It-enabled Business Innovation

O ver the past few decades, the Internet has grown to allow people to access and consume services on a global scale using traditional hosts and always-connected mobile devices such as smartphones, typically over the World Wide Web. By connecting objects and devices, the Internet of Things (IoT) will fully exploit networking’s potential and enable the application of innovative services to a large set of scenarios, such as home and building automation, smart cities, and healthcare. This will integrate new paradigms for human-to-machine (H2M) and machine-tomachine (M2M) interaction. Many IoT applications will let users interact with smart environments that provide them with information and change and adapt according to their needs and preferences, with or without these users in the loop. IoT applications will exploit the large diffusion and pervasive deployment of smart objects—tiny devices equipped with a microcontroller, a communication interface (wired or wireless), a power supply, and a set of sensors and actuators that are used to interface with the surrounding environment. Several players are developing innovative IoT-related products in a variety of fields even as users are becoming aware of the integration between the physical and cyber worlds. This “gold rush” is driven on one hand by the desire to demonstrate the feasibility of interconnecting everyday devices to people and on the other hand by the intent to make custom solutions possible standards for the general public. This has created a plethora of closed vertical solutions, leading to a highly fragmented market: a babel of incompatible solutions instead of a highly standardized and interoperable environment, which is what the Internet (of Things) should be like.1 To prevent the IoT from reaching a dead WEARABLE COMPUTING