Source: Mobile Analytics/Big Data by Joel Comm. Creative Commons
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The Internet of Things is an emerging technological concept of
sociotechnical and economic significance. Applications of IoT is a
fast-growing segment of business communities worldwide, empowering
industries globally by transforming their operation and giving them
faster and more efficient ways of doing business. Consumer products,
medical devices, pharmaceutical products, agrifood products, durable
goods, cars and trucks, industrial and utility components, sensors, and
other everyday objects are being linked with Internet connectivity and
powerful data analytic capabilities that promise to transform the way we
work, live, and play (Rose et al., 2015). In addition to
interconnectivity and interoperability, the quantum of Internet of
things is also very significant. Joel Comm (2017) has predicted how
quantum entanglement will impact how everyday business is conducted.
Figure 3 is an illustration of the quantum IoT. The Quantum Internet of
Things enables new ways of monitoring and managing all the “moving
parts” that make up a business.
In their report “Unlocking the Potential of the Internet of Things”,
the McKinsey Global Institute describes the broad range of potential
applications regarding “settings” where IoT is expected to create
value for industry and users (Manyika et al., 2015). “Some of the most
promising uses are in health care, infrastructure, and public-sector
services—helping society tackle some of its greatest challenges”
(Manyika et al., 2013, p. 51). The Internet of Things is still in early
stages of adoption, but it already has a wide variety of uses, and the
portfolio of applications is expanding daily.
Indeed, in a world suffused with smart devices, it is not only our homes
and workplaces that are changing but our way of life as figure 2 aptly
depicts. However, smart objects are only the first step of an
evolutionary process of IoT. There is a generational evolution from
objects with a certain degree of smartness to objects with an actual
social consciousness (Atzori, Iera, & Morabito, 2014). In analogy with
the human evolution from homo sapiens to homo agens used
in economic and sociological constructs, Atzori et al. (2014) used a
similar evolutionary path from a res sapiens (smart object) to
what they called res agens (an acting object), “which is able to
translate the awareness of causal relationships — the basis of
knowledge of change and evolution of its environment — into actions”
(Atzori et al., 2014, p. 98).
Figure 3. Main features of the identified three categories of IoT
objects