I have a brain, so they say. I wake up 6AM every day (excluding weekends). I charge. Check the weather. Equip myself and drive to work. I meet with others. I sense the environment. I interact. I gather data. I record. I analyze. I make decisions. I upload pictures, thoughts, impressions, statuses. I respond. I get back from work. I reset my system and go to hibernate. I wake up at 6AM.
a Sensor: a device that detects or measures a physical property and records, indicates, or otherwise responds to it.
a Controller: a person or thing that directs or regulates something.
But, I have a brain.
“Internet of Things” they call it. Billions of sensors and controllers connected to the network. They will measure and act on everything from temperature, humidity and accelerations to wind speed, materials composition and density. Controllers will control machines or computers based on commands provided by either pre-defined algorithms or by simple verbal commands. Cars will be driving themselves avoiding traffic, roadblocks and crazy drivers. Homes will welcome us with the right temperature, lightening, music and such. Shops will target us. Websites will adjust to our tastes. All accommodating us, Humans.
About 40% of the world’s population is connected to the Internet today. That’s about 3 billion people that are feeding the net (the cloud) every day with data and knowledge about themselves and their environment. Every interaction we make, every post with write, every pic we upload, every friendship request or ecommerce transaction, or every health data we upload, are all codifying us, individuals and communities into a highly distributed data stores with immense processing powers.
We think about IoT, and our mind pictures miniature silicon based sensors connected to the Internet. But without even noticing it, we the people are becoming sensors and controllers for a future bigger networked brain.
We talk about singularity, the day computers will develop their own consciousness. Usually we think super-computers specifically designed to mimic the way we think. But have a look at the network, the internet. More and more it starts looking like a big a neural representation of our brain.
We are the sensors, we are the controllers, but are we still the brain? For how long? Who will control this Brain? Will it be controllable at all?
I wake up. I’m still human.
That was just a dream.
Startup Dreamer 
Thank you Motti for a great post, I enjoyed reading.
In my eyes, the phase we are in, we used to call it “web 2.0”, then “social networks”, allowing us to do all these “sense, interact, gather data, record, analyze, upload pictures, thoughts, impressions, statuses, respond”.
It’s “Internet of people”, man!
It’s all about people, we need connections, we need to belong and to communicate. In the Internet of people YOU indeed are the sensor and the controller.
“Internet of things”? Who cares that my dishwasher calls the fridge? I care only if it allows ME to communicate better, fulfill my desires… Maslow’s 3rd layer never said anything about my car doing things to the lights when I’m alone in my home… :)
“Internet of people” is just in its beginning, “Internet of things” will just facilitate it further. We haven’t seen nothing yet…