Internet of Things A to Z

1Introduction to the Internet of Things

Detlef Schoder

Department of Information Systems and Information Management, University of Cologne, Köln, Germany

1.1 Introduction

Early in 1926, Nikola Tesla envisioned a “connected world.” He told Colliers Magazine in an interview (Kennedy, 1926):

“When wireless is perfectly applied, the whole Earth will be converted into a huge brain, which in fact it is, all things being particles of a real and rhythmic whole […] and the instruments through which we shall be able to do this will be amazingly simple compared with our present telephone. A man will be able to carry one in his vest pocket.”

Kevin Ashton was the first to use the term Internet of Things (IoT) in 1999 (Ashton, 2009) in the context of supply chain management with radio frequency identification (RFID)-tagged or barcoded items (things) offering greater efficiency and accountability to businesses. As Ashton wrote in the RFID Journal (June 22, 2009):

“If we had computers that knew everything there was to know about things – using data they gathered without any help from us – we would be able to track and count everything, and greatly reduce waste, loss and cost. We would know when things needed replacing, repairing or recalling, and whether they were fresh or past their best.”

In the same year, Gershenfeld (1999) published his work “When Things Start to Think,” in which he envisioned the evolution of the World Wide Web as being a state in which “things start to use the Net ...