Day 12: Creative Writing Challenge

This is a 30-day writing challenge for the month of March where I will write a new post about a picture/video/idea each day.

At First Glance

Light bulb turning itself on by plugging the cable into the outlet.

The light is personified to be a a moving object and the nuts and bolts it is comprised of it gives it the look of a human.

This image highlights how cool it would be if the light could turn on without needing human support.

The Story Behind the Picture

This picture was created in 2008 before people started to learn about the Internet of things (IoT). This picture was more so a concept art that was created in order to get people thinking about how we could get devices to create themselves.

There was already an emphasis on creating electronic devices with smaller transistors to make them faster. However, there was still improvements to be made and one idea was to introduce something called internet of things (IoT).

This picture helped birth IoT because it gave people a new perspective on devices. Rather than focusing on improving current devices, the focus shifted to devices and appliances that we use everyday. We could make devices come to life by intergrating the devices we turn on with internet connectivity.

This would allow us to manipulate those devices using our cell phones. The idea of IoT is to connect to devices over the air and could essentially turn on a light bulb in the room without being present.

In fact, the concept of internet of things meant that you did not need to be near the device like you would with a Bluetooth connection. The two devices (phone and lightbulb) could communicate over the internet and so you can manipulate the light from wherever whenever. As long as the light bulb has IoT integration, there was nothing stopping you from turning it on.

This picture paved the way for Philips to create the Hue lights which could change color, brightness, and light manipulation could occur using your cell phone from wherever you are in the world. Only the bulbs need to be installed so not much equipment is required to get started.

Slowly, other companies started creating IoT outlets and other devices so we can easily make changes to electronic devices in our homes or at work. One simply picture was able to bring about a new technology. This one concept has the potential to change the course of how we use technology forever.

The artist who designed the picture now looks ahead for new ideas to improve current technology. The current craze is blockchain technologies so hopefully a new innovation comes about in the future to improve crypto currency technology and give it a wide spread user base.