Here is an interesting article on the emerging "Internet of Things" found on our sister website, Electronics360 - Roger

MWC: Riding the High-Speed Train Called the Internet of Things

Call it the Internet of Things, the Internet of Everything, or the Internet of People, as it was dubbed last week at the Mobile World Congress. By any name, it leads you to the same place: A hyper-connected world.

What was crystal clear from this year's four-day mobile fête is that increased technology-powered mobility and always-on connectivity has already brought step changes to human behavior, and that machine-to-machine (M2M) communication is on an equal growth trajectory, but moving away from being dependent solely on the cellular network.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is everywhere-the connected life is becoming the norm on a city level, in office buildings, on the roads, in homes, and on a person's body. IoT once was a theoretical concept for increasing systems automation by assigning computer data representing the location and status of objects in the physical world. Now, it's evolved to providing real-time monitoring and interaction of people, things and machines, noted Bill Morelli, associate director of M2M and IoT at IHS.

On the ground at MWC, the migration to the broader category of IoT is becoming increasingly evident, too, said Sam Lucero senior principal analyst of M2M and IoT at IHS. While some companies may be reacting to the IoT's growing popularity and marketing hype, there is a "real recognition of the need for a multiplicity of connectivity technologies, and the need to provide access to data flows to third-party applications," Lucero said. He also noted that IoT now represents a much larger scale of devices and functionality (big data analytics, for example), relative to cellular M2M.

A few technical drivers have helped move IoT along like a high-speed train, namely, the transition to new Internet protocols, LTE network upgrades and processor advances, Morelli said.

But, there's also chicken and egg game in play that can't be ignored. More technology has arrived in the world, and more people globally are using an increasing number of devices to manage various aspects of their lives; as people become comfortable using (mostly mobile) devices, apps and services, the more....Article Continued Here