Since the Internet of Things is built on silicon, on the tremendous instability of modern electronics, it’s built on literal sand. It’ll have its day for better or worse, but it is most certainly heading, at its own due pace, for that all-devouring junk heap that swallowed French Minitels, Japanese Walkmans and a hundred million bulbous American black-and-white vacuum-tube TVs. It does offer one serious improvement: because it is so mindful about “things”, it offers much better chances for humanity to mop up its own rubbish. That’s the one thing about it that historians might regard as
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