What a difference a year makes

Last January, around this time, as people came back from hibernation into the plastic warmth and sparkle of CES, we heard about luggage that can tweet. Hello, I’m here. In Rio. While you wait for it. In Riyadh.

Trakdot was one of the stories I latched upon at that time.

You could put a Trakdot into your sharkskin suitcase and bingo, not only could it tell you where it was, it could also tell you when it approached you. Via SMS if needed. [Incidentally, no sharks were harmed in producing the sharkskin suitcase, it’s not real sharkskin, just in case you were getting ready to complain].

A year on the story gets better. Why bother with mock sharkskin when you can have the real thing? Real sharkskin, still worn by the shark, while it’s alive and breathing?

Apparently over 300 sharks have been tagged and equipped to let bathers and swimmers know of their proximity. And many other things besides.

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Everything is a node on the network.Even sharks.

Everything can publish, everything can subscribe.

Which means firehoses and filters.

That’s why all this publishing and subscribing takes place against thresholds we set. Like location. Or size. Or temperature. Or time. Or whatever. In whatever combination. Static as well as dynamic.

Over the next few weeks, as I spend more time writing about filtering in an age of streams and drains and filters, the tweeting shark is a good place to start.

What a difference a year makes.

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