Apple and Google vie for Internet of things control

The Internet of things is undoubtedly one of the hottest topics of the moment. Both the big technology giants, Apple and Google, are actively laying out to dominate the sector. But they obviously chose a different technology path.

No one knows what the world would be like when more and more items around us were installed with networked miniature wireless signal receivers that became more and more intelligent.

 

The so-called "Internet of Things" (things, a lot), as Wikipedia calls it, is so interesting, especially now that Google and Apple are starting to do their thing.

Google is testing networking glasses. This January, the company bought Nest Labs, the leading manufacturer of smart thermostat controllers and smoke detectors, for $3.2 billion. With Nest, the ambitious former vice president of Apple Engineering, Tony de-France, has been known for his ipod.

Apple is also working to build ibeacons, a miniature Bluetooth probe used to communicate with the iphone. There are also rumors that Apple is likely to announce two new platforms at the developer conference next week: one to monitor people's physical health and another to manage people's rooms.

People are guessing who will be the manufacturer of future smart devices and how they will interact with other devices.

"There is a view that all of these products will be designed in a common open standard, communicating and interacting intelligently with each other," said Benedict Evans, partner of the venture capital firm Anderson Horowitz Fund (Andreessen Horowitz). So if you walk into the room with someone who's not recognized by a surveillance camera and your calendar says ' dating ', then an integrated learning system will dim the lights, turn on the thermostat, and play the sexy music of Barry White.

But, according to Evans, this kind of Barry-like scenario is unlikely to happen under the precedent of early technology that has been achieved in developed countries, such as small electric motors or computer chips. A variety of products typically do not share data unless they are installed on the same device-such as a fully equipped car.

Apple and Google want to use hundreds of integrated chips and battery-powered activators to profit from the Internet of things like a smart car, or at least gain control over it. But they have different ways of achieving their goals-both sides are starting with their strengths.

"Many wearable devices think they should be satellite products for smartphones, whether it's a remote sensor or a remote display, but their value," Evans wrote. Generate cloud-based analytics: Know how many hours you're going to sleep each day, or get advice from big data: When should you fall asleep and set a few waking alarms, which is more useful? Ibeacon has a fascinating performance in the process. Because they are not connected to other products, they bring intelligence to the physical world. As a result, every wall, every row of retail display cabinets, every suitcase, every parcel can be part of the data. ”

"That is, sometimes the device is just a cloud-driven, no-talking glass (or a sensor that can't talk). And sometimes the cloud is a device-driven fool-type memory. ”

"The development of Apple and Google is very interesting," Evans said. If the majority of ' objects ' are just satellite products of smartphones and cloud terminals, how can they achieve value and control? Apple has integrated hardware and software that means they are best suited to their tasks, but Google is better at working with cloud systems. ”