The Internet of Things has changed the world. Who would have thought that objects could one day speak amongst themselves, understand each other, perhaps even more so than human beings, and interact to improve the quality of life? Until a few years ago, no-one; but then the IoT arrived, so things and no longer strings.
From strings to things. The 4 pillars of IoT.
Device | Data | Analysis | Connectivity
Devices are the “things” on which the concept of the Internet of Things is based. From a few dozen, to a couple hundred and then thousands, these objects, in order to communicate with each other need wireless systems, which connect these “things” in a network.
One of the main functions of the IoT is to collect an immense quantity of data, which may be how many tens of thousands of steps taken each day, videos filmed during surveillance operations, music libraries, just to name a few.
The analysis of this data is the third element on which the IoT system is based. The ability to analyse the huge mass of information is precisely what makes the entire system so interesting.
But without connectivity, the previous three elements wouldn’t be able to work together. The devices wouldn’t be able to transmit data and the data itself couldn’t be analysed and managed in order to create an interactive connection with reality.
Based on these premises alone, it is easy to understand why the IoT is considered one of the most important, if not the absolute most important disruptive technology of the new millennium.
The prelude to artificial intelligence in 6 years that made history.
Where did it all start? It’s impossible to identify point zero, it’s a liquid, insinuating movement that begins from afar, slowly rising like a rolling wave until eventually sweeping us away with it.
Let’s take a look at the most crucial years for the development of the Internet and web technology.
1969. The forefather of the Internet was born, called ARPANET. In the midst of the Cold War, American soldiers developed a system to place several of their computers in communication with each other and exchange information, safe from the Russian enemy. Hackers still didn’t exist.
1974. Two American computer engineers, Vinton Cerf and Bob Kahn, invented a network protocol so that all network systems could communicate with each other. They called it TCP/IP, which is still the underlying principle of the Internet as we know it today.
1984. The Domain Name System was born and each page was identified by an IP address so that it could be searched and found within the network.
1989. Tim Berners-Lee, an Englishman who worked at CERN in Geneva, invented the World Wide Web (WWW), while he so happened to be working on an American computer, the NEXT, produced by a Californian based company owned by Steve Jobs. All information in the network was now in reciprocal communication. The first web page was born, as well as the first object of the Internet of Things, a bread toaster that was turned on and off via the web.
1998. Larry Page and Sergej Brin, two twenty-four year old American students of Stanford University, invented a search engine with a silly name: Google.
1999. An important year for the IoT. For the first time, people started talking about the Internet of Things. The name was coined by a researcher, Kevin Ashton, in a presentation to Procter&Gamble, an American multinational consumer goods corporation.
“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. …We shall be able to communicate with one another instantly, irrespective of distance. Not only this, but through television and telephony we shall see and hear one another as perfectly as though we were face to face, despite intervening distances of thousands of miles; 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.
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The bill is light with the IoT.
What are its applications?
The applications of the Internet of Things are endless with the possibility to place billions of devices in connection with each other and detect an endless amount of information. From smart city to telemetry, from robotics to the automotive industry, from health to the biomedical sector, hyperconnected smart things support us in our everyday life through wearable objects, bracelets and watches that monitor our day-to-day activities.
All this has a significant impact on the smart home and smart building sectors. The former is predominantly geared toward the domestic and B2C consumer sphere, while the latter interacts with the B2B world, introducing ways to optimise building and office management, implementing IoT methodologies to control consumption.
Office. Up to 30% savings on light?
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