Introduction
Few months back I saw in a newspaper that Google’s purchased Nest Company. After saw that headline I am shocked and started wondering why the hell Google interested in "Nest". In that same article I saw term The “Internet of Things (IoT)”. But what does “Internet of Things” even mean, and why should we care about.
Before going formal definition let’s start with simple example of what is Internet of Things and importance of Internet of things in our daily life
Tomorrow I have a meeting in my office at 9 AM. Then tomorrow morning I need to starts at my home at 8:00 AM. I have fixed alarm on my phone at 7 AM. Let’s imagine an accident happed early morning road nearby office. I don’t know that information I have wake up at 7 and started at 8 because of the early morning accident lot of traffic jam on the road nearby office. So I have not able to attend the important meeting on time. This scenario won’t happen in feature because if you have intelligent traffic system application in your mobile phone. It will get message from intelligent traffic system and automatically changes the alarm from 7 AM to 6:30 AM and it will wake you up early and it will tell you about the traffic jam and it will suggest you the another possible shortest and best route so you can able to reach your office correct time and can able to attend your important meeting…
Don’t think Internet of Things helps and improves not only your life and your home… it will helps many people life’s we can say our entire city/state/country (based on how much we have utilized in Internet of Things)
Let’s take same example into another level by looking in global level. After accident happens intelligent device such as a smart traffic camera (that can monitor the road for accidents and weather conditions) communicate that status to a gateway and it will combine it with data from other intelligent cameras creating an intelligent citywide traffic system in a City. So intelligent citywide traffic system will send this information to all the school drivers and corporate office transport systems and airport transport agencies then those drivers aware about the traffic jam and they can take appropriate action on that. This action will save lot of people time and they can able to reach offices, colleges and airports correct time.
In the above examples I have took only traffic system. Internet of Things will improves medical outcomes, creating better products faster with lower development costs, makes shopping more enjoyable and optimizing energy generation and consumption.
Definition
Internet of Things is an evolution of mobile, home, and embedded devices that are connected to the internet. In this scenario the devices are having unique identifiers (IP address) and the ability to transfer data over a network without requiring human-to-human or human-to-computer interaction.
Now a day’s Internet of Things using many ways to solve our daily life problems and challenges, I will provide few interesting examples
Example 1:
You want to monitor Baby Activities (baby breathing, baby temperature and activities) on your mobile phone when you are in kitchen or office
http://mimobaby.com/
Example 2:
By using Internet of Things we can use even Street Lights more effectively. A company called Echelon developed smart lighting system it will provide right level of lighting to cities and this system saves around 30% electricity also.
http://www.echelon.com/applications/lighting
Example 3:
In Industries we can use Internet of Things to Maintain & Repair activity by using Sensors installed inside equipment will monitor if any parts have exceeded their designed thresholds, and will automatically send reports to owners and manufacturers if they have.
Operating Systems for development Internet of Things:
You can find so many different platform operating system to develop Internet of Things.
Some example are
System: Contiki :
Contiki is an open source, highly portable, multi-tasking operating system for memory-efficient networked embedded systems and wireless sensor networks.
Website: http://www.contiki-os.org/
System: TinyOS:-
TinyOS is an embedded operating system written in the nesC programming language as a set of cooperating tasks and processes. TinyOS started as a collaboration between the University of California, Berkeley in co-operation with Intel Research and Crossbow Technology.
Website: http://www.tinyos.net/
System: RIOT OS: -
RIOT OS is an operating system for Internet of Things (IoT) devices. It is based on a microkernel and designed for: energy efficiency, hardware independent development, a high degree of modularity.
Website: http://www.riot-os.org/.
Platforms for development Internet of Things:
AMEE Platform:
Company: AMEE UK
Website: http://www.amee.com/
Arkessa Platform:
Company: Arkessa
Website: http://www.arkessa.com
IPv4 to IPv6
IPv4 address won'tsufficient for these billions of device. IPv6 solves the scarcity of addresses.
Internet of Things for Developers:
For Developers Internet of Things gives an opportunity to develop and provide best solutions in different domain industries like Agriculture, Health Care, Automobile, Energy, Defense, and Transport.
More companies are investing more money into this field, so definitely more professionals required in this field, so it will create more jobs in software and other domains.
For example Microsoft, Google and Apple... are investing more money and already developed many applications in this field
Check the below links
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsembedded/en-us/internet-of-things.aspx
http://www.android.com/wear/
Security Concerns in Internet of Things:
In Year 2020 New York times headlines.
Hackers got access to USA secure network through White house refrigerator.
Don’t laugh by above headline because we will look similar headlines and different kinds of hacking techniques related to TV, watches, refrigerator, home appliances.
I love this quote "with great power comes great responsibility". We can relate this quote in many ways in our life.
Security is always big issue with Digital world. With trillions of device are interconnected with each other how can Developers, Information security groups and Companies will make sure that our personal information secure. Who know some hacker may hack our home heat controller device and get access to the total house network. Scientists and information security groups need to start thinking about information security and how to protect those tiny little embedded device from hackers. Scientists need develop efficient and low cost algorithms which run on those embedded devices. Company need to train there developers to handle information security issues and most importantly can we make a normal human to adopt the Internet of Things because still we can see people using email account password as "123456" or "password".
Internet of Things (IoT) first global cyber attack.
Proofpoint documented that this account happed between December 23, 2013 and January 6, 2014. It was a form of botnet attack that involved sending waves of malicious email. These emails were sent in batches of 100,000 three times a day, but significantly, no more than 10 emails were sent from any single IP address.
http://www.proofpoint.com/about-us/press-releases/01162014.php
And one more thing come into my mind is Privacy and Data secure transmission. With trillions of device are talking with each other how the company or government will make sure that your data is secure. Each device is designed by different company so how the company’s will process data and how securely will store the data because here we dealing with personal and very sensitive data.
Scientists or Developers need play very important role in Internet of Things to design such a device to handle privacy and data securities.
If any mistakes happen people won’t adopt these kind of technology. So government and Company’s make sure that our Personal Data is secure and safe.
