I love a good puzzle (who doesn’t?). But don’t you hate it when you’ve got two puzzle pieces that don’t quite fit, regardless of how much you try to force them together? You’ve got to search for the only piece in the box that merges the two perfectly and leaves you with a seamless image.
The worldwide growth in technology has lead to the creation of hundreds of these puzzle pieces, all of which connect different elements of our lives – shopping, health, money. But the link doesn’t need to be just that we use this technology. Pieces that may seem far apart and disjointed can be linked, joined and synchronised.
It’s the tech that brings Google Maps to your Uber or your plane ticket to your e-wallet, and can even link your kettle to your wifi, if that’s your cup of tea.
So much work is going into creating innovative new ways to make everything frictionless – easier, faster and better connected.
If someone mentioned the “IoT” or “APIs” to me a year ago, without a doubt I’d have blinked blankly back at them.
They sound dull. Like most three letter acronyms. But they’re providing a step-change towards how we look at the things around us – and (more importantly) how they look at us.
By definition, an API is Application Programming Interface. But this isn’t a daunting concept when you look at it like what it is: a well designed puzzle piece. A bridge between a problem and a solution.
Code makes a link of communication between two things, dealing with permissions you’ve authorised already. You can ask your Google Home device what your bank balance is, like we did recently, or Pokemon Go can repurpose Google maps.