Given the enormous amount of hype associated with the IoT, the question is reasonable. Fortunately, history offers us a guide to how this is likely to play out. Let’s quickly look at the factors that have typically brought new technologies into common use…

Smart Cities. Although not everyone has the same definition of “smart cities,” it surely means that the IoT is becoming pervasive within the municipal environment. One clever idea is to capture the movement of cellphones as a proxy for human activity, and use that (anonymized) data for applications that were previously not workable.

Intelligent Transportation. The impetus towards self-piloting vehicles is the obvious evolutionary step here. As per historical examples, to have cars, trucks and buses drive themselves require a great number of information technology, sensor and infrastructural technologies to come together. Clever linkages of sensor data streams that haven’t been leveraged before in combination, are aiding in the evolution.
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