Last week Monday I visited the 15th edition of Mobile Monday. This time the title was ‘The Internet of Things’, and it was a great event. Three international speakers talked about the coming years for the internet of things by Alex of Tinker.it, how machines make us more human by David Orban, and the internet of living things by Andrew Hessel. I enjoyed all three talks a lot. As I am more familiar with both Alex and David’s thinking, the nicest surprise was Andrew Hessel’s talk on the speed of development in genetic engineering. It is rapidly approaching the DIY stage, and FabLabs are certainly already capable of providing this type of possibilities.

Andrew Hessel’s talk was at the same time exciting and exhilarating, as well as scary. A very interesting point was that a number of scientists involved in this field see only one way of keeping bio-engineering like this away from the ‘dark side’ or at least in check, by open sourcing everything they do. Only when all information is available to all, will we all be able to detect things amiss, and counteract wrongdoing. Another soundbite that puts how we will be dealing with the fall out of this technology into a tangible perspective: “Information travels around the globe instantly, viruses in a month” That’s the window we’ll need to work with, it seems.
A very stimulating session, with good people, and good discussion. I think I will add some elements to my upcoming ‘Maker Household‘ talk at SHiFT 2010 in Lisbon next week as well.