Photo: James Nielsen, Staff
The Internet of Things – it’s a Silicon Valley buzzword that permeates conversations at companies in the tech industry from Apple to Accenture.
But even industry insiders don’t always understand what it means.
At the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, a conference for women technologists held this year at the George R. Brown Convention Center, a panel broke down what the Internet of Things is, and how it’s already playing a role in our lives.
The consensus? It’s all about connecting people to their devices, and devices to each other and the internet. That whole network is the Internet of Things.
Think of a fitness tracker. People provide it with information about their health, from their caloric intake to the number of steps they take per day. That tracker stores, shares and retrieves that information as needed.
Or an iPhone. People type a message into their iPhone that’s delivered to another iPhone via the Internet.
What’s critical is that that app provides people with a service or an outcome, said Kiva Allgood, Vice President Vice President IoT Smart Cities at Qualcomm.
Your smartphone takes on a role beyond just facilitating a call.
“It’s a babysitter, it’s a matchmaker, it’s your organizer,” Allgood said.
Other examples? Sensors placed throughout a water system to share information about where and when leaks occur, or a smartwatch that can lock and unlock the doors of your house remotely.
And the Internet of Things is just going to expand in coming years, panelists said, as more and more items, from our refrigerators to our cars, get the capability to communicate and share data with us and each other.
