 People are now referring to the Internet of Things as being the next big thing, and there are probably two reasons for that. First of all, there are actually more devices connected on the Internet than there are people on Earth. So if we think about that for a moment, there are actually more things on the Internet than most of us imagine. And second of all, as some authors at MIT have pointed out, that it's come on suddenly because of some of the developments that have been happening slowly over the years, and we might think of it as the way a person goes broke, they say. We go broke gradually and then suddenly. So there's been exponential growth in terms of processing and exponential growth in terms of the reach of the Internet, and those factors have come around to where we're seeing a very rapid improvement in the way machines can talk to one another. Another way to think about the Internet of Things and its importance is that it represents sort of a third wave of technology transformation, the first being automation, when we were able to take humans not out of the picture, but make machines smarter and able to do things from about the 50s and 60s. The next, of course, was the Internet and the World Wide Web, which started in the mid-90s, and now, of course, we take that for granted. But the Internet of Things is a technology of sensors that feed information into the web and make products smarter, make businesses more capable, and make us as human beings more connected than ever before. At a personal level, we might already be experiencing some benefits from the Internet of Things. A couple of examples are the recent interest in biofeedback. So for example, Fitbits and devices that come along with the iWatch, et cetera, to monitor and give us back some information about ourselves. The other example you could use at a personal level is we all know about maps, and we all know how smartphones can guide us places. But a current app that people might be familiar with is called Waze. And the difference between Waze and a traditional mapping technology is that it actually measures the progress of other people traveling in and around the city, the area you are traveling. So it knows exactly how fast traffic is moving on a motorway, for example. So this is using sensors from devices around us, who we don't even know about, but they're feeding through the application infrastructure to give us a better sense of making a turn or not in terms of our own progress in real time, which is different than, say, Google Maps. For businesses, the Internet of Things has many, many possibilities. At a very basic level, people are already using it to monitor things such as crops and farmers, for example, are tracking cattle with RFID. Now, these are kind of minimal and basic, but important applications. Also, I've heard of people who can now, you can now use GPS tracking of cell phones to simply know where a sales force is going or where a transportation industry drivers are going. So monitoring is important, but more importantly, there's a transformation opportunity when businesses can use the information coming from devices and use that more carefully to get closer to customers or to serve customers differently. And that is where we might see some significant transformations. So the device, for example, itself is still important, the physical device. But the ability for the device to translate sense again and translate information back to its maker or to other users is important, and then ultimately to be able to analyze those data and to make different value propositions to the user. Massive possibilities in this space. Practical applications for the Internet of Things, the sensors in particular, are quite developed in primary production. So for example, the amount of spray that a farmer puts onto fields or onto orchards has been monitored for quite a long time through the machinery. It's actually delivering the chemical. So that has some benefits in terms of being more accurate and not overspraying or overlapping. And this is, of course, coordinated with GPS technology. So that's quite developed in sectors that are important here in New Zealand. So we have that. At another level, if we go back to biological feedback, there are now innovations that allow us to know more and better about ourselves at a personal level. So we can actually own the data or get the data from our own bodies, say, more quickly and without relying on medical systems. And actually, it's possible now for pharmaceutical drugs to be embedded with little microchips that let the manufacturer or other people know when they're being consumed. Now, this feels a bit strange in a way, but actually not taking drugs is one of the biggest problems that the medical service field has is to make sure that people actually take the drugs that are prescribed to them. So something as simple as that could possibly help the health of the planet and individuals. We've talked about some of the upsides, some of the best-case scenarios of the Internet of Things. The technology often is a double-edged sword. So one of the concerns that people will, of course, quickly figure out is concerns about security and privacy. And believe me, the more that our devices talk back to their maker or talk to any other big system, that's immediate and a big concern, a true concern. And a lot of that concern has not been worked out yet. So if consumers are buying products that relay data back to other sources, we fundamentally have to trust the company that's providing us with that device. But we also have to think about what else we might do in terms of regulation. And so there's some really serious issues around security and privacy. The other factor, of course, is that with all these data being translated, since translated and interpreted, where do we store the data? We don't call it big data for nothing. A good example is that the engines that are used on the Dreamline or the new generation of Boeing's aircraft, they produce one terabyte of data per day, per plane. Now, if you think about it, that's a lot of data. So obviously it can be used for the better improvement of the system, better improvement of efficiency, et cetera. But just the sheer multiplication of data is a massive factor. And that leads us to the other issue, which is infrastructure. So, of course, the internet is an infrastructure component. And again, the quality, the robustness, and the sort of pervasiveness of the infrastructure is a key issue as this internet of things develops. It's often hard to recognize a revolution even when you're in the midst of one. So what should business think about? I mean, on one hand, some of these things will come and go and be a GWIS factor, but not serious. But some of this technology and some of the technologies we've talked about could be quite disruptive. So I think business needs to pay attention to some of the ways that the internet of things is changing their customers' expectations. It might change what they can deliver in terms of smart devices. Or minimally, they need to pay attention to what it might be doing in terms of the competitive landscape.