Small Business Labs: McKinsey on The Internet of Things
The current McKinsey Quarterly features an article on possible applications of RFID (radio frequency identification) and other emerging technologies that embed Internet connectivity into dumb devices.
“The McKinsey Quarterly’s article The Internet of Things (registration required) does an excellent job of summarizing the topic. For those not familiar with the concepts around the Internet of Things, according to the article:
‘More objects are becoming embedded with sensors and gaining the ability to communicate. The resulting information networks promise to create new business models, improve business processes, and reduce costs and risks.’
The term “The Internet of Things” was coined by Kevin Ashton in the late 1990s. Kevin was the Executive Director of MIT’s Auto-ID Center, which was exploring smart objects and sensor technologies. The concepts go back – at least – to work done in the 1980s around ubiquitous computing. Like most technologies, smart objects have taken a long to develop.”