Internet of things
Have you ever thought about how every cool think around you works? Well, I can be sure that all or most of those interesting objects you see on your daily basis are connected to the Internet of Things, unless you live in the countryside in a farm. But no matter what, everyone has once interacted directly or indirectly with an object or device in which IoT (Internet of Things) is implemented. From smart light bulbs to monitoring human apps. Most of the people who has interacted with a IoT device don’t even know what IoT means, it might be a little weird the first time it is explained that all of those commmon devices works with something called Internet of things. That’s why this blog intends to clarify the most about this topic, illustrating the reader about the subject in a really easy way to understand.
But what is Iot?
the network of physical objects — devices, vehicles, buildings and other items — embedded with electronics, software, sensors, and network connectivity that enables these objects to collect and exchange data.
So it basically make objects “smart”, allowing them to communicate and share data. Therefore, anything that produces data can be considered IoT, here are some examples: drones, smart watches and smart cars.
But that’s not all, Internet Society Community adds that IoT is more than that, is an emerging topic of technical, social, and economic significance. Since everyday objects are being combined with Internet connectivity and powerful data analytic capabilities that will evolve even more the way humans work, live, and play. IoT projections are breathtaking, for 2025 there will be around 100 billion IoT devices connected, and global economy will be impacted by that in more than a woth of $11 trillion.
What are some disadvantages?
Even though it have countless advantages, there are some disadvantages that prevent IoT to fulfill its true potential. Everyones attention is based on the lack of privacy they’ll have, saying that their devices will be watching over them, saving every kind of data. People biggest fear about IoT is that their devices will not just be saving the data they manipulate with the device, but also every other kind of information the device can capture of their surroundings. This is the reason why technical challenges remain and new policy, legal and development challenges are emerging about all of this privacy fears.
IoT nowadays:
In recent years we’ve seen how everything has evolved, including cars. In 2013 Tesla introduced the world’s largest interactive vehicle display. Drones are becoming commonplace, we can see how nowadays the only requirement to obtain one is to actually have the privileged to afford one of those. Cellphones can be used for streaming home security videos in real-time, which it was more than impossible only 15 years ago. Last but not least important, at the moment we can say that 99% if not all of atheletes have a smart watch that is constantly monitoring their health while they practice their sport or use the watch in their normal life.
From the above paragraph we can conclude that IoT’s main benefit is to collect an enormous amount of data from various means and devices then build services upon analyses of these massive amounts of data (Just like in smartwatches or the tesla vehicle display).
Privacy and security of IoT:
Since everything connected to the internet can be hacked, there are some measures enterprises have to avoid those attacks to your network.
Security is one of the most critical concerns in IoT, closely related to data ethics, privacy and liability. Security engineering skills, including threat assessment, ethical hacking, encryption to ensure data integrity, securing network architectures and applications, as well as event monitoring, activity logging, and threat intelligence, move to the foreground of the IoT development projects.
Lets talk about some key concepts of Iot:
Hardware: IoT is a billion of devices connected with sensors that sense and control the physical world, to transmit all that data collected they need some basic storage.
Embedded programming: IoT devicesd are embedded devices, prototyping with these platforms requires circuit design skills, micro-controller programming, and a deep understanding of hardware communication protocols to establish communication between the micro-controller and the connected sensors and actuators. The embedded programs are often developed using C++ or C, however Python and JavaScript are becoming more popular for prototyping IoT devices.
Networking and cloud integration: Networking is really important due to the amount of connected devices and impact that network design decisions can have at scale. Cloud infrastructure is used for data storage, processing and analysis, as well as for implementation of the business logic of IoT applications.
Data analytics and prediction: Developers need to secure the reliability of data to filter or discard irrelevant data to be transmitted.
How has IoT impacted the industry?
IoT on industrial ecosystems has resulted in the also called “the fourth industrial revolution”.
The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) has transformed the manufacturing providing an innovation in automated systems.
IoT in Healthcare, or Internet of Medical Things
Similar to industry, IoT has the potential to redefine the healthcare system. The Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) is virtually the collection of medical devices and applications that connect to healthcare IT systems through online computer networks. As the amount of connected medical devices increases, the power of IoMT grows, monitoring people with devices to remotely monitor patients in their homes spares them from traveling to a hospital whenever they have a medical question or change in their condition which and revolutionize the whole healthcare ecosystem and doctor-patient communication settings.
Resources:
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-22723-8_80
https://medium.com/sciforce/internet-of-things-iot-what-is-iot-248a2af925bc
