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The Internet Will Disappear Soon

Last week, executive chairman of Google, Eric Schmidt, was asked about the future of the Web; to which he commented “The Internet will disappear.” He was talking about the Internet of Things of course. When Mark Weiser explained what the Ubiquitous Computing, clearly he was talking about the same, 20 years ago.

Ubiquitous Computing (1991)

Ubiquitous Computing (1991)

If you look around, you can see how obvious it is that the world around us is progressing rapidly. Times are changing faster than it ever has before, and the future of technology is in our hands—literally. Think of all of the times you asked yourself,

“Wouldn’t it be cool if _______________ was real?”

Chances are, someone has figured out how to make it real; and it’s really quite incredible what Internet of Things companies are beginning to develop: anything and everything from the Apple Watch, to smart dog tags to track your pup’s whereabouts. So now that we have all this technology at our fingertips, what’s next? What does the future of technology look like?

The answer lies somewhere in the cloud of the Internet of Things, a mechanism for connecting and controlling high-tech gadgets and everyday items via the internet. Here at thethings.iO we are proud to officially launch our very own IoT cloud solution, proving a totally unique connection between your things and the Internet.

thethings.iO – the IoT cloud solution

We offer the total package: back-end support for your cloud solution, a customizable front-end user interface, analytical tools, interoperability, and guaranteed protection of your company’s data- free for developers (as well as more extensive services available to startups for a fraction of the average market price).

Our aim is to make the Internet disappear and cut costs and production time for developers in the process, all while simultaneously improving the functionality of the product as well as the UX. What does that mean? It means hardware companies get to focus on building cool new things, and we focus on providing the connections and all of the support they need.

The future of technology is the Internet of Things. The future of technology is in your hands. Join thethings.iO

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How To Start With Internet of Things #IoTFriday

Welcome to the new edition of IoTFriday at thethings.iO. A lot of people have ask us how to get started with the Internet of Things. Today I would like to talk about what you can learn or do to get into the IoT. It depends on what you do, ideas you have and what you want to learn. Enjoy the new #IoTFriday video.

During this #IoTFriday, we proposed 3 different situations depending on if you are a designer, a programmer, or a business man with a lot of amazing ideas.

If you are a designer our suggestions are to design something useful that solves a problem in your daily life. After that, print your design with a 3D printer. Finally, learn how to code to continue working on your solution.

 

If you are a developer our first suggestion is first to buy electronics such as Arduino, Raspberry Pi or Intel Edison and begin the coding process. Learn how these IoT platforms work;  it’s quite simple and the most important part is to have fun programming things. Finally, developers always need to meet a designer.

If you are a business person, create a nice idea and think of the best way to scale it. If you have a business idea related with the Internet of Things that scales, meet with developers and designers to make it happen.

Feel free to write in the comment area below if you have any questions or comments! We will do our best to respond promptly. If you need to test our back-end solution, write us a message to thethings.iO.

Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and be sure to check out our #IoTFriday weekly blog!

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Xmas lights at theThingsiO #iotFriday

At thethings.iO, we have been working a lot during the last months. We have been connecting things from our first customers and being in involved in awesome projects. We have also had some time to do some internal projects:

 

You are probably wondering, what did I just watch? Well, we were able to connect the Christmas lights and our Twitter handle (@theThingsIO), so that every time someone mentions us on Twitter they blink. We connected them via an Intel Edinson that listens to thethings.iO process.

Developing the Xmas lights connected to @thethingsIO

Developing the Xmas lights connected to @thethingsIO

We would like to use this opportunity to wish you a merry Christmas and a happy New Year for 2015

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HackLeumi & thethings.iO

Shalom hackers and makers of the HackLeumi hackathon 2014. We are sad to say that we will not be able to attend the HackLeumi at Tel Aviv in Israel for this reason we will be writing this post instead of our usual #iotfriday.

In this post, we will guide you through the tools and APIs of thethings.iO. We want to help everyone succeed at the hackathon and win the prizes being offered this year. In our video below we will tell you how to register, how to connect things (or processes) and finally how to contact us in case you have any problems.

Read more →

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3 Internet of Things Protocols #IoTFriday

Happy IoTFriday ! Today we are going to talk about three of the most popular Internet of Things protocols: HTTP, REST, MQTT and CoAP.

 These three protocols are often discussed among experts who decide which one has the best features, security, and lowest cost, among several other important categories. Deciding which protocol should be used depends on your needs and potential uses. At thethings.iO, we have endpoints with REST, MQTT, CoAp and Websockets. (You can find documentation for IoT developers here.)

Marc showing 3 Internet of Things protocols #iotfriday

Marc showing 3 Internet of Things protocols #iotfriday

REST APIs are the most popular of the protocols. Based on HTTP and TCP/IP, it is the most standard used to share information among services on the Internet. REST APIs enable developers to access their data using market standardized methods and formats also known as JSON and XMLs.

MQTT (Message Queue Telemetry Transport) is an IBM open source protocol that offers a light-weight and easy publish-subscribe outlet to the Internet of Things. MQTT is based on TCP/IP in which several platforms are using for atomization of subscriptions and push messages to customers.

Lastly, CoAP (Constrained Application Protocol) is a simplification of the HTTP protocol. CoAp is mostly designed for processing restrictions that cannot process or run HTTP on the hardware. Even though it is not a standardized protocol, there are a lot of interesting features such as the observe or discovery methods that will boost the Internet of Things.

 

At thethings.iO, we are offering for developers four Internet of Things protocols. Write us in order to have an invitation and test our Internet of Things real-time platform.

Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter!

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What is thethings.iO?

Nowadays the Internet of Things is becoming the Internet of Walled Gardens. Most of the IoT projects are vertical solutions that cannot interoperate with other objects or projects. Kickstarter has accelerated this scenario, funding some awesome projects related with the Internet of Things and Quantified Self, nevertheless that has increased the silos existing in the current situation.

Technology experts and big companies do not have a clear idea about the real volume of the Internet of Things in the future, but they are confident that it will be big. That means that we will not be able to deal with one mobile application for each object connected to the Internet. All the things connected will have to have its own experience with the different vertical solutions.

thethings.iO is an horizontal solution built to create an interoperable Internet of Things scenario. Thethings.iO is a platform designed to extend the Web by providing access to real objects in the physical world. Our main goal is to let you manage, share and interact with any thing connected to the Internet anywhere, when you like.

Are you a manufacturer?

We want to make your products interoperable with other existing Internet-connected objects. We would like to offer the end-users the same experience interacting with all the objects and things that they own. And of course we want to give you an extra-value for sharing the access and information of your things. Contact us for more detailed information.

Are you a maker or a developer?

theThings.IO would allow you to create add value on the top of the Internet-connected objects compatible with our platform. I’m sure that you will be interested. theThings.IO is the hub in charge of handling all the communications and the requests to access and interact with them. Let us make the hard part!

theThings.IO for end users

Thethings.iO is built as a social network, seen as an interoperable platform that allows one to interact and  remotely manage their Internet-connected objects, such as Fitbit activity trackers, Withings scales or your Arduinos, among other within the same dashboard.

Learn how to connect Internet of Things and Quantified Self with thethings.iO, the new social network for your Internet-connected objects and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and be sure to check out our #IoTFriday blog!

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