About the Internet of Things
I’ve heard a lot about The Internet of Things lately but it took some research to fully grasp the concept.
After sifting through infographics, Wikipedia articles and a few other blogs I’ve come to an understanding.
Here are a few things we know about the IoT so far:
1. There are more “things” connected to the Internet than people.
Cows, smart homes, even entire smart cities are connected to the Internet.
Sensors record information that lets maintenance devices know what other devices need to be maintained.
The Internet of Things is exactly like an ecosystem.
Every device is interconnected and interdependent.
2. Most of the information on the internet was manually input by people.
Pretty obvious right? The content of the Internet was written by us, for the most part.
Well, events in the physical world occur at a rate faster than we can keep up with.
Emerging sensing technology will enable the instantaneous logging of real world events.
3. The goal of the Internet of Things is to remove people as the intermediate between the physical and digital world.
If you remove us from the equation, information about the physical world can be recorded in real time.
On top of information being recorded it can also be transmitted from one device to another.
For instance, a moisture sensor could communicate with an irrigation system.
When the moisture level get’s low enough it could automatically trigger the irrigation system.
This concept of machine to machine, or device to device communication and automation is the essence of the IoT.
4. As the IoT grows, cyber security concerns do too.
One major concern presented by the IoT is the fear of cyber attacks being able to affect the physical.
For instance, consider my last example, if a hacker were to disrupt communication between the moisture sensor and the irrigation system they could flood and kill the crops.
This is why cyber security must increase with the implementation of the IoT.
5. The first “thing” to connect to the Internet was a modified Coke machine at Carnagie Mellon University in 1982.
6. The term “Internet of Things” originated through the Auto-ID center at MIT.
In the early days of the IoT it was believed that RFID was fundamental to it’s function.
If RFID could be used to tag all objects and people then the Internet could manage and inventory them.
If this sounds scary to you, remember you carry around a GPS device everywhere.
7. IPv6 provides enough address space to assign 100 different IP addresses to every atom on Earths surface.
The development of Internet Protocol version 6 solved the exhaustion of IPv4 and created address space sufficient to support a virtually limitless IoT.
There’s plenty more to learn about the Internet of Things.
Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below.