Just imagine a world where everything is convenient, works properly, runs on time, no waiting in lines, traffic jams or stop lights. Services delivered when you want them, where you want them and how you want them. No more mundane little nagging things that you need to do or oversee. Efficiently watered landscape & gardens, automatic energy conservation in large buildings and homes, no more air or water pollution and how peaceful would it be to drive on a smart road where traffic just flows along, especially in Los Angeles. We will also be warned of forest fires, earthquakes and instructed where to park when we pull into a parking garage. It will truly be utopia. The world’s problems will be a thing of the past. This is the promise of The Internet of Everything (not to be confused with Internet of Things, which is exactly that, just things, connected to the cloud, without the human intelligence analyzing the data) – now back to the definition of the IoE–“the networked connection of people, process, data, and things — is opening up new opportunities (and risks) that everyone should consider. Today it is estimated that more than 20 billion devices are connected to the internet and by 2020 many sources are predicting there could be a 100 Billion or more. “The Internet of Everything (IoE) is the quiet communication that is happening all the time. Plain and simple, if your device can communicate in any way to the Internet, the Internet will talk back. By 2020, everything from your entire house, your car to your body will be wired to the IoT” -Vazata.com. That’s right, you won’t have to try on clothes or shoes anymore; a body stocking with RFID sensors will take all of your measurements and VOILA you will have bespoke garments (look that one up). Smart sensors in textiles will be able to transmit all kinds of information from one’s health, as we have seen in the 2016 Rio Olympic Women’s Field Hockey team(s), coaches were able to swap out players when they detected signs exhaustion during the event. Currently heart & cancer patients are utilizing this technology for early detection of deteriorating health. Even healthy could benefit from keeping themselves in check and taking action right away if a problem was detected – it could save lives. Imagine creating a car with seats (including infant car seats) that would detect if someone were left in the car and the temperature was rapidly rising or falling. You could be alerted and if you did not attend to the situation in 2-3 minutes the police or 911 would be notified to save the day. It’s estimated that 10+million units of smart clothing will be sold by 2020. Apparently, $235 billion was spent supporting IoT in 2015. By 2020, that will increase to an astounding $1.7 trillion”. –http://www.vazata.com/Blog/five-quick-facts-about-the-internet-of-things-in-the-year-2020#sthash.e3xrvB6y.dpuf/. What does this mean…to me, you & the world at large? It means that we can fix a lot of problems in this world! And it means there is a TON of opportunity in the IoT/IoE space (coming from the salesperson and do-gooder parts of me). Exciting thoughts for all of us. Maybe there is still a chance to save our planet?
“But, it should be noted all the information gathered by each of the sensors in the world isn’t worth very much if there isn’t an infrastructure in place to analyze it in real time. Cloud-based applications are the key to using leveraged data. The Internet of Things doesn’t function without cloud-based applications to interpret and transmit the data coming from all these sensors. The cloud is what enables the apps to go to work for you anytime, anywhere.”- Wired http://.wired.com/The Internet of Things Is Bigger Than Anyone Realizes/
For full details on all of these IoE intelligence from Libelium Sensors, www.libelium.com http://www.libelium.com/resources/top_50_iot_sensor_applications_ranking/
Public-sector leaders need to consider from multiple perspectives: policy leadership, services provision, and regulation.