IoT

The Internet of Things (IoT) landscapes a new era of computing and connectivity. It provides countless of applications and benefits that enhances organizations’ performance and individuals’ lifestyle. This paper discusses general knowledge about IoT technology, applications, and challenges.
Definition
IoT is one of the fastest growing technologies in computing. It is an environment where people, animals, or objects are presented with unique identifiers and the ability to transfer data over a network (Rouse, 2014). It has emerged from combining wireless technologies, micro-electromechanical systems, and the internet (Rouse, 2014). See Figure 1. These wireless technologies are equipped with, or connected to a smart device allowing data collection and communication through the internet (Caron, Bosua, Maynard, & Ahmad, 2016).

Figure 1. IoT Ecosystem (Medici, 2015)

Benefits * Tracking behavior for real-time marketing (Borne, 2014). * Enhanced situational awareness (Borne, 2014). * Sensor-driven decision analytics (Borne, 2014). * Process optimization (Borne, 2014). * Optimized resource consumption (Borne, 2014). * Instantaneous control and response in complex autonomous systems (Borne, 2014). * Increase operational efficiency, power new business models, and improve quality of life (Harrell, 2015). * Provide an accurate analysis of customer data (Medici, 2015).
Some Applications of IoF Business intelligence (BI). “The BI application ensures the analysis and measurement of the consumer’s thoughts, behaviors, relationships, buying attitudes, choices, and many more parameters that form the backbone of effective strategy building, business operations management, customer relationship management, and other business operations” (Chang, Mishra, & Lin, 2015, p. 4). The incorporation of IoT in BI solutions can lead to huge development in measuring and analyzing various business resources. The IoT enables a network of smart objects the BI-environment to ensure globally distributed data delivery to cloud applications (Mishra, Chang, & Lin, 2015). The bulk of IoT gathered data can be accessed for purposes of business analytics without any network or communication barriers (Mishra et al., 2015). smart streetlights. Beside the main function of lighting streets, smart streetlights they are mounted with different types of sensors that can measure traffic, weather, pollution, and/or light level (Swedberg, 2015). They are connected with each other and send data to a main server through IoT technologies. The main potential benefit of smart streetlights is enabling cities to monitor and minimize power consumption (Swedberg, 2015).
The Future of IoT Nowadays, there are 10 billion connected devices (Harrell, 2015). It is anticipated that number will grow exponentially to 50 billion devices by the 2020 (Harrell, 2015). See Figure 2. Another futuristic anticipation about IoT is that 90% of new vehicles sold in 2020 will have on-board connectivity platforms, as compared with 10% in 2012 (Swan, 2012).
Figure 2. The accelerated growth of Internet-connected devices (Swan, 2012)

Drawbacks Despite the potential benefits of IoT, there are many risks that it brings to users. The first one is individuals’ privacies. It violates privacy through unauthorized surveillance, uncontrolled data generation and use, inadequate authentication, and information security risks (Caron et al., 2016). The second risk comes from cyber criminals and nation states new and unforeseen ways to potentially gain access to privet information (Harrell, 2015; O’Connor, 2016). The third risk is that “IoT devices could be used as infection vectors to spread malware across organizations” (Harrell, 2015).

References
Borne, K. (2014, August 6). 14 Benefits and Forces That Are Driving The Internet of Things. Retrieved February 21, 2016, from https://www.mapr.com/blog/14-benefits-and-forces-are-driving-internet-things
Caron, X., Bosua, R., Maynard, S. B., & Ahmad, A. (2016). The Internet of Things (IoT) and its impact on individual privacy: An Australian perspective. Computer Law & Security Review, 32(1), 4–15. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.clsr.2015.12.001
Chang, H.-T., Mishra, N., & Lin, C.-C. (2015). IoT Big-Data Centred Knowledge Granule Analytic and Cluster Framework for BI Applications: A Case Base Analysis. PLoS ONE, 10(11), 1–23. http://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0141980
Harrell, S. (2015, January 8). New Opportunities, New Risks: The Internet of Things and Business Innovation. Retrieved February 22, 2016, from http://www.cio.com/article/2865766/internet-of-things/new-opportunities-new-risks-the-internet-of-things-and-business-innovation.html
Medici, L. de’. (2015, December 6). IoT And Social Media - Challenges And Benefits. Retrieved from https://wtvox.com/internet-of-things-iot/iot-and-social-media/
Mishra, N., Chang, H.-T., & Lin, C.-C. (2015). An IoT Knowledge Reengineering Framework for Semantic Knowledge Analytics for BI-Services. Mathematical Problems in Engineering, 2015, 1–12. http://doi.org/10.1155/2015/759428
O’Connor, M. (2016, January 11). How Can Companies Make IoT Products More Secure? Retrieved February 20, 2016, from http://www.iotjournal.com/articles/view?13914
Rouse, M. (2014, June). What is Internet of Things (IoT)? Retrieved February 21, 2016, from http://internetofthingsagenda.techtarget.com/definition/Internet-of-Things-IoT
Swan, M. (2012). Sensor Mania! The Internet of Things, Wearable Computing, Objective Metrics, and the Quantified Self 2.0. Journal of Sensor and Actuator Networks, 1(3), 217–253. http://doi.org/10.3390/jsan1030217
Swedberg, C. (2015, November 16). Jakarta IOT-enabling 10,000 Streetlights. Retrieved February 20, 2016, from http://www.iotjournal.com/articles/view?13742