The Internet of Things Development and Innovation

2.1. The Internet of Things Development and Innovation

In order to reach the main points of this research, it is important to define the basic concepts regarding the Internet of Things. As it was stated in the background, the Fourth Revolution generated a significant impact in every industry around the world basically for the unlimited uses that internet offers. Internet is a powerful global communication system able to provide immediate information exchange, it is interconnected by infinite networks in small and big scopes. It broke with the classic barriers such as cultural or geographical, providing access to its billions of users to any kind of content, as well as, resources and services (Madakam, 2015).

According to the website “Our World in Data”, (a collaborative effort between researchers at the University of Oxford and the non-profit organization Global Change Data Lab), the number of users, since internet first appeared back in 1990, has increased up to 44 million in 1995; only five years later in 2000, the number of users worldwide reached 413 million; and, by 2016 the growth rate accelerated, even more, registering 3.4 billion of users in the whole Globe. (Julia Murphy, 2019). Figure 1 summarizes the growth of internet users by region, according to the same source, from 1990 to 2016.

There are many studies that cited a statistic generated by the ICT firm Ericson, which is that by 2020 there will more or less 500 billion devices connected in some way to the Internet, number of which around 50 billion will be mobile wireless devices. This fact brings with it important changes in the behavior of Society and in a globalized world where information is increasingly accessible (Economy, 2012). Now, it is important to clarify that just because a device, or a thing, is connected to the internet, it is not actually part of the Internet of Things world. Indeed, devices connected to a website that specifically stores data in a cloud for a user

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who will collect them in the future and repeat the process is a usage that has existed a long time ago and does not have anything to do with our topic (Muench, 2014).

Figure 1 Internet users by world region since 1990

Source: (Julia Murphy, 2019)

The real innovation of the Internet of Things is the ability to connect two or more devices in a given network and leverage information in different ways, allowing them to become smarter in some way through the process of sharing information from one another. This process should provide continues computing performance, bringing useful results that are important for the user. The Internet of Things is not limited to collecting data from other devices, it is also about the interconnectivity between devices that are able to discover, talk and share control with each another (Ben-Zur, 2013). The Internet of Things is not just a network of sensors, all the things

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connected one another; the IoT has redirected the development of technology from the aim to connect people (social media, new apps, revolutionary devices), to connect devices with people and devices with other devices, known in other researches as machine-to-machine (Dutton, 2014).

Indeed, the Internet of Things is an emerging technology defined as a comprehensive network of sensors, electronic, and software, which altogether are capable to gather and exchange data. (Bhandari, 2019). Internet of Things is a modern-day improvement in the field of communication and information. This concept opened the door for Smart Things, which are autonomous physical or digital objects equipped with the capability of sense, process, and act (Madakam, 2015). With the current evolution of technology, more than a competitive advantage, the use of Internet of Things for companies or any business model, will become a necessity to compete.

That is to say, if it is expected that so many devices will be coming under this technology, it is obvious to assume that the aggressive market will bring impressive strategies to gain market share, among other aims, in every industry. In fact, the Internet of Things can allow companies to improve their services or to generate more efficient production processes. These improvements and innovations bring with them advantages such as reduction of costs, mitigation of risks, increase in customer satisfaction and loyalty, environmental care, and so on.

The correct use of this technology could impact heavily on any business model (Economy, 2012).

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Table 1 Illustrative applications and actors in IoT services

Illustrative applications and actors in IoT services

Type of

Application Device Setting of Use

Remote monitoring, for

pollution apps Pedestrian motorist Health monitoring Smartphone app or email Patient with a particular

diagnosis

Manufacturing Sensors, RFID Lean manufacturing

Source: (Ravi Gorli, 2017)

A main technical innovation of the Internet of Things networks are the sensors and actuators. Sensors have a primary objective to detect specific stimulation or change in certain conditions and translate into a language that can be read by the user or another thing. On the other hand, actuators, as a respond to a received signal generate a pre-specified change in a system. With these two main concepts, it is easier to illustrate the main innovations that IoT has reached in the past year in a different context. Inside a wireless sensor and actuator network, the sensor nodes receive and gather the information on the physical world; and, are able to deliver messages with sensed values to other sensors or actuators (Morita, Aikebaier, Enokido,

& Takizawa, 2008).

Following the same line, the IoT Technology has developed different ways of detecting or sensing things, called identification technologies such as through RFID, the given letter for

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Radio Frequency Identification. This system is capable, by using radio waves, to transmit a unique serial number of a thing, that could be a person or an object (Violino, 2005). All the data collected is stored in the cloud. According to Goran Čandrlić, over 1 Exabyte of data was stored in the cloud by 2013, which means 1.073,741,824 Gigabytes of data; moreover, by 2016, a big amount of companies worldwide started to store sensitive date of their customers in public clouds (Čandrlić, 2013). On the next section of this research, these concepts will be widely explained.