We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
from Part III - Applications
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2014
Humans interact with things in their environment all the time. An increasing number of those interactions involve technology: a screen and keyboard, a mouse, accessing files in computer storage, analyzing data, etc. Often a human is needed just to facilitate an interaction between two objects: a person reads an identifier on an object and types it into a system in order to record the position or status of the object.
Smart objects can identify themselves to systems without human intervention. This implies some form of communication between the object and the system; this may be temporary, as when an RFID-tagged object passes a reader, or it may be longer lasting where the object is connected to a network. This is often known as machine-to-machine (M2M) communication, and leads to the concept of an Internet of Things (IoT), in which billions of objects have their own IP addresses and can connect freely to other objects and systems.
Most smart objects store, as well as a simple identifier, additional data about themselves: for example some history, a MAC address, or a URL link that gives access to these data. These data are used also by humans interacting with the object, so the IoT is often connected to the human-centric Internet.
A range of research studies (see, for example [1, 2]) has forecast that hundreds of billions of objects will be connected to the IoT by 2020, and that there will be a market of trillions of dollars to make it work.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
