What the blummin’ heck is IoT ?

Despite some experts calling the Internet of Things (IoT) the 4th Industrial Revolution, a mind blowing 87% of people have no idea what it is.

The term “the Internet of things” was coined by Kevin Ashton of Procter & Gamble, later MIT’s Auto-ID Center, in 1999.

Well, it’s a bit like the Internet that you know and love, but on a massive scale. IoT is about connecting more devices to the internet. Developers are adding the means to connect not only our smartphones and tablets to the web but also our appliances, cars, bins and even clothing.

Things, in the IoT sense, can refer to a wide variety of devices such as heart monitoring implants, biochip transponders on farm animals, cameras streaming live feeds of wild animals in coastal waters, automobiles with built-in sensors, DNA analysis devices for environmental/food/pathogen monitoring, or field operation devices that assist firefighters in search and rescue operations. Okay, so imagine a world where you could check and order the contents of your refrigerator from your smartphone, or own an appliance that automatically requested a service when it brakes down. These ideas barely scratch surface of what will be possible. In this connected era, anything that has a microchip will most likely connect to the internet.

IoT promises to make our global society more efficient and productive connected world than we ever thought possible.