Internet of Things
You are here and why should you care?
The Internet of things (IoT) is the inter-networking of physical devices, vehicles (also referred to as "connected devices" and "smart devices"), buildings, and other items embedded with electronics, software, sensors, actuators, and network connectivity which enable these objects to collect and exchange data.
The concept of "Internet of Things" dates back almost a century. In 1926, Nikola Tesla said, "When wireless is perfectly applied, the whole earth will be converted into a huge brain, which in fact it is, all things being particles of a real and rhythmic whole...and the instruments through which we shall be able to do this will be amazingly simple compared with our present telephone. A man will be able to carry one in his vest pocket." Pretty amazing huh?
Let's get Amazed
If you are still confused about what the "Internet of Things" actually means and why you should care -you're hardly alone. In fact, nearly half (43%) of the manufacturing executives polled recently by LNS Research said they don't know anything about the IoT market. What's more, only 10% say they've started to invest in IoT technologies. Gasp.
As a modern working definition, "Internet of Things" is the advanced connectivity of devices, systems, and services over a variety of protocols, domains, and applications.
"Things", the 'T' in IoT, can refer to a broad array of devices, such as heart monitoring implants, biochip transponders on farm animals, automobiles with built-in sensors or field operation devices that assist firefighters in search and rescue. The interconnection of these embedded devices will usher in omnipresent automation in nearly all fields.
The reality is that the IoT allows for virtually endless opportunities and connections to take place, many of which we can't even think of or fully understand the impact of today. It's not hard to see how and why the IoT is such a hot topic today; it certainly opens the door to a lot of opportunities but also to many challenges. Security is a big issue that is oftentimes brought up. With billions of devices being connected together, what can people do to make sure that their information stays secure? Will someone be able to hack into your toaster and thereby get access to your entire network? The IoT also opens up companies all over the world to more security threats. Then we have the issue of privacy and data sharing. This is a hot-button topic even today, so one can only imagine how the conversation and concerns will escalate when we are talking about many billions of devices being connected. Another issue that many companies specifically are going to be faced with is around the massive amounts of data that all of these devices are going to produce. Companies need to figure out a way to store, track, analyze and make sense of the vast amounts of data that will be generated.
"Today, the Internet of Things is expanding across the globe. Interestingly, the growth is most palpable in Asia, which accounts for 40% of global machine-to-machine connections, followed by Europe (28%), North America (18%), Latin America (8%), Africa (4%) and Oceania (1%)."
Still, it won't be ubiquitous until 2020, and by then it will have changed the world as we know it, particularly the way we do business. In fact, the market is estimated to not be in the billions, but to rise to about a trillion dollars.
Want to move on to next stage?
[Suggested Reads and Videos]
- Business Insider's Article on IOT [7Min Read]
- IOT by WIRED [5Min Read]
- Internet of Things [5Min Read]
- Forbes on IOT [5Min Read]
- How IOT Works [3Min Video]
- Top 5 IOT Startups [10Min Video]
p.s - This article is a curation of different sources regarding Internet of Things. Thankyou business-insider, wired.co.uk, iotagenda and all the other sources for the information regarding IOT and relevant topics.