The future is the Internet of Things—deal with it

(credit: jeferrb)

Even before there was a World Wide Web, there was an Internet of Things.

In 1991, a couple of researchers at the University of Cambridge Computer Lab set out to solve the problem of making fruitless quests through the building to a shared coffee pot in the Lab's Trojan Room. Using a video camera, a frame grabbing card, and a Motorola 68000 series-based computer running VME, they created a networked sensor that could show the current state of the pot. First configured as an X-Windows application, the Trojan Coffee Pot server was converted to HTTP in 1993, becoming one of the early stars of the Internet. It was soon joined by other networked sensors, including a number of hot tubs.

Today, millions of devices expose what they see, hear, and otherwise sense to the Internet. And thanks to cheap embedded systems, they don't need an old VME or Windows box to do it. Billions of other devices that defy the usual definition of "computer" are communicating over networks, almost entirely with other machines. These "Internet of Things" (IoT) devices send telemetry to and receive instructions from software both nearby and on far-flung servers. Software and sensors are controlling more of what once was done by humans, often more efficiently, conveniently, and cheaply.

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