2016 Shilpi Chattopadhyay Alternet – 1.5 pages 2/22/2016
Sensors: IOT
I ‘Sensor’ the IOT future: It is quite amazing how something like technology, once such an ordinary word, has now become a powerful tool, branching out so far and rooting itself deep into our society and most definitely our foreseeable future. The world is a completely different place now, and in a world where there is little room for people that wish to live without technology that is still advancing at a rate that has helped stave off stagnation, many professions are struggling to adapt to many new world technology concepts. One concept in particular is the misconceptions and ideologies surrounding Internet of Things. This article is on misconceptions that people seem to have, and how to fix that problem by explaining what IOT is and why it is going to become our future. IOT has become a hot piece of topic like wild fire across mobile, home and embedded applications around half a decade. IOT was coined in 1999 in Proctor & Gamble by co-founder of MIT Auto-ID Lab, and British technology pioneer, Kevin Ashton.
Image: Kevin Ashton 2015
So what is IOT? All our applications such as games, commerce, books, banking, etc., on the internet were created by people for people and about people. (Hogland, 2015). We have now progressed to an era where this will be changed for ever. With IOT every inanimate object will constantly update new sensors and send out data which will be collected and stored in the cloud, allowing these objects to progressively learn new things for enhanced real time decision-making as time goes by.
The BIG Picture: How many times have you internally screamed for getting caught up in traffic jams caused by an accident further ahead, even though google maps told you this route was the shortest journey? Accidents are one type of event that is uncontrollable. With IOT, you can put the control back in your hands. Imagine if your car sent an alert to the Internet Of Things cloud system when it sensed that the car was idle for more than 20 minutes on a busy road, and then alerted you and oncoming travellers with a better route. Have I got you interested now? Well why stop there, let’s try everyday household items such as tap water filters or coffee makers. Imagine having a water filter that automatically switched off when nothing was left in the sink, or if your daily dose of coffee was premade every morning at the same time before work just the way you like it? I think that sounds like a deal maker right there! These things are no longer dreams, for with the Internet of Things, these are now very quickly becoming a reality. Many companies have already adapted to this change. Among those company’s is AlterNet, which has successfully used IOT to capture and monitor the amount of shrink wraps that are being used in a daily basis, and transport that data from shrink wrapping machines to hand held devices for a pet food company using a real time locator. In a nutshell, IOT is the concept of transforming everyday objects ranging from household items such as coffee makers and cars, to industrial machines and wearable devices using built-in sensors, and cloud- technology, to gather data, interpret it and make life simpler with enhanced decision-making based on real time data. So how does it work? Sensors are fitted into objects, to collect real time data. Every data will have its own unique ID, making it possible to communicate between different machines. This is called Machine to Machine (M2M) learning. A vast amount of data will be collected from around the world and stored on the cloud. Companies such as Google, Apple, and many others have already started to make use of this cloud system, and have provided a vision of the world of sharing. It is predicted that by the year 2020, around 25 Billion embedded and Intelligent Systems will be connected through the cloud, which will create around $4 Trillion of Revenue Opportunity (Gartner, 2014) “It’s not science fiction anymore – it’s science fact. We are bringing the physical and digital world together… it will revolutionize our lives,” Samsung CEO BK Yoon spoke.
Image: IOT in the Future Diagram
Using data analytics, decision makers can analyse all the data sensors around the world for machine learning and producing effective and efficient solutions for real world problems. There will be little or no need for human interactions, as machines themselves will be talking to each other and taking all the decisions quickly and more accurately based on real time information and analytics. Conclusion: The Internet of Things is the future of technology that will not only make everyone’s lives more efficient, but will create countless opportunities for sectors like the Health, Industrial, Retail, Communications and the Financial world. However, with this IOT connected world, there might be many risks, data security being on the top of that list. Follow the next article to [insert what next article is about] for future challenges and on how to address those in a connected world.