Internet of Things

During the ITEX 2010 Symposium, ‘Internet of Things’ was highlighted as one of the emerging revolutionary concepts. ‘Internet of Things’ is the theme of objects, services and individuals networked with one another that is important. Imagine an executive director who is woken up by an alarm synchronized to his calendar entailing the day’s meetings, finds the bathing water already warm and the lights on as he heads to the bathroom. On his way out, the car is already started with the navigation screen indicates an alternate route to the airport due to a traffic snarl up. The traffic takes longer than expected to ease and the director will be late for his flight. The flight is changed; payment made via the credit card and the director is alerted via his smart phone. Finally, the director boards the plane but his is late for the meeting, a notification is sent to all participants, the smart phone’s GPS detects his location. As soon as he lands, he joins the meeting via a conference call or web conference. He seamlessly joins the meeting on arrival to his office. The idea is a self-configuring wireless network of sensors whose purpose would be to interconnect all things.

The advent of IP Version 6 (IP v6) addressing scheme is vital in the development of this concept. The scheme utilizes of a 128-bit address space, supporting 2128 (about 3.4×1038) addresses. If all objects of daily life were equipped with radio sensors, they could be identified and inventoried by computers. The next generation of Internet applications using Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) would be able to communicate with devices attached to virtually all human-made objects because of the extremely large address space of IPv6. This system would therefore be able to identify any kind of object. Smart objects and their connected networks could regulate electrical grids, monitor the weather, check water levels in rivers and dams, traffic lights, petroleum pipelines, smart buildings or most any man-made or natural object. In an Internet of Things, the precise geographic location of a thing—and also the precise geographic dimensions of a thing—will are critical. In the recent past, more devices have been integrated to human nature. Most electronic entertainment devices now allow users to interact with that content just as they do on their hand held devices – using multi-touch technology. Another emerging trend is the disappearance of the screen, with the screens growing smaller, thinner and more interactive on smart phones.

On this theme of the disappearance, or transformation, of the screen, various companies are working on glasses – and even contact lenses – capable of superimposing a digital display over the wearer’s vision. An example of the disappearing screen technology is the Pranav Mistry’s “SixthSense”. The device Rather than a screen, the SixthSense device projects visual information onto the user’s immediate environment e.g. a table, wall or paper. An interactive projector transforms flat surfaces into a touch screen. The Internet is a vital component of the concepts and many companies all over the globe are working on ways to use tracking and internet connectivity to give new digital life to physical objects and locations. For instance, ‘Violet’, a French company, sells special stamps that trigger email alerts and messages when you move items around your house. Probably, this can be used to prevent burglary and alert the police. ‘IoBridge’ gives you the hardware and software to hack together devices that let your Twitter Feed control your TV, or allow your garage door to have a Facebook Status.

The Internet of Things, which will include connections over the public Internet as well as an unlimited number of private networks, using IP as the global language. New types of wireless technologies will make many of these connections to tiny, battery-powered sensors, while the tangle of electrical lines that already blanket the earth offers another promising means for connecting millions of sensors and controllers. Millions of sensors or mini-controller devices of the Internet of Things, commonly referred to as smart objects, will go places the Internet never dreamed of. All this call for standardization and ways to manage the forthcoming host of challenges that don't exist with today's networks. Current networks are designed with the assumption of unlimited power for driving ever bigger and faster digital machines for massive, fiber optic-based broadband links. Unlike the high-powered broadband lines running today's Internet, much of the Internet of Things will need connections over low-power, low-speed, and often unstable connections in harsh or unpredictable environments.

The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) will need to develop a common approach for making IP routing protocols lightweight and flexible enough for smart objects networks. Just as standards play a key role in the Internet and the Web, geospatial standards will play a key role in the Internet of Things. If in the Internet of Things, things are able to take actions on their own initiative, this human-centric mediation role is eliminated, and the time-space context that we as humans take for granted must be given a central role in this information ecosystem.