In this edition of the bottom line, we're talking about the Internet of Things.

Can it live up to its promise to transform our lives?

Hello, welcome to the programme.

Something over a decade ago during the filming of Dragon's Den,

I watched a young entrepreneur pitch his invention.

It was a kitchen countertop fruit blender that was connected to the internet. And I can

distinctly remember thinking it was so silly. I laughed to myself at the time. Why would you

want an internet-enabled smoothie device? Well, I didn't get the last laugh. I have no idea what happened to that entrepreneur,

but he was ahead of his time. It is far-from-far-fetched.

We now talk of the Internet of Things,

and see ourselves as in the early stage of a technological revolution.

Internet-enabled everything.

So today, we thought we'd scrutinize the concept, the useful, the useless, and the ugly.

I have three guests who are well placed to answer our questions about this,

first of whom is the man who invented the term, the Internet of Things,

Kevin Ashton, an author, and a former employee of Procter & Gamble.

So, Kevin, come on.

Tell us the story of the concept, internet of things.

Well, I was a young executive at Procter & Gamble, which I make nappies and

lipsticks and things.

And I was actually in charge of some of the collar cosmetics, so makeup.

And I noticed that some of our most important products were not available at my local Tesco

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