The concept of interconnected objects is not new in the world. The IT experts are talking about smart objects for long. They are trying to make the objects of everyday life smart and then connect them to each other. This concept of making things smart and then connecting and synchronizing them is known as “Internet of Things”.
Many companies and individuals have contributed to the advancement of technology. Internet of things is the inter-networking of physical devices which are connected to one another embedded with electronics, software, sensors, and network connectivity that enables these objects to collect and exchange data. IOT-GSI defined the concept as “The infrastructure of an information society.” In simple words, it is a connection between the physical world and the world of the internet. The Internet of Things is in short a concept of connecting any device to the Internet and to other connected devices. It is basically a network of connected people and objects. In the concept of the Internet of Things, the word ‘Things’ refers to the inextricable mixture of hardware, software, data and service.
The purpose of the internet of things is to connect all the physical objects which are being used by human beings in the present time. Connecting objects with one another and then synchronizing their functions obviously contributes to an easier and cozy human life. Other purposes include advanced security, the achievement of a new level of machine-to-machine communication and technologically a lot better human life. Now in this present era, the internet of things is all set to achieve these targets. It is perhaps the most important and the most talked about technology of today’s world. Many experts believe that in the near future, the internet of things will become a part of our life such that it would be hard to believe that there was a time when the objects were not connected.
Despite the fact that the Internet of Things is helpful in many respects, it has also many issues associated with it that need to be addressed. Some of them are Security Issues, Complexity, Privacy Issues, and Confusing Terminology. The Internet of Things has made many achievements and it has failed in a few respects as well. It has been successful in getting the attention of IT experts from the whole world. They all see it as the future of Information Technology. It has been able to attract many customers towards itself and has helped them a lot in living a smart life in the form of Smart Homes, Smart Offices, etc. It has also failed in addressing issues like the security and privacy of the customers.
Even though the Internet of Things is the technology of the day yet it is not very well-known outside the field of IT. I’ve tried to bring the major aspects of this technology in my paper. This field needs more research work and needs to get rid of the issues affiliated with it. Being the next-generation technology, IoT needs to be explored further. It has the potential to bring the world technologically closer and in a few years.
The writer is a student at National Defence University, Islamabad.