IoT, short for the Internet of Things, is a hot topic these days, from boardrooms in technology companies down to developers, conferences, and the press. It is the next big thing everybody wants to have a piece of, so strategies and product portfolios are being compiled in order not to miss out. While everybody wants to be in IoT, it is less clear what these Things of the Internet actually are. A Thing does not imply something having a lot of complexity - so here is a simple definition: 

IoT: An endpoint device connected to the internet (able to communicate) with some intelligence (processing power) that is doing something (actively or passively/monitoring). 

To become a big market, it must be doing something useful, something which improves our lives, something we need and desperately want. Something that gets our wallets out. The three categories in IoT that are mostly likely to attract buyers are Lighting, mHealth, and Connected Video. In this blog I will look at them in more detail and review opportunities and challenges, in particular to guarantee safety.

New innovative products require new design styles. Google Glass came out a few months ago in April 2013 and has been all over the press. It is a striking design, in which the developers managed to put all electronics into a small box attached to the frame of the glasses. While impressively small, the designers would doubtlessy like to fit everything into the frame instead of having an annoying box on the side. This means that all components need to be long and thin, in particular the integrated circuits (ICs). However, making ICs long and thin so that they can be mounted inside the frame is easier said than done. This blog discusses the challenges and possible approaches to achieve it.