Wireless has evolved from Marconi's station-to-station telegraphy, to audio and video broadcasting, to today’s person-to-person mobile digital communications. Each transition has surprised even the revolutionaries who brought it about, and each transformed civilization. We expect similar disruptions from the next phase of interconnectivity, in which a trillion objects join the conversation. Tech pundits have long talked about an Internet of Things, a vision most often dominated by machine-to-machine communications in industrial settings. Lee will make the case for the Internet of Everything in which humans will be involved in the most compelling applications yet to emerge. He will describe some possible futures, and how Stanford engineers are working to overcome significant challenges to realize those futures.

1. The Internet of Things Everything: It’s Inevitable
Prof. Thomas H Lee
EngX, 4 Dec. 2014

2. 
4 million cellphones are sold each day.

250,000 text messages are sent each second.
(ITU)
wired-wireless crossover: Dec 2001
We’ve Cut the Cord

3. 
There are now >6 billion mobile subscriptions.
•
There were ~0 in 1981; 20 years later we became a mobile species.
2014: Wireless subscriptions will exceed the earth’s population of 7 billion.
Mobile Miracles

4. 1st Age of Wireless: Station-to-Station
Guglielmo Marconi, c. 1902

Killer app: Maritime comms.
•
Famously enabled rescue of Titanic survivors in 1912.

Station-to-station mode limited to kiloscale.

5. 2nd Age of Wireless: Station-to-People

Expensive transmitters, but cheap receivers. Enables megascale reach and beyond.

Advertising makes startups like NBC/CBS much more valuable than wireless telegraph companies.
iPod, v0.0
E. Howard Armstrong and Marion on honeymoon, Dec. 1923
(Columbia Univ.)
iPod, v0.0

6. 3rd Age of Wireless: People-to-People
(Associated Press)

Rapidly achieved gigascale connectivity.

There are clouds on the horizon, however…

7. Tea Leaves Tell a Tale

Voice-data crossover occurred last year

We are now a mobile digital species.
Voice
Data
Q2 2013
End of the 3rd Age of Wireless

8. The 3rd Age is Long in the Tooth

New-subscription revenues have plummeted, marking the end of a phase of wireless history.

9. 
Adding things to the conversation will take us to the terascale.

It’s not just an Internet of Things, it’s the Internet of Everything (IoE).
•
People-to-people, people-to-things and things-to- things.
•
Wireless and wired.
•
Nets of nets/webs of webs.
The IoE is the 4th Age

10. 
To connect a trillion devices, we first need to design and fab them.

A trillion devices can’t all be battery-powered.

A trillion devices constitute a large “attack surface”.
Many Challenges

11. 
Automated design tools as a “workforce multiplier.”

Field-programmable things arrays (FPTAs) to reduce the number of different chips.

RF-powered modules to supplement energy harvesting.

Low-power configurable security engines.
Possible Solutions

12. No Batteries!
Univ. of Washin
Thing 1 Thing 2
5G tower
iThing

13. To Configure and Control
To Access Content
To Monitor and Alert
To Interact
Examples of Uses for the IoE
Courtesy of Ayla Networks
Smartphones/phablets will be the remote control for your universe.

14. Healthcare Example
Nelvin C. Cepeda, Union-Tribune – March 30, 2009

Patient ingests sensor which beams data to phone, then over network.

Remote monitoring (and even control) is extremely compelling for healthcare.

West Wireless Medicine Institute launched in March 2009 to develop these kinds of technologies.

15. Healthcare Example #2

Future smartphones will have sensor suites to monitor health and communicate results.

Star Trek “Tricorder” is a driving vision for many.

Qualcomm sponsoring $10M prize.

Massive data collects will inform in new and powerful ways, and present compelling business opportunities.
Qualcomm

16. Why Carriers will Embrace the IoE

Many applications served by low data rates.
•
Example:
Home Automation Logic unit says, “I’ve closed the garage door, Dave.”
“Open the garage door, HAL.”
“I’m sorry, Dave, I can’t do that.”

Great value will come from network effects, but not all communications will need to go through basestations.
•
IP-based platforms will dominate, but…
•
Point-to-point technologies (e.g., Bluetooth, NFC) will also be very important.

17. Can the IoE Truly Get Big?

“It’s hard to make predictions, especially about the future.” – Mark Twain, Niels Bohr, Yogi Berra, etc.
•
High correlation between certainty and foolishness in predictions. Nevertheless…

18. How Big?

The worldwide semiconductor industry generated about $300B in revenues in 2013.

The diet and weight-loss industry is a $60B business in the U.S. alone.

19. IoE: Plenty of Visions and Work to Do
Extremetech
Qualcomm
Cisco

20. “The future’s so bright, I gotta wear shades.” -- Timbuk3