The term "Industrial Revolution" has been with us since the mid-18th century. In the past 250 years, we have actually gone through four industrial revolutions. The first started with the steam engine and brought new manufacturing and the creation of factories. The second brought mass production powered by oil and electricity. The third "digital" revolution brought the personal computer, semiconductor and the Internet. Now in the fourth revolution, smart technology is transforming us through artificial intelligence, robotics, the Internet of Things (IOT) and machine learning.
While the first three revolutions were each a century apart, the fourth is taking place less than 60 years after the third. In all probability, the pace of change will continue to increase.
Here are some interesting statistics about this 4th industrial revolution brought to you by Cyber Security Intelligence:
- In 20 years, the number of global Internet users has increased from 394 million to 4.4 billion - 57% of global population.
- Every day there are 300 billion emails (almost 70 per Internet user - although many of them are spam).
- Every day there are over a billion Google searches and two billion YouTube video views.
- There are 22 billion connected devices, forecast to increase to 31 billion in two years.
The Internet is at the heart of the fourth revolution. It contains about 52 billion computer networks. The searchable Worldwide Web is only a small part of the total. Experts believe the Deep Web is four or five hundred times larger than the surface Web; it contains secret and private business, university and government data not accessible to the public. A small area is the Dark Web, aka the "red light district" where criminals buy and sell stolen data and illegal products. The Dark Web is also a place for spies, investigative journalists and people trying to hide information.
As the fourth revolution brings opportunities and challenges, we will have to constantly adjust to change if are to survive.