​Technology, in general

It’s the end of 2023, and another ‘good riddance’ I say. That’s not really fair, as there were some great things in 2023. And there’s always good and bad to live with. That’s the real world, I suppose. I am fortunate enough to have a great deal to be thankful for, so I will amend my statement to, ‘so long 2023’.
 
For those of us lucky enough to live in Northern New Mexico, technology sometimes seems a fuzzy, distant thing on the horizon. It seems to come upon us more slowly here. It also sometimes sneaks in on us, without our noticing. Driving through Espanola, there are a lot of Wi-Fi devices and cameras mounted on the traffic lights. Subtle, in a way you might not notice.
 
I have a bunch of cameras at my house, mostly to watch the animals that show up, but also to see when the UPS driver snuck up so quietly and left several packages, so quietly my dog didn’t notice. The guy is a Ninja.
 
I was facetiming my daughter last night and it was dark on her end. She said something like ‘Hey Google, turn on the living room lights’ and the room lit up a second later. I forget that sort of thing is easy to do and commonplace elsewhere. I have a friend here in Abiquiu that controls his office lights with his iPhone. I guess it’s not so far off. I feel like a chump as I have to stand up and walk over to the lightswitch. Still, I can look at the feral cat that lives under our porch, from an app on my phone, so I’m not a total troglodyte.
 
All this is a lead-in to an article I read about some commonly used IoT, or Internet of Things. My refrigerator isn’t ordering groceries for me yet, but that tech is out there. My cousins are farmers in Illinois and their tractors map the planting using GPS, which is then used during the harvest. John Deere is definitely a leading edge company when it comes to using tech in agriculture.
 
We have a smart thermostat that is controlled from Carol’s phone. She can access the thermostat from anywhere she has an internet connection. Particularly useful when we’re coming home, let’s say, from a long day in Santa Fe and it’s gotten cold and we’d like to warm the house up for when we get there.
 
Medicine is getting into it with smart watches that can not only monitor your heart rate, but they can measure your oxygen, temperature and some are now doing blood pressure and blood glucose. I have a little pocket device that can do an EKG. I can see in the near future where you can have clothing with built in sensors that send info to your phone about your health.
 
Newer cars are connecting to the internet now as well, not only for navigation and music, but they can automatically sense an accident and send an ‘SOS’ for help. There is way more going on than what is obvious, and you can read about some of that HERE. Real-World Examples of IoT Software Development Success (msn.com)