Future Applications
Health care (14 percent), urban usage (13 percent) and automotive (12 percent) applications ranked high in their potential for future IoT applications. Tracking health statistics will dramatically impact the medical community as well as the general public as a whole. However, the bridge between gathering health data and sharing it safely and securely with the proper health care providers remains a key challenge for this sector. Codifying standards that will allow these diverse devices to safely communicate with one another is a key hurdle currently being addressed. The FDA, for example, has been working on standards for medical devices for many years.
The automotive industry is also facing scrutiny around the security of connected devices in cars. The recent demo of the hacking of a connected Jeep Cherokee demonstrated the ability for a hacker to drive it off the road, vividly illustrating the problems inherent in IoT security. Securing these devices is particularly daunting given the activity of hacker communities and the skills gap between many smaller development shops and the larger security community. In order to move IoT adoption forward, these factors will need to be addressed.