Cisco has made the assertion that there will be 50 billion devices on the Internet by 2020. That number might be high or low as it related to “devices” but I think it seriously underestimates the number of connected things that we’ll need to eventually contend with—by several orders of magnitude. The real number is likely in the trillions.

The driver, of course, is Moore’s law. John Clippinger reports that an Android phone can be had for $30 in some places. That same connected, computational, sensor platform will cost $3.00 and then $0.30 and then $0.03. When a wireless sensor platform costs $0.03 where will it be? Everywhere. Everything, even disposable things like razors or pens, will be gathering data…about you.

We probably don’t really have a choice about whether a $0.03 wireless sensor platform will exist. Technology marches on.

But we do have a choice about how it will be employed. If we follow the path we’re on now, all those devices will be controlled by some company somewhere that is providing the service behind them. [snip]