Cheat Sheet: The internet of things | Networks | silicon.com
The internet of things, you say? Sounds like an oxymoron to me. The internet of things - or IoT for short - is all about bringing the analogue (physical) world into the digital (virtual) sphere so that physical objects can be identified, tracked, located and even controlled online, in real-time. And what does the IoT mean? Lots and lots more lovely data. Tell me more… IoT describes a not-so-far-distant future reality towards which our increasingly wired and sensor-strewn society is accelerating. There are many names for this already: other terms you may have come across include: ubiquitous computing (or ubicomp), invisible computing, pervasive computing and even - somewhat inevitably - web 3.0. The gist is: couple ubiquitous wireless and cellular networks with everyday objects that have wireless sensors embedded in them et voila: there’s your internet of things - smart objects that can be identified by the tiny chips they contain.