The rise of the machines is upon us. A new report from Cisco predicts that mobile World wide web devices will outnumber men and women onEarth for the very first time by the finish of 2012 — a sign of ever-growing love and dependence on technology that constantly keeps us connected.
“By the end of 2012, the number of mobile-connected devices will exceed the number of people on earth, and by 2016 there will be 1.four mobile devices per capita,” Cisco stated in its latest International Mobile Data Traffic Forecast Update. “There will be over ten billion mobile-connected devices in 2016, including machine-to-machine (M2M) modules-exceeding the world’s population at that time (7.three billion).”
Cisco’s new study also indicates that mobile data targeted traffic grew much more than two-fold in 2011, which is the fourth year in a row such site visitors has doubled. 2011′s mobile data traffic was really eight times the size of the entire global Net in 2000, which shows just how quickly the mobile web has been utilized across the globe.
The study also presented some fascinating tidbits about the state of 4G networks like Verizon’s LTE and Sprint’s WiMax offerings. Users with a 4G connection generated a staggering 28 instances a lot more targeted traffic than a non-4G connection. At this point, 4G connections only represent .two percent of mobile connections, but are currently accounting for 6 percent of all mobile data targeted traffic.
While it may well be a small premature to say the machines are taking more than a la Terminator (see the fairly guy above), having far more connected internet devices than humans as well as more ubiquitous net connections is a step in that direction. In the Terminator films, the machines are in a position to rise up against humans since they are diverse in capabilities and connected by way of the Skynet artificial intelligence system. Maybe we’re heading toward our own Skynet with our connected phones, tablets, and TVs that know an awful lot about us.
Oh, c’mon, stop worrying. Let’s play Words with Friends.
Terminator image: Terminator three: Rise of the Machines/Warner Brothers
Filed under: mobile, VentureBeat 
