Preface: IoT and Quality of Life

I Dream of IoT: Connecting Virtual and Physical World

IoT and quality of life

Imagine how the Internet of Things (IoT) can improve our quality of life. Suppose somebody has broken into your house. The intelligent house’s intruder sensors detect the presence of an unauthorized person, as opposed to a domestic cat, while you are away enjoying your holidays. It automatically alerts your housing area residential security guards and the nearest police with available on-duty personnel. It also activates dozens of extra surveillance security cameras inside/outside of the house and the residential area equipped with advanced iris/face and plate number recognition that are connected to the national criminal database. Soon afterwards it promptly sends you (the owner) a comprehensive report that includes the visual data together with the details of the incident. A customized version of the report is sent to your local police station and another version to your home insurance company responsible for your burglary policy. This imaginary intelligent home situational response system certainly helps provide peace of mind to the home owner, reducing the paperwork after the incident and ultimately enhancing the quality of life.

IoT definition

The Internet of Things, or IoT, is a globally (or universally) interconnected collection of devices, systems and services that are being coordinated either manually or automatically to operate and orchestrate useful functions for the improvement of quality of life.^[1]

Quality of life in the interconnected community of a smart city

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has stated that the goal for the SmartAmerica Challenge, hosted by the White House, is to “[a]ccelerate the emergence of interoperable, adaptable, configurable Internet of Things (‘IoT’) technologies and solutions in Smart Communities/Cities to improve efficiency and security, create new business opportunities, promote affordable and sustainable living environments, and enhance the quality of life.”^[2][3] The challenges includes home/building, climate/environment, disaster recovery, manufacturing, transportation, healthcare, security and energy.^[4]

IoT and the empowerment of society through synergistic information collaboration

According to Juniper Research, currently more than 90 percent of “things” are not yet connected to the Internet.^[5] This provides massive opportunity for global connectivity by utilizing Internet next generation IPv6 addressing. Globally connected “things” can help enable automation, machine-to-machine (M2M) communication and data analysis at an unprecedented scale. The pervasive nature of the web services accessible through readily available browsers and web clients provides a simple interface that can be used to semi-autonomously control and interact with the connected “things.” The apparent benefit is a collective intelligence that is beyond the capability of each non-connected “thing.” This may be similar to the billions of neurons inside our brain that can achieve very little on their own, but once connected with each other, the human sensory/actuatory systems are able to perform everyday miracles that we often take for granted. The IoT will also be riding on the capability of cloud computing and big data for relevant information processing, analysis, and intelligence.

Conclusions

The benefits to society of having properly functional IoT is immense. Scientists, engineers, technologists, sociologists, businessmen, policy makers, economists, artists, and society as a whole should play their parts, thus the IoT can help improve our quality of life but not the opposite. It is the hope that this brief guide can shed light on the opportunities opened up by IoT. It is our responsibility to ensure our dream of IoT doesn’t become our worst nightmare by devising dependable security features as a safety net.

References

Chapter 1 : IoT and Automation

Introduction

The Internet of Things is a very popular phenomena nowadays. Can you imagine how the world will be in the next five to 10 years with the development of this internet technology? It will become increasingly difficult for a human to control all the things by only using manual energy. It will be difficult to control and interface everything to improve systems and reduce waste. Additionally, the number of things connected to the internet exceeded the number of people on Earth, and that is still less than one percent of all the physical things in the world today. Of course, the cost of technology development will also increase. However, IoT and automation have the potential to overcome all these problems.^[1]

For example, in the scope of business, mobile technologies and the Internet of Things will improve the interconnections in a company’s systems. Internet of Things will help the employees work more efficiently, improve operations and increase customer satisfaction. In many cases, a business or consumer will also be able to remotely control a device. For example, a business can remotely turn on or shut down a specific piece of equipment or adjust the temperature in a climate-controlled environment.

Meanwhile, in the everyday world, IoT and automation will improve human safety. For example, people may leave their home for a long time but forget to lock the door. With IoT automation, people can control the systems of their home with their mobile devices. Another example: when people go to the supermarket to buy groceries. With the information from their mobile device, people will be able to track and count everything while greatly reducing the total time and cost. And as computers and sensors with wireless capability become cheaper, it will become more affordable and practical to connect more things to the internet.^[2][3]

What is IoT and automation?

Small changes can make a big impact. It starts by building on the infrastructure that people already have in place, using devices and services in new ways. Reduce machine downtime and improve efficiency with predictive maintenance. Gain better control over global operations through real-time remote monitoring of geographically dispersed assets. Delight people with smart, connected products and drive revenue growth by offering value-added services on products. In some cases it can be defined in a way similar to machine-to-machine (M2M) communication, while in others it’s better defined as business intelligence. The Internet of Things and automation is essentially described, however, as having everything imaginable connected to a network so that information from all these connected “things” can be stored, transferred, analyzed and acted upon in new and usually automated ways. For example, if you have a system that’s supposed to run in a range from X to Y, you can put in a temperature sensor connected to a fiber-optic network to create an actionable warning before the system operates out of spec.^[4]

Possible implementations of IoT and automation

These days, embedding a sensor to an object, giving it the ability to communicate, is becoming more popular among many industries. Growth in building automation systems brings Internet of Thing into the realm of facilities management. Systems that control such building functions as heating, ventilation and air conditioning, security, refrigeration and lighting have historically operated as standalone entities. For the most part these functions have occupied a propriety niche, separated from mainstream IT systems and standards. Yet there are many industries — such as the automobile industry — that implement automation as a component of their manufacturing efforts.

Automatically piloted vehicles are increasingly popular. This concept is easier to envision when we think of such a vehicle as a mobile living area in which the driver isn’t expected to just sit and watch the road go by. The future of the automobile will be centered on a new type of user who is no longer an in-control driver but the occupant of a space that can be configured to fulfill different needs. In the future, the vehicle will contain a unique identifying SIM/MIM card just like the one in mobile devices. This will give vehicles the capacity to gather information and share the data they collect with other vehicles and their owners. Vehicles would be able to communicate with each other, for example. We can presume that the self-driving vehicle will always be online and communicate real-time information about traffic, weather and road conditions. Instead of having drivers report traffic conditions to radio stations or police, who in turn communicate it to other drivers, vehicles will simply communicate with each other and with road infrastructure systems. Having vehicles connected to the internet also means that they can be linked to social network services where non-driving-related information can be shared.^[5]

The processes of IoT and automation

The process of automation in the IoT includes communication between devices and the ability to organize and integrate tools, people and processes through workflows.^[6]

Whether it’s manufacturing or the home, the automation process occurs as a person changing the existing state of a device, appliance, system or electronic component using an internal or external stimulus or via a triggered event as the result of the progression of time. In order to achieve this state of automation, a control message must be sent to the device to be acted upon. All modern building automation systems have alarm capabilities to detect a potentially dangerous situation and send out an alert through a computer or other communication device via email or instant message.

From which switch to use, what system to control, and which direction to turn the target device, some of the automation process involves nonhuman intervention, which mirrors the steps a person would take except that the system can manage what to do. In other cases, the automated system can make those same actions but only based on prior human input, including setting up specifications in advance for consistent automated operation. As home automation systems integrate various electrical devices within the home with each other, devices may be connected through a home network to allow control by access from the internet. Hence, systems and appliances are able to communicate with one another in an integrated manner which results in convenience, energy efficiency and improved safety.

More precisely, in the case of IoT, each of the steps a person would take to control something can be automated. What a person would do, the automation platform will do instead. In this step of automation, a person will receive an event trigger, decide the action, and deliver a control message based on a database of instructions. The person will use a networked device to send out the control message, receive feedback and adjust if necessary. In other words, the person simply control through instructions, and the action will be taken by the automated platform.^[7]

The software and hardware of IoT and automation

Generally speaking, there is no particular hardware/software platform the Internet of Things is built upon. The concept of IoT would be better understood as a platform-independent abstraction. Currently many different kinds of devices with different properties and different field of applications are marketed as applicable to IoT, from the small, simple and easy-to-use Microduino to the high-performance, highly professional IBM devices which support up to 13 million messages per second. For this article I will focus on the most commonly used hardware and software platforms.

Arduino

The Arduino platform is probably the most famous and most easy-to-use. It mainly consists of hardware referred to as an Arduino board and suitable software based on the processing language. Its biggest advantage is the convenient way to program it. There are hundreds of different libraries available, for probably every electrical device it can feasibly be connected with. So instead of thinking about the HD44780 protocol for connecting displays with all of its timing frames and control codes, one can simply use a ready-to-go library and print messages with one simple line of code like “lcd.print(“hello, world!”);”

Software

The software used to program the Arduino is basically a simplified version of C. The language, called Processing, was primarily developed for the programming of visually artistic kinds of things. Although Processing still exists, the “glory” of the Arduino has no peer. Every “sketch” (the name of source code in the Arduino world) consists of two parts. The first part is for setting up the project processes, things like which pin is connected to which device or how some library-related configurations are set up. This must be in the void setup() { … } block. In the second part, the so called “loop” block void loop() { … }, the forever looping part of the code comes in. This can be compared to the main function in C. An example code for setting up a LCD character display looks like this^[8]:

/*
  This example code is in the public domain.

 http://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/LiquidCrystal

 */

// include the library code:
#include <LiquidCrystal.h>

// initialize the library with the numbers of the interface pins
LiquidCrystal lcd(12, 11, 5, 4, 3, 2);

void setup() {
  // set up the LCD's number of columns and rows: 
  lcd.begin(16, 2);
  // Print a message to the LCD.
  lcd.print("hello, world!");
}

void loop() {
  // set the cursor to column 0, line 1
  // (note: line 1 is the second row, since counting begins with 0):
  lcd.setCursor(0, 1);
  // print the number of seconds since reset:
  lcd.print(millis()/1000);
}

Hardware

On the Hardware side, the Arduino is also quite simple. It mainly consists of an AVR microcontroller and a circuit for programming it. It would be beyond the scope of this guide to explain every particular aspect of the circuit; however, from our point of view as networking engineers, the way Arduino handles sensing devices is interesting. A sensor can either be connected directly with wires on the pins it needs, or one can purchase so called Arduino shields which have the whole circuit for operating the sensor inside. These shields are convenient to use and are simply attached on top of the Arduino board. Apart from that, the form factor of the Ardunio is also more than suitable for IoT applications. Arduinos feature lots of different shapes and forms, and the whole platform is open-source from head to toe. Examples include the tiny NanoDuino or a flexible LilyPad for wearables. The possibilities are endless.

The industrial applications of IoT and automation

In many ways, having intelligent devices can be seen as the role of programmable logic controllers and distributed control systems. More devices will be connected and more machine components will be monitored. Today we are already using mainstream interfaces, including tablets and smartphones, to communicate with control systems. They can control building functions such as security, lighting and air conditioning. However, there is reluctance to add devices to a control system unless they are genuinely needed for such control due to cost factors. The hope of IoT is to remove some of those barriers and make any information available to authorized individuals anywhere and anytime.^[9]

Industrial processes will create more data than any other source. The enabling of devices for generating and transmitting data will be more prominent than ever, whether it’s via local devices or those in a remote or nearly inaccessible location. These processes will be connected and networked allowing for data sharing, cost lowering and process optimization, making for better and faster decision making in real time. Automation networks will use data to self-configure, self-regulate and provide their own efficiency improvements. Many decisions will be made by the machine itself, focusing on improving the efficiency of the system and addressing things like energy usage, security and the tuning process.

Conclusion

IoT and automation stand to connect many devices, tools, and machines to the internet so that all the resulting information can be counted, stored, transferred and analyzed automatically via network connections. IoT and automation is beneficial and advantageous. It not only can reduce human intervention; it can also facilitate work more readily. Additionally, IoT and automation can be utilized across many spectrum, including business, learning, human safety, facility management and so on. It will not only increase operational efficiency, improve productivity and lower costs, but IoT will likely lead to the average human living a higher standard of life.^[9]

References

Authors

Authors and editors: Saadah, Rahimah; Aishah, Saiful Adli; Furkan, Nadia

Chapter 2 : IoT and IPv6

Introduction

Nowadays, large numbers of devices have shown up on the internet, ranging from computers, phones, smart cars, wearables etc. In order for the devices to communicate with each other, each requires a unique series of numbers known as an IP address e.g. XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX, with each “XXX” ranging from 000 to 255. If you look around your surroundings, how many devices are already connected to the internet? Imagine if everyone on the planet had at least one device that connected to the internet: there would be more than 7.2 billion devices on the internet. But if the current internet protocol, IPv4, uses a 32-bit system and is only able to allocate about 4.29 billion addresses, what do we do about the rest?

The newest internet protocol IPv6 uses a 128-bit system, which means 3.40 x 10³⁸ (or, 340,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) addresses can be generated, an enormous number able to accommodate Gartner’s prediction of 26 billion devices online by the year 2020.^[1] In other words, this should be sufficient for the needs of the current and future world, where everything around us will be connected together. The move from IPv4 to IPv6 will significantly affect the future of the Internet of Things (IoT).

Addressing

As previously stated, IPv6 will play an important role in the IoT. IPv6 is 128-bit for IP addresses which means that we will have 2^128 addresses available. This type of address is represented equally in eight groups. Each group is 16 bits in size and represented by four hexadecimal digits. Unlike IPv4, which uses the dot (.) to separate each group, IPv6’s different group are separated by colons (:).^[2] This larger capacity of addresses enables IoT to be realized as it should be quite sufficient to address the needs of any present and future communicating devices and services. Use of IPv6 addresses to large-scale deployment of sensors in smart buildings and smart cities had already been demonstrated successfully through experimentation.^[3]

IoT requires unique addresses. IPv6 address architecture splits unicast addresses into two: link-local addresses and global addresses. Link-local addresses are not guaranteed to be unique over larger networks, but global addresses are expected to be globally unique. A node (device or service) needs a unique global IP address to communicate over the internet. IPv6 can use Unique Local Addresses (ULA) in local networks larger than a single link, allowing unique addresses and preventing address collision. This means a local network can be routed to expand over multiple links and even multiple networks. Globally Unique Addresses (GUA) are guaranteed unique addresses around the world. Administration is performed by the Internet Assigned Number Authority (IANA).^[4]

IPv6 provides a stateless mechanism by Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol version 6 (DHCPv6) to self-configurate an IP address. The nodes (devices and services) can define their own addresses and enable reduction of IoT configuration effort and deployment cost.^[3]Additionally, IPv6 hosts will always configure addresses from the point of network attachment. Its additional hosts may have addresses configured from remote anchor points. These addresses belong topologically to locations other than the hosts’ direct points of network attachment, and this enables IPv6 to provide strong features and solutions to support mobility of end-nodes, as well as mobility of the routing nodes of the network.^[4][3]

Routing

The purpose of routing is to choose the best network route among several available routes or paths to the destination. Routing concepts remain the same in IPv6, but there are some routing protocols which have been redefined accordingly. In Iot, everything is connected and needs high-speed routing to maintain a stable connection. A good routing protocol enables the router to calculate the route to the destination in a short period of time. Thus, the routing protocol has been upgraded to support IPv6.

The routing protocols used in IPv6 are Routing Information Protocol Next Generation (RIPng), Open Shortest Path First version 3 (OSPFv3) and Border Gateway Protocol version 4 (BGPv4). RIPng is both an interior routing protocol and a distance-vector protocol. RIPng has been upgraded to support IPv6 networking. It uses Internet Protocol Security for authentication and requires specific encoding of the next hop for a set of route entries.^[5]

OSPFv3 is an interior gateway routing protocol, which is widely used in the IPV6 environment. It is the realization of OSPFv2 for IPV4 in the IPV6 environment, though it runs on essentially the same basic principles. It is a link-state protocol and uses Djikstra’s Shortest Path First algorithm to calculate best path to all destinations. This version of OSPF uses IPv6 link-local addresses and has new Link-State Advertisement (LSA) which carries IPv6 addresses and prefixes.

BGP is the only open standard exterior gateway protocol available. BGP is a distance-vector protocol which routes autonomous systems. BGPv4 is an upgrade of BGP to support IPv6 routing. This is useful when modeling an existing network that spans autonomous systems or a very large one that to needs to be partitioned based on administrative control. Activating and configuring BGPv4 can provide a more accurate picture of expected network operation. ^[6]

There are changes made in protocols in order to support IPv6. For example, Internet Control Message Protocol version 6 (ICMPv6) is an upgraded implementation of ICMP to accommodate IPv6 requirements. This protocol is used for diagnostic functions, error and information messaging, and statistical purposes. ICMPv6’s Neighbor Discovery Protocol replaces Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) and helps discover neighbor and routers on the link. ICMPv6 messages are split into two: error messages and information messages. They are transported by IPv6 packets.

Besides ICMPv6, Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol version 6 (DHCPv6) is also an upgraded implementation of DHCP to support IPv6. IPv6-enabled hosts do not require any DHCPv6 server to acquire an IP address as they can be auto-configured. Neither do they need DHCPv6 to locate the Domain Name System (DNS) server because DNS can be discovered and configured via ICMPv6 Neighbor Discovery Protocol. Yet a DHCPv6 server can be used to provide the information.

There has been no new version of DNS, but it is now equipped with extensions to provide support for querying IPv6 addresses. A new AAAA (quad-A) record has been added to reply to IPv6 query messages. Now the DNS can reply with both IP versions (4 and 6) without any change in the query form.

Security issues of IPv6 in Internet of Things

Internet of Things (IoT) was introduced way back in 1999 by Kevin Ashton, co-founder and director of the MIT Auto-ID Center. Back then, the world population was only about six billion. However, world population has steadily grown since, nearing eight billion as of 2016. Thus, IPv6 was born.

IPv6 and the IoT go hand in hand today. While most of the communication made today is human-machine interaction, the IoT promises that communication will be human-machine as well as machine-to-machine. We can monitor, control, learn, and get connected with the outside world with only one internet-connected device, nowadays often in the form of a smartphone.

The smartphone is a revolutionary invention, completely changing the way we communicate with others. Together with IoT, the technological future looks bright. However, like any technology, it requires special considerations, including reducing the level of complications and ensuring security. There is one method which many have been using to make prevent the exhausting number of unique physical addresses that has in the past occurred with IPv4 while also improving IPv6 security: the Network Address Translation (NAT).^[7]

NAT allows several devices or hosts to be connected to the internet with only one single address being used. NAT also has a security component even though NAT was initially not designed for security issues. Since all the computers or devices are only known as a single IP address from the WAN, the router would only send the data packets to the hosts that initially sent packets the the source beforehand. Therefore, NAT actually functions as a firewall in addition to helping in the conservation of IP addresses.^[7]

However, since IPv6 is still consider a new network protocol by many network administrators and IT personnel, it has historically had less support for security-related products on the market. Additionally, though there are people changing to the IPv6 routing protocol, the vast majority remain on IPv4. Hence, in order for the IPv4 network to route the packets sent from an IPv6 network, we have to employ a protocol known as tunneling. Tunneling comes with its own share of problems, however: the routing system is more vulnerable to denial-of-service (DoS) attacks, which cause network resources to become invalid. Last but not least, as the IoT would use IPv6 to connect every device to the internet, privacy would be one of the most controversial problems. Confidential data such as photos, business agreements, loans and so on would always be at risk of exploitation.^[8][9] This is because every device is exposed to the internet with its own unique IP address, making it not protected by masking.

In conclusion, there is still a long way to go before IPv6 can be implemented in the world’s network because of its questionable security profile. Among the plans to be developed for the implementation of IPv6 for IoT in the future include the training of network and security staff in IPv6 protocols and building more IPv6 expertise^[7] by conducting more research in organizational network laboratories.

Implementation & Deployment

With a large majority of the internet still using IPv4^[10], transition to IPv6 cannot be done overnight. Transition requires time and needs to be done in steps. The ultimate goal is to retire IPv4 completely, which will put an end to the problem of exhausting IP addresses. There are many transition mechanisms being implemented to, slowly but surely, fully implement IPv6, but only a few of the major ones will be covered here.^[11]

Since IPv4 is so prevalent, transitioning to IPv6 without negatively affecting the current network requires devices that can run both versions of the protocol. That is where the idea of the first transition mechanism, dual stack, comes from. Devices will have connectivity to both IPv4 and IPv6 networks. Hence, the device has two (dual) protocol stacks. The device will choose which protocol to use based on the destination address while prioritizing IPv6 when available. This will ensure that the current IPv4 network will still be able to be used without a problem while taking steps towards a fully operational IPv6 network for the future. It is clear that we will need IPv6 to develop the IoT due to the sheer number of unique addresses available, but with the majority of established devices running on IPv4, the dual stacked devices will be the backbone of the current IoT as IPv6 gets integrated more and more into the network.

However, there are some issues with dual stack. This is due to the nature of some of the old devices which support only IPv4. This is where the next transition mechanism, tunneling, comes in. Tunneling basically uses IPv4 to carry the IPv6 packets. This is done by encapsulating the IPv6 packets within IPv4 so that the aforementioned devices can handle these packets. The packet will be able to travel in an IPv4 network until it reaches a dual stacked device which will detect the IPv6 packet encapsulated. The device will then be able to decapsulate the packet and send it travelling on an IPv6 network accordingly. IoT demands that every device be connected to the network. Currently, a mixture of devices that run on IPv4, IPv6 or both make up the IoT. Since transition to a full IPv6 network is the goal, the newer IPv6 devices must be able to connect to each other through the already established IPv4 network, which is what tunnelling was created to achieve.

While most equipment will be upgraded to IPv6, some legacy equipment will not. To complicate matters, there will also be new equipment that will only be able to run IPv6. For an IPv6-only device to be able to connect with IPv4-only equipment, proxying as well as translation must be used to deal with these connections. These are just a few of the methods used to slowly integrate IPv6 to the internet. It would be favorable to have all devices running on the same protocol, but alas, this cannot be done as there are still many old but very important devices running on IPv4. By ensuring that these devices will continue to be supported, a true IoT will be able to be created and experienced by all.

While there are methods being implemented to promote the growth of IPv6 networks, it is currently at a very slow pace. It was so slow, in fact, that Matthew Prince, the CEO of Cloudflare, a company dealing in the internet industry, stated in 2013 that it will take until May 10 of the year 2148 before IPv4 can be retired.^[12] A study by Google shows that the adoption of IPv6 of its users is between 11 and 12 percent as of May 2016.^[10] There are promising signs though that adoption is increasing.

Conclusion

As of May 2016, IPv6 users worldwide surpassed 11% for the first time since its launch on June 6, 2012.^[10] For Internet of Things to have its true potential, it needs IPv6, the internet protocol of the future, because without IPv6, there will not be enough IP addresses for the billions more devices set to be connected to the internet. Although Network Address Translation (NAT) is being used in the existing IPv4 infrastructure to slow down the looming IPv4 address shortage, for improved scalability, strong security enablers, and sustainability, the adoption of IPv6 will be the key to the future.

References

Chapter 3 : IoT and Web Services

Introduction to web services

Web services are distributed application components that are extremely available. We can use them to integrate computer applications that are written in different languages and run on different platforms. Web services such as HTTP are language- and platform-independent because vendors have agreed on common web service standards. HTTP web services exchange data with remote servers using nothing but the operations of HTTP. If you want to get data from a server, use HTTP GET, send new data to the server, and use HTTP POST and some other functions. That’s it: no registries, no envelopes, no wrappers, and no tunneling. The “verbs” built into the HTTP protocol are mapped directly to application-level operations for retrieving, creating data etc.

How to access web services

SOAP stands for Simple Object Access Protocol, a standards-based web services access protocol. SOAP offers long-term benefits and has been around for a while. Developed by Microsoft, SOAP uses XML to provide messaging services, though making requests and receiving responses in SOAP can become extremely complex. Like other programming languages, the XML of SOAP is intolerant of errors. However, one of the most important features of SOAP is its built-in error handling; if there’s a problem with the request, a response with information about the error is sent.^[1]

REST stands for Representational State Transfer which contains a set of stateless architectural principles. REST can manage web services that focus on a system’s resources as well as how resource states are addressed and transferred over HTTP by a wide range of clients written in different languages. REST acts as light-weight alternative and uses a simple URL in many cases instead of XML for requests. REST permits many different data formats, which by outward appearances adds complexity. However, due to support for JSON, this allows REST to better support browser clients as JSON is usually a better fit for data and parses much faster.^[1][2]

Comparison

SOAP:^[1]

• Is language-, platform-, and transport-independent
• Proves efficient in distributed enterprise environments
• Is standardized
• Provides significant pre-build extensibility in the form of the WS* standards
• Offers built-in error handling
• Allows for automated tasks

REST:^[1][2]

• Uses smaller message formats
• Runs quickly because no extensive processing required
• Looks similar to other web technologies in design philosophy
• Proves low-cost in how it interacts with the web service
• Offers a smaller learning curve

Which one is better for the Internet of Things?

Both SOAP and REST are suitable for the Internet of Things (IoT). REST is better suited for IoT applications involving mobile and embedded devices, while SOAP adheres better to the requirements of business applications. This is because REST represents the most straightforward and simple way of achieving a global network of smart things, while SOAP has strong security requirements.^[3]

HTTP protocols

Existing HTTP/1.1

HTTP/1.1 makes information flow faster by providing a persistent connection that allows multiple requests to be batched or pipelined to an output buffer. When a browser supporting HTTP/1.1 indicates it can decompress HTML files, a server will compress them for transport across the internet, providing a substantial aggregate savings in the amount of data that has to be transmitted. Besides that, HTTP/1.1 also provides the ability to have multiple domain names share the same internet address (IP address). This simplifies processing for web servers that host a number of web sites in a practice that is sometimes called virtual hosting.^[4]

HTTP/2, the next generation

The main advancements to come out of HTTP/2 are:^[5]

1. Multiple streams in single HTTP connection (multiplexing): Streams are similar to data channels. A single established data connection from a client to the server have a multiple streams inside it. This means various streams can exchange data between the server and the client at the same connection unit. Whether by client or server, or shared stream, both parties can exchange data at the same time, and streams can be disconnected or closed either by client or server.
2. Setting priority in a request: Data requested by the client that has extra urgency can be set with a priority flag, which is processed by the receiving end. The stream identifier, which declares priority for the streams, is also set with the help of a 31-bit priority identifier. The value of 0 means a high-priority stream.

HTTP evolution

HTTP/1: Rapid Growth and Informational RFC

A rapid co-evolution of the HTML specification occurred between 1991 and 1995, and the web browser grew as a new breed of software with quick growth for the consumer-oriented public internet infrastructure. A growing list of desired capabilities of the nascent web and their use cases on the public web quickly exposed many of the fundamental limitations of HTTP/0.9. A new protocol was required, one that could serve more than just hypertext documents: it needed to support richer metadata about the request and the response, enable content negotiation and more. In return, the nascent community of web developers responded by producing a large number of experimental HTTP server and client implementations through an ad hoc process, ones that could be implemented, deployed, and potentially adopted by others.^[6]

HTTP/1.1: Internet Standard

The HTTP/1.1 standard resolved a lot of the protocol ambiguities found in earlier versions and introduced a number of critical performance optimizations. The most obvious difference: it allowed for two object requests, one for an HTML page and one for an image, both delivered over a single connection. This connection could be kept alive, allowing for the reuse the existing TCP connection for multiple requests to the same host and delivering a much faster end-user experience. In order to terminate the persistent connection, the second client request could send an explicit close token to the server via the connection header. Similarly, the server could notify the client of the intent to close the current TCP connection once the response was transferred. Technically, either side could terminate the TCP connection without such signal at any point, but clients and servers were to provide it whenever possible to enable better connection reuse strategies on both sides.^[4][6]

HTTP/2: Improving Transport Performance

In order to overcome new challenges, the HTTP protocol has had to evolve. In 2012, the HTTP working group announced work on the the new HTTP/2.0 protocol, with the specification getting published in May 2015. The primary focus of HTTP/2 has been on improving transport performance and enabling both lower latency and higher throughput. It is crucial to remember that none of the high-level protocol semantics are affected, which means all HTTP headers, values and use cases are the same. Any existing website or application can and will be delivered over HTTP/2 without modification. The HTTP servers will have to speak HTTP/2, but that should be a transparent upgrade for the majority of users. If the working group proves to have met their goal, the single difference should be that our applications are delivered with lower latency and better utilization of the network link.^[5][6]

HTML5 for IoT

HTML 4.x overview

HTML 4.x was the first version to include cascading style sheets as part of the HTML standard. To achieve the transition, the W3C provided three versions of HTML 4: transitional, frameset and strict. While it continues to serve as a rough guide to many of the core features of HTML, it does not provide enough information to build implementations that interoperate with each other and, more importantly, with web content. Additionally, HTML 4 extended HTML with mechanisms for style sheets, scripting, frames, and embedded objects, and it improved support for right-to-left and mixed-direction text, rich tables, and forms while also offering improved accessibility for people with disabilities.^[7][8]

HTML5 with WebSocket for IoT

WebSockets provide a new protocol between client and server that runs over a persistent TCP connection. Bi-directional and full-duplex messages can be sent between the single TCP socket connection (simultaneously or back and forth) through a TCP connection. This is because it is an independent TCP-based protocol and doesn’t ideally require HTTP tunneling, allowing for simplified communication when sending messages.^[9]

Is HTML5 with WebSocket more suitable for IoT? It tends to be as WebSockets are better for situations that involve low-latency communication, especially for client-to-server messages. For server-to-client data you can get fairly low latency using long-held connections and chunked transfer. However, this doesn’t help with client-to-server latency, which requires a new connection to be established for each client to server message.^[9]

Semantic web services

Semantic web services, just like other conventional web services, are on the server end of a client–server system for machine-to-machine interaction through the World Wide Web. In a May 2001 issue if Scientific American, Berners-Lee et al. described it as such: “The Semantic Web is an extension of the current web in which information is given well-defined meaning, better enabling computers and people to work in cooperation.”^[10] It is the advance form of the current web, where all the contents have well defined meanings (easy information interpretation) and it enables the automated processing of web contents by machines (machine-accessible). In semantic web services composition, machines can automatically select, integrate and invoke various web services in order to achieve the user-specified task according to the user constraints. The web performs more work than the user because it involves both routine and complex tasks to be performed on the web without user involvement, hence saving time for composing and integrating information. The machine-processable semantics are added to data, and with the help of well-defined semantics, machines can understand the information and process it on behalf of the human user, whereas web services aim at global infrastructure for distributed computation.^[10]

Ontology Web Language (OWL)

OWL is a high-level language (XML-based) used to describe the web services’ properties. It consists of three parts: service profile, process model and grounding. The service profile includes general information and is used to describe what the service will do. The process model describes how the service will perform its functionally, while grounding describes links with industry standards. Its main goal is to enable users to automatically discover, invoke, compose and execute web services under certain conditions.^[11]

Web Service Modeling Ontology (WSMO)

WSMO is used for describing the semantics of web services. It consists of four parts: goals, ontologies, mediators and web services. The goal defines the user’s desires. Ontologies define formal semantics for the terms describing data to achieve interoperability among other WSMO elements. The mediator is used to handle interoperability problems between different WSMO elements, while web services describe the functional behavior, precondition, post condition, control flow etc. of an existing deployed service.^[12]

Conclusion

Web services is one of the key elements of the so-called programmable web. They can be effectively used to participate in and set up business-to-business transaction and are great at exposing software functionally to the user while integrating heterogeneous platforms. Web services are based on open and commonly accepted internet protocols. They are not good in everything but certainly represent a category of software agents that we are all looking for.

References

Chapter 4 : IoT and Cloud Computing

Introduction to cloud computing

The Internet of Things (IoT) involves the internet-connected devices we use to perform the processes and services that support our way of life. Another component set to help IoT succeed is cloud computing, which acts as a sort of front end. Cloud computing is an increasingly popular service that offers several advantages to IOT, and is based on the concept of allowing users to perform normal computing tasks using services delivered entirely over the internet.^[1][2][3] A worker may need to finish a major project that must be submitted to a manager, but perhaps they encounter problems with memory or space constraints on their computing device. Memory and space constraints can be minimized if an application is instead hosted on the internet. The worker can use a cloud computing service to finish their work because the data is managed remotely by a server. Another example: you have a problem with your mobile device and you need to reformat it or reinstall the operating system. You can use Google Photos to upload your photos to internet-based storage. After the reformat or reinstall, you can then either move the photos back to you device or you can view the photos on your device from the internet when you want.

Concept

In truth, cloud computing and IoT are tightly coupled.^[4][5] The growth of IoT and the rapid development of associated technologies create a widespread connection of “things.” This has lead to the production of large amounts of data, which needs to be stored, processed and accessed. Cloud computing as a paradigm for big data storage and analytics. While IoT is exciting on its own, the real innovation will come from combining it with cloud computing.^[6] The combination of cloud computing and IoT will enable new monitoring services and powerful processing of sensory data streams. For example, sensory data can be uploaded and stored with cloud computing, later to be used intelligently for smart monitoring and actuation with other smart devices. Ultimately, the goal is to be able to transform data to insight and drive productive, cost-effective action from those insights. The cloud effectively serves as the brain to improved decision-making and optimized internet-based interactions.^[6] However, when IoT meets cloud, new challenges arise. There is an urgent need for novel network architectures that seamlessly integrate them. The critical concerns during integration are quality of service (QoS) and quality of experience (QoE), as well as data security, privacy and reliability.^[7] The virtual infrastructure for practical mobile computing and interfacing includes integrating applications, storage devices, monitoring devices, visualization platforms, analytics tools and client delivery. Cloud computing offers a practical utility-based model that will enable businesses and users to access applications on demand anytime and from anywhere.^[6]

Characteristics

First, the cloud computing of IoT is an on-demand self service, meaning it’s there when you need it. Cloud computing is a web-based service that can be accessed without any special assistance or permission from other people; however, you need at minimum some sort of internet access.^[3][8][9]

Second, the cloud computing of IoT involves broad network access, meaning it offers several connectivity options. Cloud computing resources can be accessed through a wide variety of internet-connected devices such as tablets, mobile devices and laptops. This level of convenience means users can access those resources in a wide variety of manners, even from older devices. Again, though, this emphasizes the need for network access points.^[8][9]

Third, cloud computing allows for resource pooling, meaning information can be shared with those who know where and how (have permission) to access the resource, anytime and anywhere. This lends to broader collaboration or closer connections with other users. From an IoT perspective, just as we can easily assign an IP address to every “thing” on the planet, we can share the “address” of the cloud-based protected and stored information with others and pool resources.^[8][9]

Fourth, cloud computing features rapid elasticity, meaning users can readily scale the service to their needs. You can easily and quickly edit your software setup, add or remove users, increase storage space, etc. This characteristic will further empower IoT by providing elastic computing power, storage and networking.^[3][8][9][5]

Finally, the cloud computing of IoT is a measured service, meaning you get what you pay for. Providers can easily measure usage statistics such as storage, processing, bandwidth and active user accounts inside your cloud instance. This pay per use (PPU) model means your costs scale with your usage. In IoT terms, it’s comparable to the ever-growing network of physical objects that feature an IP address for internet connectivity, and the communication that occurs between these objects and other internet-enabled devices and systems; just like your cloud service, the service rates for that IoT infrastructure may also scale with use.^[3][8][9]

Service and deployment

Service models

Service delivery in cloud computing comprises three different service models: software as a service (SaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), and infrastructure as a service (IaaS).^[8]

Software as a service (SaaS) provides applications to the cloud’s end user that are mainly accessed via a web portal or service-oriented architecture-based web service technology.^[10] These services can be seen as ASP (application service provider) on the application layer. Usually, a specific company that uses the service would run, maintain and give support so that it can be reliably used over a long period of time.^[10][8]

Platform as a service (PaaS) consists of the actual environment for developing and provisioning cloud applications. The main users of this layer are developers that want to develop and run a cloud application for a particular purpose. A proprietary language was supported and provided by the platform (a set of important basic services) to ease communication, monitoring, billing and other aspects such as startup as well as to ensure an application’s scalability and flexibility. Limitations regarding the programming languages supported, the programming model, the ability to access resources, and the long-term persistence are possible disadvantages.^[10][8]

Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) provides the necessary hardware and software upon which a customer can build a customized computing environment.^[11] Computing resources, data storage resources and the communications channel are linked together with these essential IT resources to ensure the stability of applications being used on the cloud.^[10] Those stack models can be referred to as the medium for IoT, being used and conveyed by the users in different methods for the greatest chance of interoperability. This includes connecting cars, wearables, TVs, smartphones, fitness equipment, robots, ATMs, and vending machines as well as the vertical applications, security and professional services, and analytics platforms that come with them.^[8][12]

Deployment models

Deployment in cloud computing comprises four deployment models: private cloud, public cloud, community cloud and hybrid cloud.^[2][13]

A private cloud has infrastructure that’s provisioned for exclusive use by a single organization comprising multiple consumers such as business units. It may be owned, managed and operated by the organization, a third party or some combination of them, and it may exist on or off premises.

A public cloud is created for open use by the general public. Public cloud sells services to anyone on the internet. (Amazon Web Services is an example of a large public cloud provider.) This model is suitable for business requirements that require management of load spikes and the applications used by the business, activities that would otherwise require greater investment in infrastructure for the business. As such, public cloud also helps reduce capital expenditure and bring down operational IT costs.

A community cloud is managed and used by a particular group or organizations that have shared interests, such as specific security requirements or a common mission.

Finally, a hybrid cloud combines two or more distinct private, community or public cloud infrastructures such that they remain unique entities but are bound together by standardized or proprietary technology that enables data and application portability. Normally, information that’s not critical is outsourced to the public cloud, while business-critical services and data are kept within the control of the organization.

Conclusion

In conclusion, with the help of cloud computing, IoT will dramatically change the way we live our daily lives as well as what and how information is managed. Thanks to its on-demand nature, cloud computing is available for use anytime and anywhere so long as the device is connected to the internet based on the software as a service (SaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), or infrastructure as a service (IaaS) service model.^[2] The cloud is the only technology suitable for filtering, analyzing, storing and accessing IoT and other information in useful ways, depending on the deployment model used.

References

I Dream of IoT/Chapter 5 : IoT and Big Data

Introduction to big data

The Internet of Things (IoT) is an integrated part of the future internet where physical and virtual things that can interact with objects, animals, or people receive unique identifiers. It also has self-configuring capabilities that are able to transfer data over an internet network without need of interaction.^[1] The Internet of Things has been in development for decades, but the concept wasn’t named until 1999. The first internet appliance, for example, was a Coke machine at Carnegie Melon University in the early 1980s. The programmers could connect to the machine over the internet and were able to check the status of the machine and determine whether or not there would be a cold drink awaiting them, should they decide to make the trip down to the machine.^[1] Nowadays, IoT is applied to many systems that can benefit humans, including machine-to-machine systems, cloud systems, human-to-machine systems, and big data systems. “Big data” is a buzzword used to describe the massive volume of both structured and unstructured data that accumulates across many enterprises today, data the remains difficult to process and manage by traditional database and software techniques.^[2] Big data is important and has the potential to helps companies make faster and more intelligent decisions while also improving company operations.^[3] A simple example of big data in use: retailers can track user web clicks to identify behavioral trends that improve campaigns, pricing, and product stocking.

Internet of Things and big data

With respect to commercial, industrial, and other applications, IoT and big data are two different topics. IoT refers to the world of devices connected to the internet, which is the method by which much of big data is collected, stored, and managed. The discussion of big data additionally includes the analysis of this information to produce useful results. In short, big data is about data, plain and simple, and IoT is about data, devices, and connectivity.^[4]

IoT consists of three main components: the things (or assets) themselves, the communication networks that connect them, and the computing systems that make use of the data flowing to and from our things. Using this structure, assets can communicate with each other and optimize activities between them based on the analysis of data streaming through the network.^[4] Big data, on the other hand, relates to data creation, storage, retrieval, and analysis that is remarkable in terms of^[5][6][7]:

Volume

Aside from its inherent value and potential, the sheer large quantity of structured and unstructured data largely determines whether it can be considered to be big data or not. IBM estimated in 2014 that most U.S. companies have at least 100 terabytes of data stored.^[7]

Variety

Big data is not simply coming from one industry in one format. From healthcare to social media, the variety of data types and formats is similarly as daunting as the volume.

Velocity

This refers to how quickly big data is generated and analyzed to meet demand.

Veracity

The quality of data being captured can vary greatly. Accuracy of analysis depends on the veracity of the source data. IBM estimated in 2014 that poor data quality costs the U.S. economy $3.1 trillion per year.^[7]

Variability

This refers to the inconsistency which can be shown by the data at times, thus hampering the process of being able to handle and manage the data effectively.

Complexity

The large volumes of data we generate need to be linked, connected, and correlated in order to retain some level of usefulness. Complexity refers to the attributes of bid data that make that task more difficult.

Despite these challenges, IoT and big data can be used to improve operations. It helps to determine where data is produced and collected across a wide array of vertical markets, including but not limited to agriculture, electricity, forestry, water treatment, and almost every type of manufacturing facility. IoT and big data can potentially be implemented to improve predictive health monitoring, lessen downtime, lower reject rates, improve quality, increase throughput, improve safety, streamline labor, and enable mass customization of manufacturing and other related vertical industry operations. These operational improvements will optimally result in better products, increased quantity, and lower costs.

Big data operations

Big data operations vary from system to system, but they all essentially capture and store incoming data, which will be analyzed later to gain insights, improve operations, or make discoveries. This processing of data is based on three major steps: data intake, storage, and analytics. This data is managed using new technologies such as Hadoop, Map Reduce, etc. These tools are necessary as the volume of date continues to increase, particularly as IoT transforms the environment with the addition of more connectable devices. When this happen, better and faster processing technologies need to be introduced to allow all this information to be analyzed.

Applications of big data

Manufacturing

Based on a TCS 2013 Global Trend Study, improvements in supply planning and product quality provide the greatest benefit of big data for manufacturing. Big data provides an infrastructure for transparency in the manufacturing industry, with the ability to unravel uncertainties such as inconsistent component performance and availability. Predictive manufacturing as an applicable approach toward near-zero downtime and transparency requires vast amounts of data and advanced prediction tools for a systematic processing of data into useful information. A conceptual framework of predictive manufacturing begins with data acquisition where different type of sensory data is acquired, including acoustic, vibration, pressure, current, voltage, and controller data. The vast amount of sensory data, in addition to historical data, make up big data in manufacturing. The generated big data acts as the input into predictive tools and preventive strategies.

Internet of Things

The second most popular use of big data is in IoT-connected devices managed by hardware, sensor, and information security companies. These devices are sitting in their customers’ environment, and they phone home with information about the use, health, or security of the device.

Storage manufacturer NetApp, for instance, uses Pentaho software to collect and organize messages that arrive from more than 250,000 NetApp devices deployed at its customers’ sites. This unstructured machine data is then structured, put into Hadoop, and then pulled out for analysis by NetApp.^[8]

Information security

Large enterprises typically have sophisticated information security architectures, as well as security vendors looking for more efficient ways to store petabytes of event or machine data. In the past, these companies would store this information in relational databases. These traditional systems tend not to scale well, both from a performance and cost standpoint. The previously mentioned Hadoop is a better option for storing such machine data.

Advantages and disadvantages of big data

Advantages

1. Big Data can give accurate access to more data than ever before. Under other circumstances, unstructured data would have been considered dead and of no value, but with big data, it can be collected and analysed. It gives the opportunity to discover data correlations and patterns that before would have remained hidden. This means that organisations have access to more accurate information.

2. Big data can help to provide new products and services. The most interesting use of big data analytics is to create new products and services for customers. Many companies have made a major investment in new service models for its industrial products using big data analytics.

3. The business has the potential to be more agile and make better decisions. Big data is not just a process of storing petabytes or exabytes of data. It is also about the ability to make better decisions and take actions at the right time through analysis and interpretation of that data.

4. It has the potential to create cost savings. Big data technologies like Hadoop and cloud-based analytics can provide substantial cost advantages. The problem with traditional relational database management systems is they are extremely cost prohibitive to scale to such a degree in order to process such massive volumes of data. However, Hadoop is designed as a scale-out architecture that can affordably store all of a company’s data for later use.

Disadvantages

1. Big data requires an increased number of security checkpoints. With more data located in and moving between more places than ever before, there are also a vastly increased number of ways to hack into that data.

2. Upfront management and analysis means a short-term loss of agility. Transaction, e-mail, analytical, etc. data is housed on multiple platforms. But if the data isn’t evaluated, organized, and stored properly, critical information can be either difficult or impossible to utilize. Therefor it takes more time to create infrastructure and manage the data to get the most out of it.

3. Only a few people have the necessary skills to use big data tools properly. Big data represents one tech area that’s evolving rapidly. However, it’s not typically taught in most universities and is learned of in reactionary form. That makes finding the right people all the more crucial.

Conclusion

At its heart, big data is about data, plain and simple, while IoT is about data, devices and connectivity.^[6] IoT and big data are reworking the relationships between people and information. Many new hardware and software technologies have been developed to bring field sensor information from the very edge of the process, to collect it in a distributed or centralized manner, and to curate it through databases and historians. Each of these data harvesting tasks is becoming more automated, which removes the elements of delay and error associated with manual readings and data entry. Improving and automating data collection, concentration, and curation enables end users to take full advantage of visualization and analysis software to make their operations more efficient.

References

Chapter 6 : IoT and Machine-to-Machine (M2M)

Introduction to machine-to-machine communication

The Internet of Things (IoT) is the interconnection of uniquely identified stand-alone and embedded computing devices within the existing internet infrastructure. Usually, IoT is expected to offer advanced connectivity of devices, systems, and services that goes beyond machine-to-machine (M2M) communications and covers a variety of protocols, domains, and applications.^[1]

The M2M communication of the IoT is a very useful and effective aspect of the system. For example, IoT at the workplace — particularly in the factory — has already taken over the mundane tasks of monitoring industrial processes, managing fleets of vehicles and assets, and securing the facility. Additionally, it’s also used in our own homes to control home security, adjust energy consumption, etc. In the future, our home will likely be called the smart home because of all the components that will use the technology.^[2]

M2M refers to technologies that allow both wireless and wired systems to communicate with other devices. The history of M2M has existed in different forms since the advent of computer networking automation and predates cellular communication. The expansion of IP networks across the world has made it far easier for M2M communication to take place and has lessened the amount of power and time necessary for information to be communicated between machines. These networks also allow an array of new business opportunities and connections between consumers and producers in terms of the products being sold. Originally M2M was used for automation and instrumentation, but more recently it has also been used in telecommunications applications.

The anatomy of M2M

Any developing field comes with its own concepts and jargon, so it’s useful to map these out as clearly as possible. Our taxonomy is outlined below^[3]:

1. Things

The “things” in the IoT, or the “machines” in M2M, are physical entities whose identity and state are being relayed to an internet-connected IT infrastructure. Almost anything to which you can attach a sensor — a cow in a field, a container on a cargo vessel, the air-conditioning unit in your office, or a lamppost in the street — can become a node in the Internet of Things.

2. Sensors

These are the components of “things” that gather and/or broadcast data, be it location, altitude, velocity, temperature, illumination, motion, power, humidity, blood sugar, air quality, soil moisture… you name it. These devices are rarely computers as we generally understand them, although they may contain many or all of the same elements (processor, memory, storage, inputs and outputs, OS, software). The key point is that they are increasingly cheap, plentiful and can communicate, either directly with the internet or with internet-connected devices.

3. Comms (local-area)

All IoT sensors need some means of relaying data to the outside world. There’s a plethora of short-range or local area wireless technologies available, including: RFID, NFC, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth (including Bluetooth Low Energy), XBee, Zigbee, Z-Wave, and Wireless M-Bus. There’s no shortage of wired links either, including Ethernet, HomePlug, HomePNA, HomeGrid/G.hn, and LonWorks

4. Comms (wide-area)

For long range or wide-area links there are available mobile networks (using GSM, GPRS, 4G, LTE, or WiMAX for example) and satellite connections. New wireless networks such as the ultra-narrowband SIGFOX and the TV white-space NeulNET are also emerging to cater specifically for M2M connectivity. Fixed “things” in convenient locations could use wired Ethernet or phone lines for wide-area connections. Some modular sensor platforms, such as Libelium’s WaspMote, can be configured with multiple local- and wide-area connectivity options (ZigBee, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GSM/GPRS, RFID/NFC, GPS, Ethernet). Along with the ability to connect many different kinds of sensors, this allows devices to be configured for a wide range of vertical markets.

5. Server (on premises)

Some types of M2M installation, such as a smart home or office, will use a local server to collect and analyse data — both in real time and incoherent — from assets on the local area network. These on-premise servers or simpler gateways will usually also connect to cloud-based storage and services.

6. Local scanning device

“Things” with short-range sensors will often be located in a exclusive area but not permanently connected to a local area network (RFID-tagged livestock on a farm, or credit-card-toting shoppers in a mall, for example). In this case, local scanning devices will be required to extract data and transmit it onward for processing.

7. Storage and analytics

If you think today’s internet creates a lot of data, IoT will be another matter entirely. It will require massive, scalable storage and processing capacity, which will almost invariably reside in the cloud, except for specific localised or security-sensitive cases. Service providers will obviously have access here, not only to curate the data and tweak the analytics, but also for line-of-business processes such as customer relations, billing, technical support, and so on.

8. User-facing services

Subsets of the data and analyses from the IoT will be available to users or subscribers, presented (hopefully) via easily attainable and navigable interfaces on a full spectrum of secure client devices. M2M and the Internet of Things has huge potential, but they currently comprise a heterogeneous collection of established and emerging, often competing, technologies and standards (although moves are afoot here). This is because the concept applies to, and has grown from, a wide range of market sectors.

System monitoring

In systems engineering, a system monitor (SM) is a process within a distributed system for collecting and storing state data. This is a fundamental principle supporting application performance management.^[4] M2M communication is used in system monitoring applications such as^[5]:

• water level measurement
• air quality measurement
• monitoring of gas and pollutant levels in the air
• monitoring system and component temperatures and pressures

Real-world examples

Water management systems, using M2M wireless technology devices, can monitor irrigation schedules in order to provide the right amount of water to farmland using weather data and water evaporation level. The installed device can record the run time cycles and other needed data to maintain the system and the irrigation schedule. The State of California regulates their water usage levels and irrigation schedules using M2M. The ability to monitor electrical power systems, waste-water treatment, and oil and gas production provides an effective system for maintaining and improving efficiency, thusly saving time, money, and resources while reducing maintenance costs. It also allows companies to make immediate decisions based on accurate, real-time data from near and far-flung portions of their infrastructure.

M2M and the mobile environment

M2M communications — or the broader category of the Internet of Things — is changing the way many industries go to market and operate. Pretty much everything these days is being connected.^[6] There are many things that can be accomplished by upgrading communication methods, especially in relation to the mobile environment. Mobile network operators (MNOs) need to upgrade their system to become more reliable in every field for the future.

For instance in the realm of vehicles, the cars of the future are going to communicate with each other to reduce necessary human intervention, which can lead to fewer accidents and improved traffic. Vehicles can be controlled autonomously without the full need of a driver to do all the work. These always- or almost always-connected services include transmitting information between vehicles and traffic lights or bridges as well as applications to tell mass transit users when the next bus will arrive.^[7] There are many advantages to implementing this technology such as helping people navigate through remote areas, reducing the time of people waiting for public transport, and avoiding traffic jams.

M2M and its impact on the telecommunication industry

M2M communication is something that involves a large number of intelligent machines that share information and make collaborative decisions without direct human intervention. This potentially leads to achieving improved cost efficiency.

M2M offers the telecommunication industry a great opportunity as it needs a lot of communication systems via various technology families, such as IP, RFID, sensor networks, smart metering, etc. According to Galetić et al., its communication principles are present in many different industry verticals.^[8] Some of the most prominent M2M supported application areas are:

• Security – surveillance applications, alarms, object/human tracking, etc.;
• Transportation – fleet management, emission control, toll payment, road safety, etc.; remarkably interwoven with Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) concepts;
• e-Health – remote patient monitoring, Mobile Health, telecare;
• Manufacturing – production chain monitoring and automation;
• Utilities – measurement, provisioning and billing of utilities such as oil, water, electricity, heat, etc.;
• Industrial supply and provisioning – freight supply and distribution monitoring, vending machines, etc.; and
• Facility management – informatisation and automation of various home/building/campus-related resources management.

All of the above examples represent fields where associated equipment must be connected to telecommunication devices that can alert for out-of-range and dangerous scenarios. Members of the telecommunication industry such as Ericsson, Nokia, Siemens, and Motorola have taken the opportunity to seize on the idea and plan for the Internet of Things and the important concept of machine-to-machine interaction.

Conclusion

The internet isn’t just for communicating with people; it is now also used to intelligently connect devices which must be able to communicate and interact with speeds, scales, and capabilities far beyond what people originally needed or used. The Internet of Things (IoT) is slowly making the world more agile and functional via M2M and other protocols.^[9] M2M represents a developing field with its own concepts that include sensors, communications in local-area and wide-area, server on premises, local scanning devices, user-facing services, and storage and analytics. Additionally, the tech has developed into the mobile environment to further improve people and machine communication, including in monitoring systems that collect data and drive decisions. M2M is also having an impact on the telecommunication industry, helping change how we interact with our devices.

References

Chapter 7 : IoT and Security

Introduction to IoT security

The Internet of Things (IoT) can be describe as the interconnection between various uniquely identified stand-alone and embedded computing devices that can automatically transfer data over a network. IoT has the potential to make people’s lives easier by allowing virtual environments, objects and data to be connected with each other and leting people to live with greater efficiency. However, with the increase in number of IoT-enabled devices, there are increasing challenges for these systems to provide a high level of security for users. IoT networks are managed with different priorities in mind, and each has distinct security needs. The priority of the IT network is to protect data confidentiality. The focus of the IoT network is on physical security and secure access to ensure proper and safe operation. As such, several security issues must be addressed when it comes to living the “smart” life.

Network-layer security

Generally, network-layer security with IoT typically involves security mechanisms for resource-constrained sensing applications and devices that provide an important contribution via its integration with the internet. In this context we target the design and experimental evaluation of security mechanisms for communications at the network layer with sensing devices (smart objects) using the standard IPv6 protocol. Although it is certain that not all smart objects on the IoT will have the capability or will be required to support IPv6, the availability of secure end-to-end communications at the network layer with other sensing devices or with internet hosts may enable a much richer integration of sensing applications with the internet. It may also enable new types of sensing applications where smart objects are able to cooperate remotely and securely using internet communications.^[1]

There are differences between security at the network level and security at the transport level. Both are general-purpose which means they function independent of the layer. At the network layer, the IPsec is not specific to TCP, UDP and other protocols above IP. This makes IPsec more flexible and able to operate at a higher layer because it is transparent to the end user and application via what is called “blanket coverage.” As such, we do not need to change software on a user or server system when IPsec is implemented on a firewall or router. We also do not need to train users, issue keying material on a per-user basis or revoke keying material when users leave the organization. On the transport layer, the TLS (Transport Layer Security) works for its application of HTTP, FTP and SMTP, but not for TCP.^[2]

Securing TCP connections

TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) is a common way that computers of all types communicate with each other. TCP/IP applications are well-known and widely used throughout the “information highway.” TCP works with the Internet Protocol (IP), which defines how computers send packets of data to each other. Together, TCP and IP make up the basic rules defining the Internet.

Use packet rules to secure TCP/IP traffic

Packet rules, which represent the combination of IP filtering and network address translation (NAT), act like a firewall to protect an internal network from intruders. IP filtering controls what IP traffic to allow into and out of the network. Basically, it protects a network by filtering packets according to rules that it defines. NAT, on the other hand, was allowed to hide unregistered private IP addresses behind a set of registered IP addresses. This helps to protect internal networks from outside networks. NAT also helps to alleviate the IP address depletion problem, since many private addresses can be represented by a small set of registered addresses.^[3]

SSL and TCP/IP

Secure Socket Layer (SSL) and Transport Layer Security (TLS) is the most widely deployed security protocol used today. It is essentially a protocol that provides a secure channel between two machines operating over the internet or an internal network. In today’s internet-focused world, the SSL protocol is typically used when a web browser needs to securely connect to a web server over the inherently insecure internet.

Technically, SSL is a transparent protocol which requires little interaction from the end user when establishing a secure session. In the case of a browser, for instance, users are alerted to the presence of SSL when the browser displays a padlock, or, in the case of Extended Validation SSL, when the address bar displays both a padlock and a green bar. This is the key to the success of SSL since it is an incredibly simple experience for end users.^[4]

Example application with SSL: “Toy SSL,” a simple secure channel principle

• Handshake: Alice and Bob use their certificates and private keys to authenticate each other and exchange shared secret
• Key Derivation: Alice and Bob use shared secret to derive set of keys
• Data Transfer: Data to be transferred is broken up into a series of records
• Connection Closure: Special messages to securely close connection

WLAN Security

A wireless local area network (WLAN) is used in many sectors. WLAN remains popular because of its many advantages, including:

• installation flexibility;
• mobility;
• reduced cost of ownership;
• scalability; and
• ease of installation.

However, regardless of the benefits, WLAN has its share of security issues. To protect a WLAN from threats like denial of service (DoS), spoofing, and session hijacking and eavesdropping, Wired Equivalent Privacy should be used.^[5][6]

Wired Equivalent Privacy

Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) is a standard encryption type for wireless networking. It is a user authentication and data encryption system from IEEE 802.11 used to eliminate security threats. Basically, WEP provides security to WLAN by encrypting the transmitted information over the air, so that only the receiver who possesses the correct encryption key can decrypt the information.

How WEP works

WEP utilizes a secret key called the “base key” that includes the RC4 encryption algorithm and the CRC-32 (Cyclic Redundancy Code) checksum algorithm as its basic building blocks.^[7] WEP tries to achieve its security in a very simple way: it operates on MAC Protocol Data Units (MPDUs), the 802.11 packet fragments. To provide the security of the data in an MPDU, WEP first calculates an integrity check value (ICV) over the MPDU data. This value is the CRC-32 of the data. WEP adds the ICV to the end of the data, growing this field by four bytes. With the help of the ICV, the receiver is able to detect the data of outright forgery and changes during the broadcast. Next, WEP selects a base key and an initialization vector (IV), which is a 24-bit value. WEP determine a per-packet RC4 key by combining the IV value and the selected base key. WEP then uses the per-packet key to RC4, and encrypt the data and the ICV.^[8]

Tools for protecting WLAN

AirDefense: This is a WLAN intrusion protection and management system that detects network vulnerabilities, detects and protects a WLAN from intruders and attacks, and supports in the management of a WLAN.

Isomair Wireless Sentry: This observes the air space to identify insecure access points (AP), security threats and wireless network problems. Isomair Wireless Sentry is using an Intelligent Conveyor Engine (ICE) to passively observe wireless networks for threats and inform the security managers when these occur. It is a completely automated system and is centrally managed.^[9]

Firewalls and intrusion detection systems

IoT is a representation of the globalization in our life. From smart refrigerators to smart clothes, IoT devices promise to make our daily lives more practical, though operational security is of the utmost concern. Operational security involves the analytical part of a process and differentiates the information asset. It also controls the assets or data that go through their respective journey in a networked world. There are two types of operational security that are very well known: the firewall and the intrusion detection system. Both are designed to prevent unauthorized access between computer networks.

In this task, the firewall provides a simple and effective security layer for smart devices. The engineer builds this security system in to prevent our data from being corrupted or lost by unauthorized access. The floodgate design is often used to protect the smart device through firewalls. It carries with it a small footprint and low CPU processing. It provides static filtering, threshold-based filtering, and SPI to protect embedded devices from internet threats. Even though the smart device is secured with encryption and authentication, there are still exposed by external attack since they use a wireless system.^[10]

The intrusion detection system (IDS) is necessary for smart device to prevent intrusion from inside 6lowPAN networks (IPV6 over low power wireless personal area network) or from the internet. For example, Raza et al. disucss SVELTE, designed to protect an IoT system from being attacked, routing attacks of those using spoofed or altered information, sinkholes and selective forwarding. Their prototype doesn’t function at 100 percent but shows promise. This product is small and can benefit notes with limited energy supply and memory capacity.^[11]

Conclusion

IoT has great potential for the populace as well as business, but it doesn’t come without risk, requiring a great deal of thought, planning and action. Information security organizations must begin preparations to transition from securing PCs, servers, mobile devices and traditional IT infrastructure, to managing a much broader set of interconnected items incorporating wearable devices, sensors and technology. Therefore, network security teams should take the initiative to look for the best practices to secure these emerging devices and be prepared to update risk issue and security policies as these devices make their way onto enterprise networks.

References

Chapter 8 : IoT and Case Study

Internet of Things: Case studies

The Internet of Things (IoT) represents a changing method of communication between humans and their technology. Typically, IoT is expected to offer advanced connectivity of devices, systems, and services that goes beyond machine-to-machine communications (M2M) and covers a variety of protocols, domains, and applications. The interconnection of these embedded devices (including smart objects), is expected to usher in automation in nearly all fields, while also enabling advanced applications such as the smart grid. IoT can potentially contribute to many aspects of the human lifestyle, including in healthcare, education, transportation, and business. In buildings, IoT devices can be used to monitor and control the mechanical, electrical and electronic systems used in various homes and businesses (e.g., public and private, industrial, institutions, or residential). Home automation systems, like other building automation systems, are typically used to control lighting, heating, ventilation, air conditioning, appliances, communication systems, entertainment and home security devices to improve convenience, comfort, energy efficiency, and security. But to what degree have IoT systems been tested and used? Here are a few case studies.

Case study: Smart Santander parking monitor project

The smart city is a city that uses IoT and other communication devices to manage its assets.^[1] One such asset is the public parking area, which can be monitored for traffic and regulated for usage. The government of Santander, Spain tested such a smart parking system in 22 different zones of the city. This Smart Santander project was developed by several companies and institutions that aimed to design, deploy and valide a collection of sensors, actuators, cameras and screens that supply useful information to Santander’s citizens.^[2]

Each zone was provided a Meshlium, an electronic system that gathers the data sensors and moves it to the cloud. Each zone had different network parameters, creating independent networks that work on different frequency channels so as to not interfere with the other networks. In this project, 375 Waspmotes were deployed in different locations within the city to measure the change in magnetic field above it (caused by a vehicle parked over it) to detect whether a parking slot is free. The magnetic field sensor was connected to the Waspmote through a Smart Parking Sensor Board. The sensor itself was buried under the surface of the road inside a waterproof casing. The hole was closed using a specific material and the sensor is barely detectable at a glance.^[2]

The information was sent periodically to repeaters and after that to the Meshlium that stored the data, updating a public message board every five minutes, allowing citizens to find a free parking spot in the shortest time. Not only that, parking status was also updated on an interactive online map so that citizens could check for a free parking slot before they got to the city center.^[2]

Case study: Smart lighting

Smart lighting systems allow a smart city to intelligently provide just the right amount of light depending on variables such as time, day, season, and weather. By applying this form of IoT, users could potentially save up to 80 percent energy versus traditional lighting systems, at least according to Janne Aikio at Finland’s VTT Technical Research Centre. “Forecasts suggest that smart lighting will become one of the key trends in the context of the Internet of Things,” Aikio told Engineering and Technology Magazine. “Demand for smart lighting is expected to boom over the next 10 years: as much as €7.7bn in 2020. The comparable figure in 2011 was €1.8bn.”^[3]

Lighting systems utilizing the IoT concept are already available for commercial use, able to integrate with existing building automation systems. For the future, this smart lighting system could improve by integrating with wireless system so that it can be controlled via devices such as mobile phone. “Smart lighting systems are becoming increasingly popular in both new builds and renovation projects. The next major step will be to integrate better sensors and new functions into lighting systems, which will allow the occupants of a room to adjust lighting with increasing accuracy and flexibility according to their movements and activities,” explained Aikio.^[3]

For even better results, this smart lighting system could be integrated with many more features such as enabling the direction, power, and color of the lighting to be automatically adjusted according to the function of the room or time of day, season, and weather. For example, the lamp could be directed to point towards people in the room, and lighting near a window could change color according to the weather or temperature outside. Additionally, a smart lighting system could perhaps even be self-updating, downloading light filters or “plugins” on demand from the web.

Case study: Smart roads

The application of IoT varies greatly, thanks to its reliable nature and ability to contribute positively to safety in the home as well as within industry. Yet it even has the potential to positively contribute to our lives while on the road. In fact, IoT stands to positively improve that which is central to much of our existing infrastructure today: the roads that make up our vast transportation network.

Monitoring systems will play an important role on our streets in the future, whether it’s to better keep citizens informed or to prepare for the coming of automated vehicles. A series of sensors, circuit boxes, and other IoT technologies will integrate to each other using radio and satellite to enable communication between nodes. That said, there are eight common areas to cover in this monitoring system. These eight areas are based on European roads and weather, though they’re still applicable to the network of roads worldwide.

1. Pollution: The first area is setting up a sensor network to monitor traffic-related pollution. The Libelium company offers an example with its Waspmote, which provides a miniature enclosed system that has a solar panel, antenna, and sensors that can be programmed to each node. It’s capable of covering large areas with a massive number of networks, thus making it easy for maintenance with the effortless attachment to nodes. As for pollution, the main contributor is from carbon dioxide and nitrogen dioxide from vehicles. To detect this, gas sensors are attached at strategic points throughout the city’s traffic network.^[4]

2. Noise: Next up is monitoring noise and generating a noise map. Acoustic sensors can map the noise to those routes in the city, using similar technology as mentioned in the discussion on pollution detection. The microphone used in the system can capture the source of noise, which is turned into usable data that can be placed into a heat map that shows regions of noise with a specific value in decibels.

3. Weather: Next is weather monitoring between points of risk. Aspects to be monitored include temperature, humidity, rainfall, and wind speed and direction. Mini sensor networks with attached pluviometers and anemometers act as cheap weather stations, providing real-time information that can be used to warn drivers in advance so they may opt for other safer routes.

4. and 5. Flooding and icing: These represent the same point of monitoring, only differing in the temperature: the pavement. Flooding can be measured using ground-based liquid sensors. With these sensors, drivers can be alerted to areas with high-water level issues and be alerted to take precautions when choosing their route. As for the icy road, a prediction application can be used driven off of date from temperature and humidity sensors to record likely ice formation along the roads.

6. Structural cracking: As for structural cracking, linear displacement sensors can be used in bridges or tunnels to monitor for any cracks. In addition to displacement monitoring, vibration sensors — similar to those deployed to buildings in earthquake-prone areas — would help in further monitoring and controlling structural cracking as a whole.^[1]

7. Parking: As previously discussed, a vehicle detection system can rely on magnetic field sensors to detect traffic jams and the presence of vehicles in parking areas. It is installed in the pavement itself, equipped with material to cope with communication interference and humidity. The information shared between sensors is similar in style to pollution and noise monitoring, with the data being gathered in the Meshlium being sent to the internet network. The deployment of smart parking nodes with monitored cameras can further increase security in parking areas.

8. Traffic flow: Vehicle and pedestrian flow can be monitored using the Meshlium scanner with a Bluetooth and WiFi card to provide the estimation of the traffic and pedestrian flow. The framework is the same in terms of how information is being sent over the internet. In this system, both Bluetooth and WiFi will have its own databases that consist of IP addresses, ports, users, and their passwords. Additionally, it can be synchronized to an external database then shared throughout the network.

Case study: Smart water system

Smart cities must monitor water supply and distribution to ensure that there is sufficient access for citizen and industry use and also to save money. The goals of a smart water system is to manage water demand and ensure any losses from the water system are minimal. While demand is being better controlled, there are still huge losses to water supply from inefficient distribution and water leakage. Such a system could use wireless sensor networks to more accurately monitor their water systems and identify their greatest water loss risk. Libelium’s Smart Metering Sensor Board includes a water flow sensor that can detect pipe flow rates ranging from 0.15 to 60 litres/minute. The system can report pipe flow measurement data regularly, as well as send automatic alerts if water use is outside of an expected normal range. This allows a smart city to identify the location of leaking pipes and prioritize repairs based on the amount of water loss that could be prevented. The sensors on these boards can be used as part of a network that monitors and responds to water pipe leakages across an urban area. Strategic placement of sensors can ensure city-wide coverage. Data from the sensor boards can be collected at regular intervals and sent by wireless network to the city for analysis and for preventative action. Data can also be sent directly to the internet for sharing with the local community and industry, so that everyone can understand and contribute to a city’s responsible water management.^[5]

Case study: Using the Meshlium scanner for smartphone detection

Meshlium is a Linux router which contains five different radio interfaces: WiFi 2.4GHz, WiFi 5GHz, 3G/GPRS, Bluetooth, and ZigBee. The Meshlium can also integrate a GPS module for mobile and vehicle applications and be solar and battery powered. These features along with an aluminium IP67 enclosure allows Meshlium to be placed anywhere outdoors. Meshlium comes with the Manager System, a web application which allows quick and easy control of WiFi, ZigBee, Bluetooth and 3G/GPRS configurations as well as the storage options of the sensor data received. It can detect iPhone, Android, and other hands-free devices that broadcast on radio channels.^[6]

This general idea of the technology is to measure the amount of vehicles and people present at a certain point and time, allowing the study of the evolution of traffic congestion. For this idea to work, users don’t have to do anything to be detected or visible on a network. As long as the WiFi and Bluetooth radio integrated in their mobile device is active, the router can still detect their presence. A user is detected by the Meshlium router depending on the following^[6]:

• the MAC address of the wireless interface, which allows it to be identified uniquely;
• the strength of the signal (RSSI), which gives the average distance of the device from the scanning point;
• the vendor of the mobile device (Apple, Nokia, etc.), the access point the user is connected to (WiFi), and the Bluetooth-friendly name (users that are not connected to an access point will identify as a “free user”); and
• the class of device (CoD), in the case of Bluetooth, which allows the system to differentiate the type of device, enhancing differentiation between vehicles and pedestrians.

Additionally, the coverage areas may be modified by changing the power transmission of the radio interfaces that is allowing the creation of different scanning zones from a few meters, enabling study of a specific point for dozens of meters (to study the whole street or even the entire floor of a shopping mall).

The Meshlium or other such scanner can focus on:

1.Vehicle traffic detection: In this application, the system is able to…

• monitor in real time the number of vehicles passing for a certain point in highways and roads.
• detect average time of vehicle stance for traffic congestion prevention.
• monitor average speed of vehicles on highways and roads.
• provide travel times on alternate routes when congestion is detected.
• calculate the average speed of the vehicles which transit over a roadway by tracking time at two different points.

2. Shopping and street activities: Similar to monitoring car traffic, the efficient flow of pedestrians in an airport, stadium, or shopping centre can be monitored to improve user experiences, helping make the difference between a good and a bad visit.

Conclusion

These IoT case studies suggest ways in which IoT will make our life easier and well-arranged. The infrastructure of smart cities could potentially improve our environment for safer driving experiences. Smart cities may also introduce improvements in terms of public services that include parking spot monitoring, weather alerts, and management of waste typical to the modern city. When integrated with the city, IoT will allow citizen to enjoy their city more and utilize present technologies. The future of IoT may potentially offer even more advancements to basis infrastructure from its current radio technologies to enable each devices to share information with each other over a network for greater coordination and data analysis.

References

Chapter 9 : IoT and The Next 20 Internet Years

Internet of Things: The next 20 internet years

The next 20 years of the Internet of Things (IoT) will see an evolution of mobile, home and embedded devices that will be connected to the internet. We’ll surely see huge improvements in internet communications and computing that will transform our businesses, lives, industries, and other aspects of our world in countless ways. The internet is creating new global technologies and creating integration opportunities for the rest of the world. Seeing the rapid growth from the old cellular grid to the rapid advancements in data-streaming over wireless cellular networks, one day maybe the internet will be a giant, invisible, omnipresent grid streaming data and information over the air. If today we need a WiFi signal to get online, within the next 20 years perhaps we’ll see an improved network technology that will span from border to border, without limits.

Technology developments

We’re already seeing technology paradigm changes, with streaming entertainment replacing traditional cable television. With broader adoption of high-speed wireless internet, why do we need cable television? Perhaps producers of TV content will realize that there is more ad profit if they stream directly to consumers.^[1]

We’ll see other changes as well, including the integration of biology and the computer. For example, a handful of companies today are already depending on biometrics such as thumbprints, facial and voice recognition, and retinal scans, but biometrics can be further enhanced due technological advances. More commonly today, companies are turning to small USB “tokens” with pin code, plus an additional pin code that has to be memorized in order to strengthen up their security. Unfortunately, it’s hard to carry that token everywhere, plus it is easily stolen or lost. Thus, in 20 years, implanted biometrics might be done where security tokens will be embedded into the body and the presence of the token can be detect by a sensor. With the presence of a correctly implanted token combined with the remembered password, access can be gained. This is much more secure because an implant is much more difficult to steal.^[1]

Internet for health

In 20 years, the progress of internet applications and technology will transform the healthcare industry. Already medical implants are tapping into the concept of IoT by broadcasting information that can be collected outside the body. Such implants can help prevent disease by alerting medical professionals of vitamin deficiencies, abnormal cell counts, malfunctioning organs, or even cancer. Such devices will even be useful therapeutically, administering medications automatically, much in the same way a pacemaker stabilizes a heart.^[2]

Apart from implantable devices, the healthcare industry is likely to be radically changed by hospice robots (health service), such as those characterized in futuristic movies like Robot & Frank and Big Hero 6. An aging population is already putting great pressure on our healthcare system, increasing related costs. With robotic technology and improvements in internet communications and connectivity, we’ll be able to improve how we care for the sick, disabled, and elderly. Every patient can have one-on-one care, and people can rest with their loved ones while they are receiving focused and inexpensive care. Certainly, human contact has been shown to be beneficial for the sick and elderly. If hospice robots become the norm, there’s a risk that patients will go without any real human contact for long periods of time. The robots are coming, but it’s the decisions we make about how to use them that will determine whether these robots will distance patients or instead facilitate more frequent interactions with distant friends and relatives.^[2]

Ten gadgets and apps of the future

Here are 10 examples of futuristic gadgets that utilize the IoT concept^[3]:

1. Smart Tennis Sensor By attaching the Smart Tennis Sensor to the racket, all shot data is recorded and displayed in real time on a Bluetooth-connected smartphone. From the app screen, we can check the type of swing, swing speed, ball speed, ball spin and others for every shot. All data are recorded in the smartphone, and the play reports are created automatically so that we can look back and analyze our tennis game. The Smart Tennis Sensor can also work alone without the smartphone.

2. Moto 360 Moto 360 is a smartwatch. It’s just like linking up with the entire world through Android wear. It predicts and shows the weather or the upcoming events. You can also keep in touch through e-mails and chat like Facebook and Messenger directly without having to pull your mobile device from your pocket. Because it’s powered by Android Wear, we can just use our voice to do all the things we do like send texts and more without even touching it.

3. Skybell When someone rings the bell of your front door, WiFi-enabled SkyBell sends a real-time alert and makes a video conversation with your visitor available over your Android or iOS device. The speaker and microphone are built in to allow a conversation without opening the door. It’s also equipped with a motion sensor which will alert you when someone approaches and stands at your door for 10 seconds. It also has night vision and can save a screenshot of what you see.

4. Fitbit ZIP The ZIP wireless activity tracker is able to track your path, your distance, and calories burned. Its silicon clip is comfortable for wearing throughout the day, everywhere. It’s also sweat-proof and able to stand up to the rain and other splashes. ZIP also can automatically sync the data to PCs, MACs, iOS devices, and Android devices.

5. Trakdot The Trakdot is a tracking device that can be paired with your cell phone and packed together in your suitcase. Once you arrive at a certain place, Trakdot will send an SMS or e-mail to your phone that notifies you of your bag’s location.

6. Sen.se Mother Mother connects to Motion cookies (four are included), a small sensor that had been programmed to measure or detect all the things around your home such as when your kids brushed their teeth. Mother sends the notifications by e-mail, text messages, or voice mails. It also has a storybook feature that tells you your own story, checking your activity and whether it’s normal or deserves attention.

7. Delphi Connect This module helps you monitor a vehicles from the smartphone or computer. It can to lock the door, engage the horn, and engage the remote car starter directly from your smartphone and computer. It also has a diagnostic tool that securely accesses your vehicle’s driving data and the mechanical conditions that can be seen in your smartphone or computer. It also shows the vehicle’s location and reviews driving skills. Set up an e-mail and text message to receive notifications if your vehicle exceeds a certain speed.

8. Withings Scale This is a wireless scale that measures weight and calculates BMI. It also measures body fat percentage by uploading through WiFi. From the smartphone or computer, you can access the chart and graph personally.

9. Google Glass These amazing internet-connected glasses have a camera, microphone, and much more. They’re goal is to make hands-free technology a reality for people. By using voice commands, we can retrieve information from phones, participate in Google Hangout conversations, or get information from the internet.

10. LIFX light bulb LIFX is an energy-efficient LED light bulb that can be controled using smart devices. It has the ability to change the full color of light at your home or workplace using your smart phone. Improve your quality of sleep by slowing dimming lights and wake up in the morning with automatically increasing light.

Investment in IoT in the next 20 years

The Internet of Things (IoT) will double the size of the connected internet over the next 20 years, and huge investments into that future are being made right now. The major internet power-brokers are already investing billions of dollars into IoT, and it is imperative that companies understand IoT now in order to benefit from trillions of dollars of pent-up value that will be released as 10 billion individuals, devices and services are connected together.

IoT contains a considerable amount of groundbreaking thinking and deep-level market insight. As the number of humans grows in this world, there will be new problems to solve. Day by day the user expects more from the internet. But to meet the need of these higher expectations, increasing investment towards the internet has to be make every year. Just imagine what we could accomplish in the next 20 years with this great technology with a significant investment into it.

Conclusion

In conclusion, IoT and the next 20 internet years will see a variety of changes. Automation will certainly be a major player as an increasing number of devices is connected. Traditional work from offices as well as media, healthcare, and daily activities will change. However, to realize these imagined futures, a significant investment must be made.

References

Authors and editors[edit]

• Narul Nooryani
• Nadzirah Farah
• Norhana Maisarah