The Internet of things (IoT), is dominating the media these days. Some say IoT itself is probably a misnomer. For instance, futurist and inventor Ray Kurzweil says it really ought to be called the “Internet of everything” (IoE). Whenever we hear IoT, the first thing many start talking about is M2M or machine-to-machine communication, enabling us to get ever-expanding amounts of data, but what about the other things involved?

Google certainly gets that these data will need parsing, contextualizing, and analysis to turn it into usable information. That is one of the reasons the company is investing heavily in the manufacturing sector. The end-user of that information is intended to be us—people. So it is as much about allowing us to benefit from expanding connectivity as it is about the connectivity itself, hence the idea behind the Internet of everything.

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