The Programmable World

Wiring the physical world.  How we’ll live when everything is online.

All our digital devices are wired up now.  Next in line is the world of things.

Door locks that recognize you and yield at your approach.  Machines at the gym that know your Tuesday workout and go straight to it when you walk in.  Anything, anywhere with embedded intelligence and connectivity, responding to you and to other things around you.  A programmable world of objects, things.

It may sound like heaven.  It may sound like hell.  It’s happening.

This hour, On Point:  when the physical world is wired up, programmed, and responding to you.
- Tom Ashbrook

Bill Wasik, senior editor of WIRED magazine. Author of this month's cover feature: "Welcome to the Programmable World." (@billwasik)

Jason Johnson, chairman of the Internet of Things Consortium. CEO of August. (@jcjohnson)

Sherry Turkle, professor of the social studies of science and technology at MIT. (@sturkle)

WIRED: Welcome to the Programmable World — "This is the language of the future: tiny, intelligent things all around us, coordinating their activities. Coffeepots that talk to alarm clocks. Thermostats that talk to motion sensors. Factory machines that talk to the power grid and to boxes of raw material. A decade after Wi-Fi put all our computers on a wireless network—and half a decade after the smartphone revolution put a series of pocket-size devices on that network—we are seeing the dawn of an era when the most mundane items in our lives can talk wirelessly among themselves, performing tasks on command, giving us data we’ve never had before."

ABC News: August Smart-Lock Turns Your Phone Into a House Key — "Our smartphone can control our house thermostat, our light bulbs and washer and dryers. Why not the lock on our front doors? That's exactly what Jason Johnson and Yves Behar thought when they created August, a new technology company that will be selling a $199 smart-lock later this year. Similar to other smart devices, the idea behind August is that your phone communicates with an everyday object, in this case a device that you attach to your door."

PC Advisor: What is 'The Internet of Things'? — "As more and more devices are arriving embedded with sensors and the ability to communicate we are experiencing the birth of a new type of network. One that promises to usher in an automated future that will see the internet of people surpassed by the internet of things."