Internet of things

Photo of author

Grammarist

The Internet of things is a term that is becoming more and more popular. We will examine the definition of the term the Internet of things, where it came from and some examples of its use in sentences.

The Internet of things is the connection of devices through the Internet computer network. Devices included in the Internet of things include home appliances, personal activity trackers and vehicles. The idea is that items connected to the Internet of things can communicate with each other for maximum efficiency. The first appliance connected to the Internet was a Coca Cola machine at Carnegie Mellon University, designed in 1982 to report its inventory and whether the cans of soft drinks in the machine were cold. Kevin Ashton, the cofounder of the Auto-ID Center at MIT coined the term the Internet of things in 1999. With such a new term, there is little agreement on how it should be capitalized. First of all, the word Internet was first spelled with a capital I, though today it is often seen with a lower case i. The phrase the Internet of things, however, is almost always spelled with the I in Internet capitalized. Secondly, the t in the word things in the phrase the Internet of things is often seen capitalized, as in the Internet of Things. However, the Oxford English Dictionary spells the word things in the Internet of things with a lower case t.

Examples

Glasgow’s Internet of Things (IoT) network has enhanced the quality and range of its coverage with the addition of a ninth gateway at the City of Glasgow College’s new Riverside Campus on the south bank of the Clyde. (The Scotsman)

Originally coined by Massachusetts Institute of Technology researcher Kevin Ashton in the late 1990s, the term “Internet of things” refers to the networking of small physical devices such as sensors, cameras and microphones through the internet. (The Dartmouth)

Most unfortunate are the many users of the internet of things, which includes pretty much anyone who has ever owned a smart home or drove a smart car, who may not receive these patches until it’s too late. (Forbes Magazine)