The Next Tech Boom: The Internet of Things

The chart shows the growth of the US software market from 1970, in the age of the mainframe, the 80’s which is the age of the personal computer, to the 90’s which is the age of the internet, to today’s age of social networks and mobile phones, which is approximately half-a-trillion dollars! Outside the US the market is even larger and growing at a faster rate!

The software industry is only beginning its upswing. It's only now where we're seeing its true potential. But what's next? What is the next technology gold rush that will create the next billionaires? The next boom in the industry is The Internet of Things.

Computers are getting smaller and cheaper at a blinding rate, and they're all connected to the internet. This means it's become practical to embed computers into almost every object imaginable.

Already, we have buses and trucks with embedded GPS-enabled devices that send back location information to their home base so they can be tracked in real-time. Livestock in free-range farms are being embedded with chips so their movements can be tracked and their health monitored. Farms are being embedded with sensors to determine moisture and nutrient content of soil. Underground water systems have pressure meters that send SMS messages back to control centers so that maintenance teams know exactly where to find and fix a broken pipe. Smart offices and smart homes contain sensors that detect if humans are in the room and will turn on or shut off lights and air-conditioning appropriately. You can now swallow a camera shaped like a pill that can take pictures of your digestive tract.

Yet every year computers half in cost and size, and available bandwidth doubles, leaving the floodgates wide open for even more applications for every smaller, cheaper computers connected to the internet. We will soon have computers on our clothes that will monitor our sweat, pulse rate and other vital signs and update our medical information or even call paramedics in an emergency. We might soon even have embedded computers monitoring our internal organs, and nanobots actively seeking out and destroying cancer cells. Your refrigerator will one day sense all the items inside it (which also have embedded chips) and make an automated order to the grocery store if your inventory of eggs is low, or will warn you if your milk has expired. Your car will inform your home when you're twenty minutes away so that your home can start warming the food you left in the microwave, turn on the air-conditioning and fill your bath tub.

Quite frankly, we haven't even begun to imagine what kind of applications we can create on the internet of things. Entirely new industries that we haven't even envisioned now will be created around these new technologies. One thing I'm certain of is that the next Bill Gateses, Larry Ellisons and Mark Zuckerbergs will make their fortunes on the Internet of Things.