, an email would be the more realistic form of firing Marty today, but the notion is the same. Through Machine-to-Machine (M2M) technology, devices can capture events (Marty’s boss’ verbal termination), relay them through a network to an application that extracts intelligence and translates the captured event into meaningful information (in this case: “You’re fired!”). This data is then transmitted through a system of networks to personal devices. M2M enables these machines to communicate with one another and serve like a hired personal assistant, making our lives just a little bit easier.
More highly pragmatic uses can be deployed by today’s M2M technology. Machines are becoming more human by driving relevance through these event-enabled networks. Imagine this:
Now, stop imagining and pay attention. Check out M2M for yourself and learn how we are, in fact, getting back to the future.
