The Internet of Things (IoT) is arriving faster than many people realize, and blockchain technology is playing a critical role in IoT’s rapid adoption. The speed of change calls for new ways to verify user feedback on devices.
According to Cisco, about 50 billion devices are due to come online by 2020. The underlying concept for IoT is basically connecting any device to the Internet and/or to each other – everything from cellphones, coffee makers, washing machines, headphones, lamps, wearable devices to almost anything.
IoT Revolution Has Begun
Companies like Google are already producing all sorts of smart household devices and smart self-driven cars. Many of the larger corporations have also expressed strong interest in IoT technology.
Bosch, for example, has stated a vision to be “one of the world’s leading IoT companies” by focusing on sensor technology, software and services, while Cisco, known for making networking equipment, has an interest in being at the forefront of machine-to-machine interactions.
The potential value of IoT cannot be overestimated. What if your office equipment knew when it was running low on supplies and automatically re-ordered more? What if your car knew where the nearest car shop was and drove itself there to get fixed? What if your fridge knew when it was running out of food and automatically purchased food at the closest grocery store?
Or imagine a vending machine that cannot only monitor and report its own stock, but can also arrange for the delivery of new items automatically based on the purchase history of its customers or their online reviews?
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Blockchain’s IoT Role
Much of this would not be possible without blockchain technology that enables smart contracts providing for M2M interactions.
IBM’s latest blockchain development enables devices to participate in transactions to communicate to blockchain-based ledgers. As an IoT-connected package moves along multiple distribution points, blockchain technology allows the package location and temperature information to be updated on a blockchain.
But as IoT opens the door to huge opportunities, it also brings many challenges – security being the biggest. With billions of devices connected together, how can we be sure their information stays secure?
Blockchain technology has the potential to solve this in the same way it works for cryptocurrency; making sure that data is legitimate and the data processing is well defined. Therefore, blockchain technology is the missing link to maintain privacy and address reliability concerns of the Internet of Things.
Machines might be smart, but for now, they still need some human help when making a purchasing decision. Where would you turn to if you’re having difficulties when making a choice? Probably Yelp or Google reviews, but unfortunately, these platforms are not able to deal with robotic requests. Moreover, 60% of reviews are fabricated, oftentimes generated by bots.
Revain Responds To The Challenge
The Internet of Things threw down a new challenge, and Revain – an Ethereum blockchain-based platform that rewards users for providing feedback on products, services and businesses – accepted it. Reviews on Revain are based on human opinions and available for robot requests.
The machine sends the question and gets the answer as if it were a human request. A vending machine, for example, will be able to go online, scroll down the reviews on chocolate bars and choose the one with the highest review rating.
Moreover, Revain reviews can’t be faked or altered. This is truly revolutionary for the future of machine communications, and the application of these developments is universal.
The Revain crowdsale started on August 21st and accumulated 1052 BTC in the first 20 hours, proving that the platform has been awaited and is receiving huge support from the community. The crowdsale ended on September 6. To support the development of the platform, visit https://revain.org
The future is now. It might not be possible to evaluate the whole impact the blockchain has on human-to-machine and machine-to-machine interactions now, but the amplitude is super intriguing.
This is a sponsored story.
