The concept of a network of smart devices was recorded more than 35 years ago when Carnegie Mellon University modified a Coke machine to report its inventory and the temperature of newly loaded drinks via an Internet connection1. However, the term known as the Internet of Things (IoT) was not created to describe this “movement” until the early 1990s2. During the last few years the vision of the IoT has evolved as a result of the convergence of multiple technologies, including ubiquitous wireless communication, real-time analytics, machine learning, commodity sensors, and embedded systems.
This convergence has alleviated the silos between operational technology (OT) and information technology (IT), to allow unstructured machine-generated data to be evaluated for insights to drive IoT advances.3 The early entrants in the smart product industry ran on closed networks or relied heavily on a proprietary network of similar “things” for functionality. As technology has evolved, these smart products have become more commercially available on a wider scale.
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- “The “Only” Coke Machine on the Internet”. Carnegie Mellon University. Retrieved Aug. 11, 2017.
- Mattern, Friedemann; Floerkemeier, Christian (2010). “From the Internet of Computers to the Internet of Things” (PDF). Informatik- Spektrum. 33 (2): 107–121. doi:10.1007/s00287- 010-0417-7. Retrieved Aug. 11, 2017.
- Wigmore, I. (June 2014). “Internet of Things (IoT)”. TechTarget. Retrieved Aug. 11, 2017