[MUSIC] This lecture will compare IoT devices to standard computers, and it will just compare and contrast. Just so you get an idea of the difference between an IoT device and a computer, because they are substantially different. And we'll need to know this for later because we're gonna talk about how you design IoT devices. And the design methodologies are very different than what you'd use for a standard general purpose computer. So, IoT devices, one big difference between those type of devices in standard computers, and by standard computer I mean desktop, laptop, server. Basically a big box with a keyboard, big box or little box, with a keyboard and a screen, mouse, that type of thing. So one difference is that IoT devices, the main function of an IoT device is not to compute. Not to be a computer. A computer is there to be a computer, to compute functions, to run programs. But an IoT device, that is not its main point. It has some other function besides that. So, for instance, we talked about cars last lecture, right? So cars, their IoT devices, their main function is not to compute anti-lock breaking or to do fuel injection, their main function from the point of view of a user is to be driven. Right? To move you from place to place. And the computer is just to help that function, just to support that. Also, we talked about refrigerators, right? In an earlier lecture. So, a refrigerator, it's a refrigerator, it keeps things cold, that's its main function. Now, computational intelligence can help you, network connectivity can improve its ability, but that is not its main function, to talk on the network. Its main function's not to run code, even though it does that, where a computer, it's main function is to run code. So that's a big difference, that's the focus of the function. That IOT have this separate function, separate from computation. So computers, like I said, their main function is to compute. They run code. This code can do lots of different things, but they execute code. This picture right here, we're showing a decision making process. It's sort of a high level view of what PC code would look like, but there'd be conditions in there. If X is greater than five, then perform this action. If X is less than five, then do another action. Something like that. That's what code looks like, and that's the point of a compute,r is to execute code, execute a sequence of functions in a particular order as determined by dynamic information, like that condition right there. That condition might check something dynamically at runtime. And we'll get into more detail of this, because we will be coding in this class. But right now, the function of the computer's main point is to run code like this. IoT devices, on the other hand, they don't. So computers are made to be general purpose, right. They're made to run any kind of code. So if you buy, off the shelf, you buy some Intel processor. I see a Mac in front of me. Say I buy a MAC. This Mac is a laptop. This Mac laptop is meant to run code and it can run any kind of code. I can play a video game on that thing. I can connect it up to a camera and video record something. I can do, whatever kind of code I want to run on that computer, I can do that. So computers are made to be general purpose devices. Now, they're not particularly good or efficient at a particular application, but they are generally good at everything. So what that means is say, this one I see right here, this Mac. This Mac is now connected to this camera, and I'm assuming that this Mac is probably running the PowerPoint slides [LAUGH] that I'm presenting, and it is probably recording some, right? So sure, you can use a Mac to record video if you want to. You can connect it up to a camera, record a video, record a sequence, but a dedicated camera is better than a Mac at doing that. Right? I can take a Mac and connect it up to a webcam, and it's now a video recorder. But it's probably gonna be better, more efficient to get a camera, a video camera that is made for that purpose to do that task. So computers are general purpose, they can do whatever you want. You hook something onto them, they can do what you want. But they are not necessarily the most efficient and most effective tool at doing that. So Internet of Things devices are generally special-purpose things. So they are made to do a particular task or set of tasks that are all related to one thing. So as an example, music player, right? So I still own one of these, an mp3 player, cuz I'm cheap. You can buy them cheap. You can do it off a phone, too, but I use a special purpose device, you know, like an iPod, right? So these devices are made to play music. Now, you can play music off of a laptop, right? Desktop, whatever. But this device is made for music playing, and so it's more efficient. And by mor efficient, I mean Its hardware and its software are designed just for that purpose. So if that's all you wanna do. They play music very well. They're cheap, right? They don't cost much, right? You don't have to buy a whole laptop for that. You can just buy a little iPod, little tiny one, right? They have the little iPods, the randomization, the shuffle, iPod shuffle, right? Tiny, cheap. Very compact, much smaller than a laptop, right? But they do their job, so that specific job, they do great. So these IoT devises are almost always special purpose devices. Take a car, right? Now a car, a car will do many different things, but they're all related to driving. So a car can do anti-lock braking. A car can do fuel injection. A car can do power steering, all these things, but they're all parts of one big task, to drive. To be driven, right? So that's why I say a car does computation but only computation that are related to the task that are driving tasks. So what that means is the hardware and the software built in there. Are streamlined for that purpose. So that means they can be cheaper. Cheaper effect, more efficient in that way. Cheaper and faster at doing just that one task. Now they wouldn't be suitable to do anything else, right? So if you took your car and said look, I wanna play a video game with my car, you probably can't do that as well. But if you wanna say, look I wanna do fuel injection with my car, hey it's perfect for that. And it's great at that and efficient at that. So That's a big difference between IoT devices and general purpose computers. IoT device is a special purpose. They do a particular thing. Thank you. [MUSIC]
