Throwback Thursday: Before the Internet of Everything (IoE)

Happy Throwback Thursday! I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season, with a great start to the new year.

For the first throwback of the year, I thought I would dive into a hot topic of 2014, the Internet of Everything (IoE). More and more devices are connecting to the internet daily. In the past (circa 2003), only 500 million devices were connected. (The Internet of Things: How the Next Evolution of the Internet Is Changing Everything) That sounds like a lot for that time, but when you look at it from a world population stand point, it is less than one device for every person in the world. 

As of 2012, Cisco found that the number of devices connected to the Internet was about 8.7 billion. (How Many Things Are Currently Connected to the “Internet of Things” (IoT)?) Since the launch of Smartphones and tablets, the amount of devices connected to the internet has increased significantly, meaning there is a little over one device connected to the internet per person. This massive increase can be correlated with the launch of Apple's iPhone and other smartphones/tablets. Smartphones are not the only smart machines on the market though, there are smart cars, smart TV’s, smart refrigerators, even smart coffee machines. The goal of the IoE is for all these different devices to be able to work with each other; Bridging the communication gap between man and machine.    

The predictions for the future of the IoE are positive. Leading analyst firms and Fortune 500 companies agree that by 2015 there will be an estimated 15 billion devices connected and by 2020 there will be over 30 billion devices connected to the Internet. What do you think about these numbers? Will the IoE change the way we live for the better?   

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