Could someone please explain in simple terms what the Internet of Things or IoT is? The Wikipedia page is a bit vague.
In: 34
The way it was sold in the early 2000s when it was The Next Big Thing^tm was this way: with the growth of the internet and social media all kinds of data as at your fingertips. You can google basically any fact about the world and get it in seconds, or, increasingly with social media, connect to other people. What you can’t do is google “where are my keys.” Factoids about things and people are all online, so why isn’t real-time information about the physical location and status of things available online?
Some aspects of IoT have come to fruition. Smart homes and smart cameras are a thing. Google maps has basically revolutionized navigation and how smartphone users get around, while also enabling things like accurate real-time tracking of vehicles. You can indeed now google “Find my iPhone.” But some of the promised applications, like, say, embedding sensors in small items or clothing so that you would never lose them, turned out to just be a kind of bad idea nobody was interested in.
Latest Answers