1. Internet of Things
This probably comes as no surprise, but Manufacturing.net’s #1 Top Technology Shaping Manufacturing in 2015 is the Internet of Things movement. In 2015, the Internet of Things movement will become more widespread, more advanced, and more secure than ever before.
Just how widespread will the IoT be in 2015? An Embarcadero Technologies survey conducted by Dimensional Research reveals that 77% of development teams will have IoT solutions in active development in 2015, compared to only 12% in 2014.
New advances are also coming the IoT scene in 2015. Sansa Security’s article “The Top 6 IoT Predictions For 2015” claims that 2015 will be the year for device interoperability and a single user interface for your myriad of connected devices. They also predict the rise of the mesh network and widespread drone deliveries, the death of the password, and a new focus on curbing emissions with the launch of smart-city IoT service aggregators.
Quite possibly the biggest advances happening in IoT are happening right here in the manufacturing sector. Earlier this month, GE Reports released their article “The Future of Big Data: Beyond the Internet of Things,” which argues, “The IoT is ultimately about connecting devices to people... But there’s another, arguably deeper change taking place: the Industrial Internet. It’s less about remote control and more about machine intelligence and allowing things like wind turbines, locomotives and jet engines to talk and understand each other.” GE alone is already using the Industrial Internet to power railroads, pipelines, power grids, and subsea wells.
IoT has definitely expanded beyond the manufacturing sector’s Industrial Internet. Now, virtually everything can be connected to the internet, and this growing number of connections also means growing security risks. Sue Poremba of Forbes wrote yesterday, “However, if we know that virtually everything can now be connected to the Internet, we have to recognize its corollary statement: everything that can be connected to the Internet can be hacked.”
In addition to new applications and more widespread use, one can hope that the Internet of Things Movement in 2015 will mean drastic advances in security.
For more on the Internet of Things movement, be sure to check out Manufacturing.net’s exclusive video series, The IoT Uplink.
