The “Connected Things 2018” conference, part of the MIT Enterprise Forum, was held on April 5, 2018 in Cambridge Massachusetts. It is a showcase for new Internet of Things (IoT) products, applications, and real-world solutions that are being developed and deployed across the globe. The 2018 edition offered a checkpoint that demonstrated two important and interesting facts about the evolution of these technologies.
- First, IoT is still a work in process. Much progress has been made, but there’s a lot more work to do in developing the infrastructure, standards and security that will be necessary to support the massive increase in connected devices and make productive use of the tsunami of data that is being produced.
- Second, new devices and applications are still being introduced and trying to find a market … like the connected coffeemaker discussed in the May 2018 newsletter — from an article first published in Dassault Systemes’ “Navigating the Future” blog in August 2017. Humorous? Sure. But also a healthy indicator that the benefits of IoT will not be limited to better tracking of shipments on the road or product making its way through the plant.
It won’t be long before connected things will impact all phases of our lives and work – for the better. A few stumbles along the way are inevitable and necessary as inventors and visionaries “push the envelope” looking for new ways to gather and use data and systems.
