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FEATURE: IOT
Reinhardt van Rooyen,
Innovation Strategist
at Jasco, says that the
Internet of Things (IoT)
should make things simpler.
F
or the past couple of years, we’ve
been hearing about the wondrous
possibilities of the Internet of
Things (IoT), vast networks of
sensors and connected devices that stream
information to us and help us to better
control the world around us.
As we read about billions of connected
devices, the raw volume of sensory data
created by these devices and endless new
services, it can sometimes feel like the IoT
will make everything more complex. At times,
it seems like ‘information overload’.
But the real promise of IoT is that it should
make things simpler.
Think of everyday consumer IoT devices
such as a connected, smart thermostat that
starts to ‘learn’ the temperature that a
household prefers, depending on the time of
the day, the season in the year and perhaps
the individuals who happen to be at home.
Ultimately, the thermostat would hardly
need a manual control at all. However, tiny
this task may be, the need to control the
temperature could soon be entirely removed
from our daily lives.
Another household example could be smart
metering systems with connected appliances;
washing machines and dishwashers that
switch on automatically during the night-time
to take advantage of lower energy tariffs, or
geysers that go on and off at the appropriate
points in the day, all without any interaction
on our part. Imagine these scenarios played
out thousands of times over.
In business, IoT has transformative potential,
from soil sensors that detect the exact
moisture, ambient temperature, light and
soil nutrition to industrial applications that
analyse the wear and tear on machinery and
automatically request a service and order
the exact replacement parts just before they
are required.
As businesses and as individuals, IoT
promises to take away many of the
mundane tasks that can consume so much
of our time.
Security and privacy concerns
As with any new technology frontier,
however, the advantages and opportunities
come at some cost. Perhaps the most
obvious concern is that billions of new
threat surfaces are potentially exposed,
as every device on the network represents
another potential vulnerability point.
Bearing in mind that every IoT device is
essentially a mini-computer.
In this new realm of cyberthreats, criminals
can weaponise millions of IoT devices and
create zombie armies that haul servers
down with sustained Distributed Denial
How IoT enables
frictionless,
automatic services
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