The Internet of Things

The INTERNET of THINGS During 2008, the number of things connected to the Internet exceeded the number of people on earth. 2003 2010 2015 By 2020 there will be 50 billion. These things are not just smartphones and tablets. A Dutch startup, Sparked, is using wireless sensors on cattle. They're every thing. So that when one is sick or pregnant, it sends a message to the farmer. Each cow transmits 200 mb of data per year. We can monitor ourselves this way too. Corventis makes a wireless cardiac monitor that physicians can check for health risks. And this is just the beginning. These things are starting to talk to each other and develop their own intelligence. Imagine a scenario where... ...your meeting was pushed back 45 minutes. ..your car knows it will need gas to make it to the train station. Fill-ups usually take 5 minutes. This is communicated to your alarm clock, which allows you 5 extra minutes of sleep. ..there was an accident on your driving route causing a 15 minute detour. .your train is running 20 minutes behind schedule. And signals your car to start in 5 minutes to melt And signals your coffee maker to turn on 5 minutes late as well. the ice accumulated in overnight snow storms. We are well on our way. By the end of 2011, 20 typical households will generate more Internet traffic... than the entire Internet.. .in 2008. Cisco's Planetary Skin will use billions of networked sensors on land and in sea; air and space to detect and predict changes to the environment. We already have cameras and computers that are one cubic millimeter. You could fit 150 of thèm in this icon. With the IPV6 protocol, we will have 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456 possible Internet addresses. That's 100 for every atom on the face of the earth. Technological limitations are receding exponentially. When billions of things are connected, talking and learning, the only limitation left will be our own imaginations. CISCO. Sources: Cisco IBSG. Jim Cicconi, AT&T, Steve Leibson, Computer History Museum, CNN, University of Michigan, Fraunhofer