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Internet of Things

What is the Internet of Things?

You’ve no doubt seen talk of the Internet of Things, or the Internet of Everything even, but you may still wonder what it is. Well, it isn’t a product or a feature you will buy, it has more in common with the “information age” or “industrial revolution” then “smart phone” or even the Internet itself.

It took me a while to warm up to the idea. At first I thought it was just marketing hype, but now I am really excited and see it as part of a huge trend that is going to really change life as we know it. In fact we’ve already seen a lot of the changes. The Internet of Things (IoT) isn’t something coming someday; it is something already here and is only going to get bigger.

Gartner's 2014 Hype Cycle of Emergine Technologies
Gartner says we are 5 to 10 years away from seeing the full productivity of IoT

 

The basic idea is that all sorts of “ordinary things” get connected to the Internet, but I believe that really misses the point. IoT is really the combination of four technologies: The cloud, computer miniaturization & commoditization, smart devices, and ubiquitous connectivity. I’d say ubiquity is a theme of IoT. These four technologies have been gaining steam individually, but as they come together we see massive changes.

Over the next few blog posts we can discuss each technology individually, and then we can discuss what they mean together. I’d love to hear your feedback along the way.

Did you know RAD Studio XE7 is great for building apps that connect with the Internet of Things? I’ll discuss that more in some of my future posts, but right now there are a lot of great special offers that make upgrading to XE7 a no brainer. I’d feel bad if you missed these special offers because you were waiting for me to get to the point. If you just download and activate the trial by Nov 21st you get a free copy of Nick’s book.