History
The definition of the Internet of things has evolved due to convergence
of multiple technologies, real-time analytics, machine learning,
commodity sensors, and embedded systems. Traditional fields of embedded
systems, wireless sensor networks, control systems, automation
(including home and building automation), and others all contribute to
enabling the Internet of things.
The concept of a network of smart devices was discussed as early as
1982, with a modified Coke machine at Carnegie Mellon University
becoming the first Internet-connected appliance, able to report its
inventory and whether newly loaded drinks were cold. Mark Weiser’s 1991
paper on ubiquitous computing, “The Computer of the 21st Century”, as
well as academic venues such as UbiComp and PerCom produced the
contemporary vision of IoT. In 1994, Reza Raji described the concept in
IEEE Spectrum as “[moving] small packets of data to a large set of
nodes, so as to integrate and automate everything from home appliances
to entire factories”. Between 1993 and 1997, several companies proposed
solutions like Microsoft’s at Work or Novell’s NEST. The field gained
momentum when Bill Joy envisioned Device to Device (D2D) communication
as part of his “Six Webs” framework, presented at the World Economic
Forum at Davos in 1999.
The term “Internet of things” was likely coined by Kevin Ashton of
Procter & Gamble, later MIT’s Auto-ID Center, in 1999, though he
prefers the phrase “Internet for things”. At that point, he viewed
Radio-frequency identification (RFID) as essential to the Internet of
things, which would allow computers to manage all individual things.
A research article mentioning the Internet of things was submitted to
the conference for Nordic Researchers in Logistics, Norway, in June
2002, which was preceded by an article published in Finnish in January
2002. The implementation described there was developed by Kary Fršmling
and his team at Helsinki University of Technology and more closely
matches the modern one, i.e. an information system infrastructure for
implementing smart, connected objects.