Messages from the future [Privacy Electronics]

The Internet of Things (IoT), as it stands in 2015, represents a collision between two worlds in electronic technology. The market for embedded systems - electronic devices that are not intended to have the screen, mouse and keyboard interface of a regular personal computer - used to be quite separate from that for conventional enterprise IT. Although the rise of the smartphone and tablet blurred the distinctions, the IOT represents the first large-scale attempt to bring embedded and enterprise systems together. Naturally that will result in a collision between the major players in multiple industries: from the companies designing circuits for the chips sitting inside tiny sensor nodes to vendors supplying servers or the software that runs on them.