hey everyone welcome back to Tech Talk I'm Julia Beauchamp I'm here with
Network world senior writer John Gold and we are going to be talking about IOT
and blockchain - really buzzy words but do they really
have any purpose together stick around
alright John thank you so much for coming in thanks for having me back
always appreciate it so you cover IOT pretty extensively and there's obviously
tons of use cases for IOT for consumers and of course in the enterprise but
something that is sort of new information to me is how blockchain and
IOT can come together there's sort of these two buzzy words but do they really
serve any purpose in conjunction I think they do um you know based on some of the
reporting I've done lately I think part of the reason that people are here to
talk about it is that as you mentioned these are a couple of buzzy words and
people are eager to get them into the same sentence but there are definitely
use cases out there particularly one source explained it to me really nicely
as in cases where you know two parties don't quite trust each other but they
would like to so you know largely anything sort of transactional or you
know you know working on that kind of model I guess is uh where blockchain is
pretty applicable yeah and so can you give me an example of what would be an
example of sort of as transactional application of IOT yeah well um one
example that was given to me was say you had like a system for you know tracking
like really like fine foodstuffs like you know farm to fork basically tracking
of like um you know I don't know I guess expensive you know well-bred meat or
something you know so we you know broadly there'd be you know asset
tracking at every level that of that process you know coming from you know
you'd have the secure database thanks to you know blockchain technology where it
you know says that you know this has been you know this product has been in
this location for X number of days it's been refrigerated at Y temperature
you know it you know this is their be sort of this immutable record you know
the idea is throughout the process so you know just I guess cutting out the
wholesalers middlemen along the way sure and using IOT sensors to it for
example say you know this is the temperature that it was stored at right
exactly that's really interesting it's something
I mean you do hear really frequently at references to IOT and it's obviously
huge I don't have to tell you this but it is really interesting to sort of see
ways to unite these two technologies and it's not just and it's really not all
talked just saying well you know what black chain would be a great solution
for this yeah I mean it's you know it is a really interesting idea just again
based on sort of you know adding this layer sort of trust and validation over
you know any kind of transactional system you know just it it adds that
kind of security without the need for you know other kinds of you know
expensive specialized systems so and you make a really good point we're gonna
link John's article in the description so you can read more about this but you
make a really good point in your article that if because block you know sort of
this immutable record if there's any sort of break or pause that could sort
of raise concern to anyone yeah I mean that was sort of revealed to me in the
context of you know I learned about this basically just you know in the context
of these examples that was provided because it's sort of a hard technology
to grasp on an intuitive level sometimes um but yeah that was in the context of
there's one company I spoke to that's making sort of a product that's you know
MIT Ferb it's been sort of for the used car market so what it would do is would
plug into like a diagnostic port on your car and you know just kind of keep you
know maintenance record you know it would be able to tell you whether you
know like the airbags have been deployed whether the cars ever been flooded and
yeah and if it was removed there would be you know this big blank space and the
data where you know it's as well hang on this wasn't being monitored what's going
on there ray can any can raise concern or at least prompt someone to ask more
questions exactly and it because and you know because you know ideally
it's in this blockchain system it's not you can't tamper with it so it's not
like you know the bad old days of used cars where somebody could just like roll
back the odometer with the grill right and it's because that also adds that
extra layer of security first of all just because it's in the
blockchain there's an extra layer of security but also as a potential buyer
whether I'm buying for if whether I'm a used-car seller or just an actual buyer
it's that extra sense of just personal security knowing that this has not been
tampered with the same goes for your your farm to sort of table an example
which is really great but I think it's also important while we're going on and
on about how there's a potential use cases for IOT and blockchain it's also
important to say you know you don't need to be going applying blockchain to every
single IOT device yeah there are definitely you know exception there are
all these there are cool use cases out there and you know they're not a hundred
percent you know this sort of transactional model where it's you know
about some kind of you know exchange of products or services but you know it is
largely that's that's where it works best definitely and you know I people
might get you know because as we've talked about these are you know very
exciting sort of techie terms and everyone likes to use these days um but
yeah it's definitely not the right you know technology for every use case you
know it's you know it's a database it doesn't you know it's just not
applicable to everything you're using the i/o the IOT for absolutely there's
no need to go out and employ blockchain and IOT combinations and you're under
don't you don't need to rush into it no definitely not and because this is sort
of it seems to meet please correct me if I'm wrong that it's these are sort of
newer use cases that this is really coming into its own now yeah absolutely
it's I mean you know blockchain itself isn't you know brand new but the idea
you know mixing it into you know some sort of IOT deployment is definitely
pretty new and you know not you know my impression at any rate is that it's not
super well and stood yet you know the way the two
technologies sort of interact and you know based on how you know nebulous and
widespread IOT is you know it's that's not really a surprise I guess and how
because it's new how would you recommend enterprises employing it where there is
sort of this transactional application yeah it would definitely be focused on
that kind of use case you know that's at this point you know unless you're a
really really big company who can you know afford to hire blockchain
programmers and I'm told that they're they you know they cost a lot of money
but it's definitely something that you know mostly you're gonna want to work
with a vendor on you know you're gonna need you know sort of like a like you
know most of the companies that are offering this sort of thing you know
some of them are like ASAP you know they're gonna have a lot of in-house
expertise then that you'll probably need to get that kind of thing up and running
sure and it's you know relying on a vendor for this sort of thing is yeah it
makes sense great well thank you so much for coming
in John it's really interesting to see how I ot and blockchain can be applied
in the enterprise I think it's I mean it's exciting do you think we'll hear
more soon oh I don't feel here a lot you know more you know brand new information
soon but yeah definitely down the line there will be more use cases more
applications coming out of the woodwork and in any case we'll be sure to keep
everyone in the loop if there are more use cases will bring John back on yeah
thank you so much John and thank you so much for watching this episode of tech
talk if you liked this video be sure to like it and subscribe to our Channel and
we will be linking John story in the description so if you want to learn even
more about this John story really expands nicely on it be here to check
that out thanks so much for watching and we'll see you next time