What is the Internet of things?

What is the internet of things? : examples, devices, security, in healthcare, crypto. The Internet of things also referred to as IoT is the most dynamic and exciting development through the advent of new technology.

What is the internet of things? : examples, devices, security, in healthcare, crypto
What is the internet of things? : examples, devices, security, in healthcare, crypto

However, over the past two decades, network technologies have become increasingly omnipresent but until now they have been restricted to be largely connected to traditional end-users devices including desktop computers, laptops, mainframe computers, and more recently smartphones and tablets have also been included in this list.

In recent years the world has witnessed the attachment of a broad range of devices connected to the network. These devices cover medical devices, meters and controls, street lights, vehicles, household appliances, digital assistants such as Google, and Alexa, traffic controls, and smart TVs.

According to the calculations of industrialists more than eight billion such devices are connected to the network and this number has expanded to more than 25 billion by 2020. This rapidly increasing deployment of the devices has activated new cases for network technologies. Some experts have a project that by 2025, IoT will generate a great revenue equivalent to $13 trillion.

IOT, unlike traditional cybercrime systems, is not connected to general-purpose computers as they are linked with highly designed and specified devices for specific purposes. Another noticeable thing is that they can be used for a limited degree of programmability and distributed manner under a specific program.

In addition to these characteristics, the Internet of Things stores and processes data in a more distributed manner contrasting to a highly centralized approach of computing powers of large data centers along with consolidating storage as well.

The other name of IoT is a cyber-physical system as unlike the pure cyber systems, these systems also include sensors that are used for collecting data from the physical world. The presence of the physical sensors with their distributed nature provides new opportunities and vulnerabilities from the standpoint of privacy and security.

Examples: What is the internet of things

The Internet of things is a broad concept that can be best understood with the mentioning of examples. The applications of the Internet of things will also clarify your questions about how the IoT works. The Internet of things applications are mentioned below:

Wearables: Today watches are no longer used only for telling time. The Apple Watch and other different smartwatches in the market have developed new technologies and turned our wrist into smartphone holsters by allowing text messaging, phone calls, videos call, and many more.

Whereas devices such as Fitbit and Jawbone have been introduced as a revolution in the world of fitness by giving people more data about their fitness and health.

Smart Homes: The smart home is likely the most popular IoT application at the current time because of its advantages that it can be bought easily at an affordable price and is readily available to the consumers. Listing from Amazon Echo to the Nest Thermostat, hundreds of products have been launched now in the market that the users can use to control their voices for making their lives more connected than ever.

Smart Cities: The applications and examples of IoT will not end however it is expected that they will grow shortly. Through IoT, it has become possible to transfer entire cities by solving the problems real citizens face every day. With the proper requirement of connections and data, the Internet of Things is used as a solution for various traffic congestion issues and reduces crime, pollution, and noise.

Furthermore, the examples of the Internet of things are:

Barcelona- Smart Cities: Today the Spanish City is the most popular smart city in the world after it implements several IoT initiatives that have been used as a helping hand for the enhancement of the environment and smart parking.

Amazon Echo and Google Home- Smart Home: AI voice assistants like Google Home and Amazon Echo are some of the rising connected devices in consumer IoT. Now users can talk to a voice assistant like Alexa as a helping hand for several functions such as providing a weather report, playing games, getting sports scores even though you can order an Uber through this voice assistant and many others functions.

Devices

Reading about the Internet of things you may get interested to know about IoT devices as well so you can read about them under the heading of devices. An introduction to the internet of things devices is that these devices are used as a support for the expansion of internet connection beyond the defined standards of electronic devices such as smartphones, laptops, and computers. Today IoT devices have surpassed the number of humans on this planet.

Approximately there are around 7.62 billion humans on the planet and you will be surprised to know that by 2022 the graph of these devices has shown a sharp increase. There are 20 billion IoT devices and they are working with an increase in the demand of 5g networks.

A question may come to your mind: how does IoT work and what makes them smart devices? The answer to this question is addressed based on two things that are responsible for transferring a normal device into IoT smart devices. These two things are:

  • The devices which can connect to the internet in any way are smart devices.
  • The device can integrate with technology like functional software, sensors, and some inbuilt technology that supports network connections.

When both these functionalities are combined you will get a smart device. The market for IoT devices is expanding at a great rate with increased popularity and the number of users that use them.

Apart from this information, you should look at examples of smartphone devices. The several top devices in the market include smartwatches, smart door locks, fitness tracks, medical sensors, and many others.

How about their advantages as well? These IoT devices encourage the interaction between the devices which is called as a machine to machine interaction. These devices possess a strong monitoring feature with good automation and control. They help to save time by reducing manual tasks and time.

Security

At the same time when billions of IoT devices, services, and applications are in use and greater numbers are coming online, the security of the Internet of things is of utmost importance. The IoT devices that are poorly secured can serve as an entry point for compromising sensitive data, spamming, threatening the safety of individuals, and cybercrime.

These risks and rewards are carefully considered by governments and different global organizations however due to the Internet’s global impact and reach addressing its security is a critical thing. IoT security is defined as the technology which is designed with a focus on safeguarding connected devices and networks. For this purpose, the Canadian Multistakeholder Process: Enhancing IoT Security initiative was introduced.

One of the security systems that is used as security for the internet of things is the embedded security system. It is a strategic approach for the protection of software running on the embedded system for protection from attack but this security system has some drawbacks as well. The embedded security system is costlier than traditional software vulnerabilities even if it is more dangerous.

In Healthcare

The internet of things has great importance in every field except for the internet. Even in healthcare it can create disruptive innovation and it was also proved during the COVID-19 pandemic, a sudden need was recorded for studying different applications of IoT-enabled health care.

For a better result, a comprehensive study requires research directions. It means that for research papers on IoT in healthcare and the COVID-19 pandemic nothing beneficial would have been achieved without a brief study of directions.

It may be an interesting point for you this pandemic was studied for the identification of technological capabilities as the literature-based study will guide the professionals in predicting solutions to the problems relating to and fighting against this type of pandemic.

The significant achievement of IoT is known by all and it identified seven major technologies of IoT that seemed helpful for healthcare during this pandemic, at last, the studies gave us sixteen basic IoT applications for the medical field, especially during the pandemic of COVID19.

Crypto

The Internet of things has found its way into Cryptocurrency as well. Cryptocurrency is a decentralized and encrypted form of digital currency and among different cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin is the most like them; it also operates on blockchain technology.

Centralized banking and government have minimum control over cryptocurrency which means that you can crypto in a different way as compared to how you use traditional currency and its most common use is to perform IOT transactions.

If you are running a company, then you can take the advantage of blockchain technology for the security of how your IoT handles data. The internet of things involves the continuous back and forth sending of data from various devices but its centralized system is not much secure. But it is not the problem with cryptocurrency as blockchain technology is secure and decentralized making the transferring of data safer and more efficient.

Read also: Infrastructure Meaning; What is Microsoft Azure; What is software as a service?; Differences between Chromebook and Laptop

External resource: Wikipedia; MedicalIOMT

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