What is ‘The Internet of Things’ and How It Could Change The Way We Live
Internet of Things (IoT), is a next level of advancement in technology that is gaining pace and will continue along an upward trend. So what is this buzz?
To better understand this, tracing back to the era when it actually got started would help a little. In 1832, an electromagnetic telegraph was created by Baron Schilling in Russia, and in 1833 Carl Friedrich Gauss and Wilhelm Weber invented their own code to communicate over a distance of 1200 m within Göttingen, Germany. The term Internet of Things was coined by Kevin Ashton executive director of the Auto-ID Center, in a presentation he made to Procter & Gamble in 1999.
Don’t worry folks, I won’t write the entire history here year-wise. If you are interested to dig in, you can find it here.
There are many definitions all over the internet. To put it simply, the things in IoT are normal things like coffee pot, washing machines, alarm clock, wearable devices like Apple watch, driverless cars, fitness bracelets, any other natural or man-made object that is assinged an IP address and provided the ability to transfer data over a network (i.e. internet in IoT). Basically, connecting any device with an on and off switch to Internet (or to each other). So far, IoT has been associated with machine-to-machine (M2M) communication — devices talking to like devices — such as in manufacturing and power, oil and gas utilities, smartphones and computers. But this communication holds only in between machines. To make machines ‘smart’ is where ‘sensors’ jumps in.
So, the Internet of Things really comes together with the connection of sensors and machines (a machine is not a sensor. Sensors measures and evaluates; in short, gathers data). There will be massive amount of data that these devices will produce. And too much data will lead to information overload. All this information requires an infrastructure where it will be stored, monitored and analysed in real-time. This is where Cloud based applications comes in.
Below are some examples.
You like coffee very much at work. Consider a smart coffee machine that brew you a coffee 10 seconds before you leave your seat in your office. Sounds interesting? Suppose you sync your data from your health and home into the car. Your car parked in the parking lot sync your car’s data to the Google Cloud letting you access all your presentations, projects and files that you need in a meeting. As you’ve given only limited permissions to your doctor to access only your health records (that is in the Cloud), he suspects a fall in your health and instructs to lessen the intake of coffee to one in the morning and one in the eve, and sync the information to the Cloud (thereby to your car and the smart coffee machine). So from the next morning, the coffee machine gives you no more than 2 coffees a day. That was just one example of how IoT could benefit humans personal life.
Let’s look at a global example. When constructing roads, we can use smart concrete: concrete equipped with sensors to monitor traffic and weather conditions. Suppose there’s a huge traffic down the lane due to heavy rain, the same sensors will detect it and communicate the information via the wireless internet to your car. Once your car knows that the road is blocked, the GPS will show an alternative and the fastest route to the destination. This is another way that shows sensor-to-machine and machine-to-machine communication.
That was something alike Jarvis, eh? (Iron Man fan)
Are there any disadvantages? Is it worth a change? Why such a fundamental shift? What are its impacts?
Cisco estimates the IoT will consist of 50 billion devices connected to the Internet by 2020. It is going to be all around us in the coming 4 years. IoT is not considered ‘smart’ only because it is beneficial to the humans and industries, rather it also reduces wastes and costs and its wide array of need in technological ecosystem will improve efficiency in the way we work and live.
We cannot even calculate the full potential of IoT that it can provide and its impact today. It is evolving steadily and gradually. With the number of IoT devices increasing rapidly, it also poses many challenges, one of them often being brought up is Security. Security software provider, Symantec in its blog said, smart devices will be as susceptible to hackers and malware threats as PCs and mobile phones. What if hackers hack into your coffee pot? Will your information get compromised? Anti-virus softwares are only there for computers and smartphones. No such softwares have been introduced for connected gadgets like smart cars and all. To ensure safe functioning of smart gadgets, it is imperative for the government to enforce certain security laws, impose regulations and also for the tech companies to develop effective guarding softwares for their gadgets.
So for now the best we can do is to educate ourself what IoT can deliver and its potential impacts. Learning about IoT can bring a change to the way we live our lives.