The Internet of Things—what the heck is it anyway?

摘要

Sometimes Wikipedia really comes up with some good stuff. I have been collecting references and items in preparation for a piece on the 'Internet of Things' (IoT) for months now, but have held back as it all sounded how should I say, a bit nebulous. I will spare you the pain of yet another longwinded description of how 'things' are going to 'connect' and change our lives, because I am sure that you have heard enough of this stuff already from vendors, the popular press (not that we are not popular) and folks propping up the bar. Having said that, for those fresh back from a trip to Mars, the IoT is, to quote Wikipedia0301 (but not the good bit), 'the interconnection of uniquely identifiable embedded computing devices within the existing Internet infrastructure. Typically, IoT is expected to offer connectivity of devices, systems, and services that goes beyond machine-to-machine communications (M2M).' Of course the IoT has to 'go beyond' M2M otherwise it would be something that already existed and of no interest to the marketing department. Quite how it 'goes beyond' is unclear.