1. Beginning, Potential And Challenges
Gartner predicting connection of more than 25 billion devices churning out data communicating over the internet, massively expanding internet of things infrastructure, internet of things is changing our lives and how we live and work already.
Miniaturizing of the computing hardware has made the progress of IoT applications and devices a reality sooner than anyone guessed. When Kevin Ashton coined the phrase ‘internet of things’ in 1999, he was very much sure of the potential, IoT has to change our lives.
For those of you who are not aware of technical aspects and definition of internet of things, we recommend reading the details first. But then no one likes to break the reading continuum so here’s a straight forward abstracted explanation of IoT:
Internet of things is a setup where the things essentially the hardware embedded with sensors gathers, stores and analyzes data. All these hardware are connected to the internet so they have dynamic inflow of information processed by IoT applications mostly cloud based.
Almost all the IoT devices can be controlled remotely. Another very important aspect of IoT environment is the ability to adjust itself according to your needs and preferences. Remember that 25 billion figure I mentioned, those devices will comprise of smart home kits, smart cars, locks, alarms, industrial machines, smart city devices like smart street lights, healthcare equipments and wearables, energy management devices and every other domain you can think of.
Surely some part of the billions devices and trillion dollar industry is hype, but not all of it. There are obstacles that need to be mapped before the future new world can be made a reality.
Technical and Security Barriers
Being such a vast community of devices, communication is definitely a challenge. Language used by IoT devices to communicate with each other is not standardized. For instant the smart alarm systems mostly use WiFi while smart home devices like thermostats use Bluetooth. On the other side heavy electronic appliances like coffee maker and fridge make use of ZigBee.
Obviously the massive amount of data produced by these devices is a whole challenge in its own. Storing, processing and communication data with IoT devices in real time is a lot of effort.
However none of these challenges are boggling experts like the security threats posed with unreliability of internet of things. Hackers are actively participating to forward the flaws in the whole interconnected life set up of internet of things. These activists showcased the potential dangers through live examples.
Whatever…IoT Is Still Progressing
No new tech trend came without risks and flaws. With all these security challenges looming over, internet of things is altering almost every sphere of our lives be it healthcare, transportation, agriculture or city planning. Read on to know more.