It’s good to always remember one thing — the Internet is a medium made by humans, built for a specific purpose: communication.

Therefore, there is no reason to build an “Internet of Things”. After all, this is something we already did in the 90’ — it is called Machine to Machine (M2M) communication and it leveraged the third industrial revolution, bringing automation to the industry.

As everyone has been telling you, we are now in the era of the fourth industrial revolution. In the 4.0 phase, the new protagonist is the “INFORMATION”. Information is extracted from data and then formed into knowledge by people. This again is a matter of communication. So, what we don’t need is IoT. We need to bring Things On Internet.

How can we do this?

By making machines able to communicate with humans and become understandable to humans. Also, by transferring all this information and leveraging new knowledge in humans. (this is why I co-founded TOI – Things on Internet, a company now merged with Zerynth).

Humanized machines will prevent the de-humanization we are going through at this time. Right now, humans are downgrading their communication skills in order to fit the capabilities of technological interfaces!

The Internet of Things can change the way we interface with technology in our daily lives. We’ll soon stop being the simple users of the past, that only receive Information. We are becoming a part of an info-system where humans and technology are coupled to create a more pleasant and efficient world.