The Internet of Things: connecting the world

• DOI: 10.1007/s00779-013-0665-z
• Publication Date: 2013-05-08T04:30:00Z
• Authors: Jesús Carretero; J. Daniel García
• Keywords: 11. Sustainability; 0202 electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering; 02 engineering and technology

In the last few years, we have seen an increased interest in The Internet of Things (IoT). IoT is a network of Internetenabled objects in a world where physical objects are seamlessly integrated into the information network and where the physical objects can become active participants in business processes. The Internet of Things [1] brings together two key concepts: Internet-connected devices everywhere in any time and any place and ubiquitous computing, where ‘‘the most profound technologies are those that disappear’’ [2] in such a way that these devices made themselves indistinguishable from explicit technology that the humans use in their lives. IoT aims at increasing the ubiquity of the Internet by integrating every object for interaction via embedded systems and leads to the highly distributed network of devices communicating with human beings as well as other devices. These objects can communicate with humans and enable people to monitor and control them through intelligent services in anytime and anywhere, taking into account security and privacy issues. Benefits from IoT will allow improving the services as perceived by the users, for example saving energy, enhancing comfort, getting better healthcare, and increased independence. On the other hand, IoT raises new technical and ethical challenges. The European Research Cluster on the Internet of Things has identified the trendiest application areas in the Internet of Things (IoT), in the document ‘‘The Internet of Things 2012—New Horizons’’ and grouped them in different domains [3]: applications development facilities; autonomic and self-aware IoT; IoT infrastructure as a service; IoT-aware open networks and location; large-scale IoT process deployment; data management and security; device-level energy issues; standardization; and societal, economic, and legal issues.