Internet has turned 30! In this 30th anniversary the numbers of internet users worldwide are expected to touch 2.2 billion according to a Forrester research report. In the past few decades internet has changed the world: it has transformed the way people communicated (from Email to Social media), it has transformed the shopping experience, it has transformed the away advertisements were carried out (from Banner AD to Viral marketing), purchase cycle and purchasing behavior, business meetings (video conference), and lots more.
Gone are days where one knows news in the newspaper only the next day, latest updates and access to information from around the world are made available at a blink of an eye in hand. The internet has shrunk the world that fits into everyone’s palm.
The term Internet of Things was first defined by Kevin Ashton in the mid 1990’s , according to him “If we had computers that knew everything there was to know about things – using data they gathered without any help from us – we would be able to track and count everything, and greatly reduce waste, loss and cost. We would know when things needed replacing, repairing or recalling, and whether they were fresh or past their best”.
M2M, also called the ‘internet of things’ or ‘connected devices’ is emerging where physical objects are connected through sensors and the communications between devices can be remotely managed or monitored through a central server(NOC) .
Gartner Emerging Technologies Hype Cycle
Physical objects can be anything ranging from buildings, ATMs, power grid, roadways, cars, vending machine, white goods and even plants and pets. Sensors from the physical objects sense the environment and communicate the data through a RTU (Remote Terminal Unit) , the big data generated by thousands of devices are then fed into M2M framework to derive analytics and make informed decisions.
As Nikola Tesla pointed out in 1926 “When wireless is perfectly applied the whole earth will be converted into a huge brain “. The data from these physical objects enables them to communicate with people whatever like warn driver on rash driving, provide driving guidance, alert an out-of-stock , forecast re-filling , notify need to be serviced/repaired, notify an emergency situation, raise alarm on security breach, identify a location etc ., without or with much reduced human intervention.
Gartner emerging technologies hype cycle (2012) identifies Internet of Things (IOT) as one of the fastest-moving technologies. When the connectedness of people can change the lives of people across the globe, the connectedness of devices can make over a smarter living.
Stay tuned to experience the connected revolution!!
