The Internet of Things (IoT) is becoming an increasingly growing topic of conversation both in the workplace and home alike. It’s a concept that not only has the potential to impact how we live and work, but could change the foundation of all things technology-based.
But what exactly is IoT? Simply put, this is the concept of basically connecting any device with an on and off switch to the Internet (and/or to each other). This includes everything from cellphones, coffee makers, washing machines, headphones, lamps, wearable devices and almost anything else you can think of. Any stand-alone internet-connected device that can be monitored and/or controlled from a remote location is considered an IoT device.
It has been said that the vision of IoT could not be realized without semantic technologies. The IoT thrives on working with live data from many different data sources. For such a communication structure objects must be unambiguously defined in terms of their relevant characteristics. To be able to enrich data from different data sources we need interfaces as well as common ontologies, which allow for linking different data sets with each other. To achieve this is the exact task of semantic technologies.
Connected to the internet and equipped with sensors, these devices power much of the developing data-based economy and bridge the divide between the physical and digital worlds. When something is connected to the internet, that means that it can send information or receive information, or both. This ability to send and/or receive information makes things smart, and smart is good, most of the time.
There is an ever growing interest and wide adoption of IoT. Web technologies are unleashing the true potential of designing a broad range of high-quality consumer applications. Smart cities, smart buildings, and e-health are among various application domains which are currently benefiting and will continue to benefit from these technologies in a foreseeable future.
Similarly, semantic technologies have proven their effectiveness in various domains and a few of the multiple challenges which semantic web technologies are addressing.
IoT is considered as a potential technology for solving a wide range of social problems and providing services in a variety of fields by allowing various devices to access and interact with each other through the Internet.
Melody K. Smith
Sponsored by Access Innovations, the world leader in taxonomies, metadata, and semantic enrichment to make your content findable.
