The 
key to preventing climate change might just be found in those old cell phones in your junk drawer.
Rainforest Connection, a San Francisco startup, has developed a communications device to protect rainforests (and other areas) using old smartphones and the Internet of Everything. It’s a tool that definitively answers the old adage of “If a tree falls and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?”
It’s 
midnight — and exactly 60 days before I load our family into the car and drive to Walt Disney World. And I’m already worrying about wait times.
My seven-year old, you see, is not the most patient child on the planet, but her stubbornness (and love for all things Frozen) is hard to top. That could cause problems on the trip as the reported wait times to meet Anna and Elsa at the park hit four hours at peak times. Thankfully, the Internet of Everything is about to save me a lot of grief.
As 
the health and memory of their aging parents decline, many adults today feel the need to place their loved ones in homes or hire live-in caretakers — both of which are expensive and can be a very tough sell for elders who cherish their independence.
But as Internet of Everything technologies morph into myriad new applications, a handful of IOE-related products are giving seniors some tools that restore a measure of their autonomy — and may force their caregiver children to reconsider (or at least delay) the retirement-home option.
By 
2020, the growth of the Internet of Everything will have led to more than 50 billion active wirelessly connected devices, according to some predictions. While some argue that the electrical demands sure to accompany this surge may have a negative environmental impact at first, the long-term positive effects of the IOE movement are likely to reduce people’s carbon footprint for years to come.
Those reductions are already being seen. The Nest thermostat, for example, which raises or lowers the temperature of your house depending on whether you’re there, makes the device carbon neutral in just eight weeks, the company says. In some cases, it happens in as little as two weeks.
There’s 
nothing that can put a dent in your weekend plans quite like yard work. Cutting the grass and ensuring that your hydrangeas don’t wilt in the dog days of summer can be both laborious and draining. And it’s even harder to work up the motivation when the nearby hammock is whispering your name.
But the Internet of Everything could bring good news to suburban commandos. Yard work may not be completely automated, but there are a several lawn maintenance tasks demanding our attention today that the IOE might make less demanding — and could save money in the process. For instance:
For 
the advertising and marketing industries, the Internet of Everything can’t come soon enough.
As details about our personal lives become more public, businesses will be better able to narrowly target ads and offers, boosting their bottom lines in the process. That sort of openness might raise concerns for some people, though. After all, the marketing world already knows an awful lot about our online habits. Do we want to share our offline ones with it as well?
Chris Morris: Journalist 