Smart household technology is increasingly being installed into millions of homes across the world and it promises to change the way we live forever.
Self-study activity:
Watch the video and complete the blanks in the transcript with the missing words.
Where does the outside world stop and private space begin? What details of your life are you willing to share with strangers? Take this house. Every morning, lights come on. Coffee (1) … automatically. Technology just like this is increasingly being installed into millions of homes across the world and it promises to change the way we live forever.
So there are sensors of all kinds, there’s lights and (2) ... and thermostats and once they’re connected then our platform can make them do whatever you want them to do. So as an example, if I wake up in the morning, the house knows that I’m waking up. It can wake up with me. When we walk in the kitchen, it will play the local news and sort of greet us into the day, tell us the (3) ... ... so we know how to dress for the day and so on.
This technology is known as the internet of things, where the objects in our houses - (4) ... ..., anything electronic - can be connected to the internet. But for it to be useful, we’re going to have to share intimate details of our private life.
So this is my things app. It can run on your mobile phone or on a tablet or something like that. I can do things like look at the (5) ... ... ... of family members. It can automatically detect when we come and go based on our mobile phones or you can have it detect your presence with a little sensor, you can put it in your car or something like that. So when we leave the house, and there’s no one home, that’s when it’ll lock up and (6) ... ... all the electricity used and so on.
For most of us, this is deeply private information. Yet once we hand it over, we have to (7) ... a company to keep it confidential.
The consumer really owns 100% of their own data so they’re opting in. It’s not something where that data would ever be shared without their giving their permission.
This house represents a new normal, where even the movements within our own home are documented and (8) ... . It’s a new frontier. The internet is asking us to redefine what we consider private.
Key:
1 brews
2 locks
3 weather forecast
4 kitchen appliances
5 comings and goings
6 shut down
7 trust
8 stored
