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Headshot of Sanjay E. Sarma
“You want to know the power of the Internet of Things? The gap between what you can imagine and what you can create is just about gone.

adapted from an IDM guest lecture by Sanjay Sarma
RFID pioneer and co-author of The Inversion Factor: How to Thrive in the IOT Economy

In my book I wanted to include something speculative, something that I could imagine but which didn’t exist. I have sleep apnea so I fantasized about my dream mattress. The book comes out and a couple of Italian guys get in touch with me to say they’re already doing this. They have a company called Eight Sleep, and their mattress provides you with data trends, it’s got home integration, it’s got a smart alarm, it will turn the alarm on or off. Like if you’re in REM sleep, it will delay the alarm a little bit, a few minutes, so you enjoy your REM sleep a little longer. It can heat the bed. Now they have cooling as well. They’re killing it.  So the moral of this story is, your craziest idea is probably someone else’s startup.