I have heard of many acronyms being in the technology industry for a long time, but there are some that really are strange. Here are some of my favorites:

– POTS: Plain old Telephone System
– JBOD: Just a Bunch of Disks
– WYSIWYG: What You See Is What You Get
– VFAT: Virtual File Allocation Table

IoT
It wasn’t until recently, the past year, that I came across another one; IoT (Internet of Things). “What the heck is that supposed to be?”, was what I said to myself, not knowing how relevant IoT was and is becoming. In fact, IoT is one of the fastest growing sectors in technology today. Fueling the exponential growth of data.

So what exactly is IoT? IoT is defined as, “A group or a network of physical objects, devices, vehicles, buildings embedded with electronics, software, sensors and connectivity in which data is exchanged and collected”. IoT is a pretty broad term, but it is a necessary category because we have moved beyond the typical desktop and laptop for computing. We have unhooked ourselves from our desks with WiFi/Bluetooth and have gone mobile with cellular broad band, thus giving birth to the mobile workforce.

The GoPro
The ability to make devices smaller and with the flexibility of communicating wirelessly, new devices were produced to be installed and embedded to go to places where computers were never able to go in the past. GoPro cameras, helped pioneer the IoT category. Mounted on the heads of extreme athletes we are able to get an HD, “First Person’s” POV of jet propelled, winged men flying through holes in rock formations. To see the POV of an Olympic skier in high-speed, downhill slalom runs. We are able to see, analyze and document the natural, the candid, the “real-time” events as they happen.

The SmartPhone
The iPhone or Android device in your hand is a massive producer of IoT data. These devices have location transceivers, gyroscopes and sensors embedded into them. Apps like Waze and Swarm collect data from us in different ways and for different purposes. Waze uses location services and “crowdsourcing” as a way to bring valuable information to us like real-time traffic jams to best route us to our destination. To locate and validate locations of police and road hazards. The Swarm App lets us “check-in” to different restaurants and establishments to interactively increase the experience for the consumer. We can offer advice, reviews or read reviews instantaneously. For example, I walked down a busy street and stop in front of a restaurant to read the menu, Swarm detected my stop and sent me reviews and special offers for the restaurant! I know IoT brings up some privacy concerns and I am concerned as well, but we cannot stop progress. I admit, that I do enjoy all the benefits of this, but I was creeped out at first because I felt like my smartphone was a little too smart for me.

The Raspberry Pi
IoT goes beyond our smartphones and GoPros. I just picked up a bunch of Raspberry Pi’s. If you are not familiar with them, they are actually quite amazing. What started out as a DiY science project kit, sort of like an updated version of the “Radio Shack Ham radio transistor kits of the 1960s, the Raspberry Pi’s are palm-sized, full functioning computers. They include a 1/8” headphone jack, HDMI port, 4xUSB ports, SD card slot and power puts IoT into the hands of enthusiasts and techies like myself. With the Open Source community and YouTube, new projects are posted virtually everyday. Things like robotic toys, home alarm systems, MAME arcade machines (old-school arcade games through emulation), video streaming boxes and many more brings new meaning to DiY projects.

How much is too much?
Finally, the IoT from an embedded standpoint is the most exciting, but also the most frightening. Gone are the days of being able to buy a rear-wheel drive, stick-shift car without traction control, push-button start and solenoid controls. Cars that are operated by pulleys and cables are becoming a thing of the past. The term “Drive-By-Wire” is basically a modern car that has virtually removed the driver from the road. Abstracting the real world with computerized controls sensing in “real-time” the driving experience. Braking and acceleration pedals have been replaced with switches and solenoids. Levers and pulleys for A/C and heat is replaced with computerized “climate controls”. Anti-lock brakes, traction control, active steering and economy mode pacifies the auto-enthusiast. And although these things are luxurious and “cool”, it also increases the failure rate by adding complexity. I own a 2013 import and it started shifting erratically a few months ago. I had the car towed to the dealer and found out that the computer sensor that controls the transmission had malfunctioned. While I was in the tow truck with the driver, I asked him if he saw an increase of these types of problems. He said, “Yes, most of his tows are BMW’s, Mercedes, Maserati’s and other highly teched-out vehicles”

Squeezing Water from a Rock
IoT is everywhere and is going to be even more prevalent in the next few years. From improving the way we perform through the collection and analysis of the data to enhancing our entertainment of virtual reality and functionality. The possibilities are endless, but only if we can analyze all of this data. Which brings me to the storage of all this data. We definitely have the compute power and the RAM power, but how about storage? We definitely have the storage capacity in rotating disk, but with 3D NAND and/or TLC SSD drive developments, capacities upwards of 10TB per drive is in the reach of consumers later 2016. High capacity SSDs enables IoT to produce amazing advancements across industries and even new industries will come from IoT.