The Internet of Things. Such a catchy title. At its simplest, it means that the objects we interact with on a daily (and often mundane) way are now linked to the Internet. Why are we moving in this direction? Well, as with most technological advances, a primary reason is to automate tasks, make them easier and, ostensibly, give us more free time. Yeah, right! I don’t know about you, but all the devices I deal with seem to occupy a ton of my time. It seems I’m always fidgeting with one of them to try and get them—and here’s the kicker—to work better at connecting to the Internet!

I suppose these little hiccups are primarily a result of the fact that the connectedness of our devices is still a relatively undeveloped technology. There are lots of bugs to fix before it happens smoothly. I suspect that one day quite soon those bugs will be worked out and we will be all the more connected to one another and to our devices—our smart toasters included, of course.

One device that I do like is my Fitbit. I’ve written about it before—how such a simple device can provide that extra motivation to get moving. But, as you’ll read below, even this device is now making headlines because the data it collects is being used in ways that go far beyond simply motivating people to be active.

And, on the theme of connectedness, did you catch the story of the Russian website that has hacked into thousands of webcams and posted the video feeds for everyone to see, apparently to raise awareness of the issue? It’s nice to see several data protection authorities—including Canada’s—mobilizing quickly on the issue to try and bring about some sanity to the situation.

Living in a connected world, filled with so many benefits but not altogether lacking risks … are you ready?