IoT, The Internet of Things. The idea is to allow each target object to connect to the network through a sensor system, allowing us to enjoy the freedom of communication in two dimensions (anytime, anywhere) and a third dimension of freedom in anything.
So where did the idea of the Internet of Things come from? What will this sci-fi vision bring to people's lives? Will it eventually materialize?
Today, we'll show you 3 stories that will take you through the origins of IoT.
Coffee pot incident
The IoT concept dates back to the coffee pot incident at United Kingdom Cambridge University in 1991. Is it possible that a tiny coffee pot could attract millions of people's attention? Possibly. This feat was accomplished by a coffee pot called "Troy".
The "Troy" coffee pot incident took place in 1991. At work, scientists at the University of Cambridge's Troy Computer Laboratory had to go down two flights of stairs to see if the coffee was ready. But they often leave empty-handed, which annoys the staff. To solve the problem, they wrote a program and installed a camcorder next to the coffee pot, with the camera pointed at the coffee pot, using computer image capture technology to transmit information from the coffee pot to a lab computer at a rate of three frames per second, so that staff can check whether the coffee is ready at any time. That way, they can keep abreast of the coffee and go down and get it after it's brewed. In 1993, the simple local "coffee-watching" system was updated by other colleagues and connected to the Internet at a rate of one frame per second via the lab's website. Unexpectedly, nearly 2.4 million people around the world clicked on the famous coffee pot website just to see if the coffee was brewed or not.
For the network digital camera, its market development, technology application, and future network expansion all originate from the world's most famous "Troy coffee pot".
In addition, tens of thousands of e-mails have been sent to Cambridge University's tourism office hoping for a chance to see the magical coffee pot first-hand. Dramatically, the coffee pot, which was peeped around the world, became known for the Internet and eventually found its home. The last news about the coffee pot was: The most famous coffee pot in the digital world has sold for $7,300 on eBay.
An inadvertent invention has caused such a stir all over the world!
While the "coffee pot" website is attracting more and more attention from the world, it has reached the end of its life. Later, the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory announced that the live-streaming site would be closed as the lab needed to move into a new office block in the Cambridge suburb. "The whole system is outdated and the hardware is aging," Gordon explained. "We can't bring these old equipment into the new office building."
Bill Gates and "The Road to the Future"
Whether you love him or hate him, you can't ignore him - that's Bill Gates. Some say his contribution to software is what Edison did to lightbulb sharing. In 1995, the founder of the Microsoft empire wrote a world-famous book, "The Road to the Future," in which he predicted the future of Microsoft and the technology industry as a whole.
"While these predictions seem unlikely and even absurd, I promise this is a serious book, not a joke," Gates wrote. "10 years from now my view will be confirmed."
In the book, Bill Gates also mentions the idea of the "IoT." Presumably, the Internet only connects computers, but not everything. However, due to the limitation of network terminal technology at that time, this idea could not be implemented. Let's review what Gates predicted in his book about the IoT and whether these predictions have become reality.
"The Road to the Future" writes: "You'll choose to watch your favorite show instead of waiting for the TV station to show it for you." Today's digital televisions have implemented this kind of video-on-demand capability. You can also do this through the web, using a network TV.
"The Road to the Future" writes: If you're planning to buy a refrigerator, you won't have to listen to the ramblings of salesmen. Forums and shopping sites will provide you with the most information. Today, you can shop through websites such as eBay, Amazon, and forums and websites that have different insights about products. You can calmly judge what product is best for you.
"The Road to the Future" wrote: There will be a new model for music sales. Those who have headaches about products such as CDs and tapes will be freed from them, and music products in new digital formats will hit the market. And music will become an important part of the Internet information superhighway.
Bill Gates has a keen sense of smell, but it's puzzling that 10 years ago, Bill Gates realized the huge potential of the digital music market, why didn't Microsoft be the first to make digital music products and let Apple get a head start in the market?
"The Road to the Future" wrote: If your child needs pocket money, you can transfer $5 from his computer wallet. In addition, when you drive through the airport gates, the e-wallet will automatically be associated with the airport ticketing system to purchase your ticket. The airport's ticket check-in system will automatically detect your e-wallet to see if you have purchased a ticket. Today's credit cards, online payments, mobile payments, eBay services, and e-tickets are closest to Bill Gates' predictions. Together, they ushered in the era of e-commerce.
"The Road to the Future" says: You can enter the map yourself, so that you can easily find every street and every building. Today, Google Earth offers maps that cover almost anywhere on the planet.
Ashton and MIT Automatic Identification Center
The true "IoT" concept was first proposed by Kevin Ashton, an United Kingdom engineer, in a speech at P&G in the spring of 1998. According to an analysis at the time, several major U.S. retailers suffered as much as $70 billion a year because of poor goods management. Kevin Ashton, a former vice president of marketing at PG, is a pain in the neck. In 1997, PG's Ollie Moisturising Lotion went on sale, but it was so popular that many store shelves were often empty. With too many items and too slow to remediate, "we watched money run off the shelves.
It took Kevin Ashton two years to find the answer, which is to replace the current barcode of goods with RFID. E-labels become excellent information transmitters for retail products, and thus transform thousands of applications and management methods to achieve transparency and automation of supply chain management.
Sponsored by PG and Gillette, he co-founded an RFID research organization, the Auto-ID Center, with professors Sanjay Sarma and Sunny Siu at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and researcher David Brock. Kevin Ashton's definition of IoT is simple: connecting all objects to the Internet through information sensing devices such as radio frequency identification (RFID) to implement intelligent identification and management. MIT Auto-ID Center proposes to construct an "IoT" that covers everything in the world by using technologies such as RFID, Wireless Sensor Network (WSN), and data communication on the basis of computer Internet. In this network, objects are able to "communicate" with each other without human intervention. "This method is bigger than the Internet and can use sensors to identify goods around the world," says Kevin Ashton. "This will revolutionize our traditional model of tracking products from manufacturer to customer, and even through recycling. In fact, we created the IoT."
Kevin Ashton predicts that the Electronic Product Code (EPC) network will enable machines to sense man-made objects anywhere in the world, creating a true "IoT".
The story is over, do you get it?
