It is generally agreed that Kevin Ashton coined the phrases “Internet Of Things” in 1999 when he linked the new idea of RFID in Procter & Gamble’s supply chain to the Internet.
According to a US Director of National Intelligence report:
“Visionaries have seized on the phrase ‘Internet of Things’ to refer to the general idea of things, especially everyday objects, that are readable, recognizable, locatable, addressable, and/or controllable via the Internet—whether via RFID, wireless LAN, wide-area network, or other means”.
“Everyday objects includes not only the electronic devices we encounter everyday, and not only the products of higher technological development such as vehicles and equipment, but things that we do not ordinarily think of as electronic at all—such as food, clothing”
“Individuals, businesses, and governments are unprepared for a possible future when Internet nodes reside in such everyday things as food packages, furniture, paper documents, and more. Today’s developments point to future opportunities and risks that will arise when people can remotely control, locate, and monitor everyday things”.
“The Internet of Things will be inextricable from sensor networks that monitor things but do not control things. Both connected everyday objects and sensor networks both leverage a common set of technological advances toward miniature, power-efficient sensing, processing, and wireless communication. Analysts commonly describe two distinct modes of communication in the Internet of Things: thing to person and thing-to-thing communication”.
When we interviewed CeBIT 2012 Cloud Conference speaker Alan Perkins recently he mentioned that the Internet Of Things was an area that businesses and governments should keep an eye on.
Alan told us that:
“While it followed a different development path, The Internet of Things is the natural next step in the technology evolution after social media. Social Media has allowed us to connect and process information in ways that are are very natural. In many ways social media has enabled us to come full circle and make our computing world increasingly transparent in the way we conduct our lives”.
“The Internet of Things takes this to the next level, where not only do we have the option of connecting to people, we have the capacity to connect devices together to make our lives easier – devices that have no pre-ordained knowledge of each other. With the Internet of Things, we can, for example, allow our fridge and our rubbish bin to work together to order our groceries. We can let our car book itself in for service. We can spontaneously meet people for coffee simply because our phones have ‘seen’ each other in the crowd. Even our alarm clocks can decide when to wake us up if our plane is running late”.
“Metcalfe’s law tells us that the power of a network is square of the number of nodes. This was true when the phone systems starting getting more subscribers – it will be even more true as people design their devices to participate in the Internet of Things”.
The mission of CeBIT 2012 exhibitor Advantech is to enable an intelligent planet with Automation and Embedded Computing products and solutions that empower the development of smarter working and living.
They are a leader in providing trusted, innovative products, services, and solutions. Advantech offers comprehensive system integration, hardware, software, customer-centric design services, embedded systems, automation products, and global logistics support. They cooperate closely with partners to help provide complete solutions for a wide array of applications across a diverse range of industries.
According to IDC (International Data Corporation) research, the number of intelligent embedded devices worldwide will grow to 25 billion by 2020, with over 30% of these being in the energy, transportation, and surveillance sectors.
With the arrival of the intelligent planet’s golden decade, Advantech is actively adjusting its organization into two parts: Embedded Design-in Services and iPlanet Solutions. Embedded Design-in Services will focus on core technology development, and iPlanet Solutions will seek to engage in a deeper cultivation of industry applications — the two architectures better mapped to serve existing and emerging markets.
Cohda Wireless is an equipment vendor in the Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) market. The company manufactures hardware products with acknowledged best-in-world performance and has developed complete software solutions (from network layer to applications layer) for this market. Cohda’s hardware and software products are being used in Car-to-Car field trials worldwide today and their customers include a large number of car makers, tier One Suppliers, automotive chip makers and road authorities.
When we spoke with Paul he told us that one big issue faced by society is the number of injuries and fatalities that occur each year on roads. Other issues include congestion, time wasted in traffic jams and climate change from greenhouse gas emissions.
The solution he says, is wireless devices that communicate between vehicles and infrastructure, having an awareness of potential collisions and giving the driver a clearer view of the state of the road network. Warnings will be communicated in various ways such as visual, haptics etc. The intention of Cohda’s system is if you’re driving in a safe manner and your fellow drivers are as well then the system will not go off at all.
Cohda is unique in having developed a solution for the automotive industry from the ground up. Their products are already in use in the USA, Europe, Australia, Japan, and Korea. One example is a safety pilot trial by the US Department of Transport with 3000 vehicle volunteer drivers in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Looking beyond the trial phase, European car makers are targeting 2015 as the rollout date. Car makers are targeting a cost to the consumer of $US100.