back to article The Internet of Things isn't just for Bluetooth toothbrushes, y'know

“In education technology one thing I’d love to see is … making sure every coding club in this country offers hardware as a topic,” said Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino, giving the opening talk at yesterday’s Thingmonk Internet of Things conference in London’s Old Street district. On the final day of the three-day conference, …

  1. Sgt_Oddball

    F***ing tooth brush.....

    The wife being a dentist and thus given freebies in an attempt to get her to sell said stuff, has got two. The first has long since been given away and the other was a childs one which the bairn uses whenever she's in the mood. Though not always in her mouth (easy now.....).

    And the less said over the creepy/crappy app the better (7 o'clock is not the universal time for kids to get ready for bed, so stop telling me to brush my kids teeth!).

    1. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge

      Re: F***ing tooth brush.....

      Rhod Gilbert and the mystery of why his toothbrush has a computer in it . Funny as (expletive) !

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQ4W7yB9Mow

  2. Joseph Eoff

    " 39 per cent of SMEs are worried about the upfront cost of deploying IoT."

    So, 61 percent are totally fucking stupid.

    And, you can bet that not one of them considers the costs in keeping the "Internet of Tat" crap running.

    1. You aint sin me, roit

      61% aren't worried because they have no intention of deploying IoT.

      1. VinceH

        And of the 39% who are worried, 99% of them will at some point realise they can cut those costs by compromising on security.

  3. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge

    at what pojnt does an electic kerjigger become an IoT?

    I'd have thought 95% of the cost of the smart carpark would be wiring up a load of induction sensors , buying display matrices , and writing software. At that point you have a fully functioning electronic car park system that has nothing to do with the internet.

    oh but wait , you get the software to email out some stats (for free) and now its IoT?

    I have a NAS at home . At first it was a networked hard drive , but then i did some port forwarding (again at no extra cost) and now its an internet thing?

  4. Kubla Cant

    I read

    Thingmonk...

    Internet of Things conference...

    London’s Old Street district...

    located under an East London railway arch

    but for some reason I found it difficult to continue lost the will to live.

  5. stucs201
    Joke

    Bluetooth toothbrushes

    How do these differ from toothbrushes for normal whiteish teeth? Are there really enough people with blue teeth needing cleaning to justify such a specialist device? I'd expect the market to be limited to children who've eaten strangely coloured sweets.

    1. ecofeco Silver badge

      Re: Bluetooth toothbrushes

      Well it's blue, see?

  6. Darryl

    “The Web of Things was coined in 2007 by a couple of researchers and myself,”

    No, no, no. Just No

    It's 'a couple researchers and me' or ' I and a couple researchers coined...'

    Myself is a reflexive pronoun. It's only used when you are both the subject and the object of a sentence. Resist the urge to speak like a professional athlete trying to sound intelligent. It's not proper English, and it makes you sound like an idiot.

    </rant>

    1. ijustwantaneasylife

      "It's 'a couple researchers and me' or ' I and a couple researchers coined...'"

      Since when do you drop the 'of' ? If you do then you're probably a US citizen - or someone that uses this approach because you read more than your fair share of American-inclined text (like in IT journals like El Reg!) and think it must be correct.

      There's actually nothing wrong with this (according to the OED you can use both), but why berate someone about their grammar and then foister an unnecessary change on them.

      IMO, this is how you do it, but that's just my opinion...

      http://www.talkenglish.com/grammar/prepositions-of-to-for.aspx

      </rant2>

      1. Darryl

        Re: "It's 'a couple researchers and me' or ' I and a couple researchers coined...'"

        My apologies. Here are the omitted words:

        of

        of

        Please insert them in their proper positions in the original title.

    2. Captain DaFt

      Re: “The Web of Things was coined in 2007 by a couple of researchers and myself,”

      "It's 'a couple researchers and me' or ' I and a couple researchers coined...'"

      Rebuttal: "Me genius that make web of things thing. Not need know good words grammar."

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: “The Web of Things was coined in 2007 by a couple of researchers and myself,”

      Generally you should write "..and I..." rather than "I and...".

      For a rant you made a bit of a pig's ear of it, didn't you ;-)

    4. ecofeco Silver badge

      Re: “The Web of Things was coined in 2007 by a couple of researchers and myself,”

      He is be smart!

    5. DropBear
      WTF?

      Re: “The Web of Things was coined in 2007 by a couple of researchers and myself,”

      "Myself is a reflexive pronoun. It's only used when you are both the subject and the object of a sentence. "

      Not sure what you're smoking but it must be mighty strong. The reflexive use case is just one of the perfectly valid multiple uses of the word. How it makes you sound is a matter of personal taste but its use is by no means "incorrect". It's a perfectly cromulent word if I may say so myself.

  7. lukewarmdog

    I hooked up a bunch of cans of grapefruit flavoured pop that my mate loves and now he has an Internet of Tings

    1. AndyS

      I was out fishing the other day and dropped my After Eights. Now I have a Minty Net of Thins.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    IT Angle

    Real-world IoT applications

    What measures have the vendors taken to ensure these IoT applications can't be remotely compromised?

    1. Robert Moore
      FAIL

      Re: Real-world IoT applications

      > What measures have the vendors taken to ensure these IoT applications can't be remotely compromised?

      Best estimate: None.

      1. ecofeco Silver badge

        Re: Real-world IoT applications

        Actual: none.

    2. DropBear
      Trollface

      Re: Real-world IoT applications

      "What measures have the vendors taken to ensure these IoT applications can't be remotely compromised?"

      They carefully isolated them inside a protective cardboard or plastic blister packaging, often even going to the lengths of removing / insulating / not charging / not including the power source, for extra protection. It's not their fault that you then go ahead and systematically sabotage all those perfectly sensible precautions as soon as you buy the device...

  9. Stoneshop
    Megaphone

    or where noisy sales teams should be put so they don’t distract the rest of the company.

    A soundproofed dungeon cellar, where else?

    1. Terry Cloth
      Unhappy

      Re: or where noisy sales teams should be put so they don’t distract the rest of the company.

      Scanning the text, I momentarily read it as ``where noisy sales teams should be put so they don’t interact with the rest of the company''. For a second I was ready to cheer....

  10. David_42

    People who push the Internet of things generally over-look cost. A $95 connected light bulb will probably be replaced by a $2 dumb one after the former burns out in two years. Or a $99 toothbrush vs a $3 one that does just as good a job at cleaning teeth. My security system uses wired cameras for three reasons: cost, reliability, and security. And reliability includes having one UPS for the whole system.

  11. phil dude
    IT Angle

    alternative view....

    OK, there's alot of fluff in this IOT thing.

    However, on the serious side there is a pressing need to capture clinical information in non-clinical surroundings.

    Forget just the toothbrush - which could sample the chemical composition of the patient, and also exhaled components - it is possible to get heart disease from tooth decay... who knows what we could find from other devices...;-)

    P.

    1. DropBear

      Re: alternative view....

      "who knows what we could find from other devices"

      That there's not a single perfectly healthy individual left on the face of the earth. Grant me the remaining ruins of my illusions regarding my (known lack of) health - whatever else there is I'd rather find out (and be treated with another fistful of pills for the rest of my life, cheerfully shortened by the numerous side effects of the very same in the name of "treating" - but not curing, never curing, natch - the original "health issue") only when I have no other option.

  12. IWVC

    Bluetooth toothbrush?

    I'm not bothered by someone being told by my toothbrush that I'm using it so call back, but how can i stop my fridge ringing me at 3 in the morning to tell me the milk is past it's use by date????

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