Preface
Greetings from a bygone era! We are writing this preface in May 2019, in the year
that fully autonomous and self-driving vehicles are not yet available. That being
said, we expect this book to be suitable for review and for classroom discussion
topics, as well as for practicing engineers and business managers who need to
obtain a deep technical understanding, even in 2025, when over 70 billion connected
devices are forecast. In 2019, the Internet of Things (IoT) tsunami has already
affected all aspects of our lives, from smart homes, smart cars, and smart city to
smart health and smart environment. People benefit from automatically controlled
room temperature/light to face recognition-based payment systems to various digital
voice assistants. But we expect that even bigger waves are coming as the result
of the convergence of IoT, artificial intelligence, machine learning, deep learning,
distributed ledger technology, big data, and 5G. What we see in Sci-Fi movies will
materialize to tangible and affordable technologies being tacitly integrated with our
daily routine. This transformation can be truly seen, heard, and touched by everyone.
In this technology revolution, we can never ignore the vast infrastructure
change beneath. The IoT wave is built upon rapidly growing and prevailing
cloud technologies, evolution of edge technologies, miniaturization of devices,
and powerful acceleration of computing capability in edge devices. Furthermore,
machine learning and data science, as a core of artificial intelligence, empower
the device, edge, and cloud layers to become smarter. In light of the above, this
book presents a timely and comprehensive look at cutting-edge IoT technologies. It
guides the reader through the fundamentals, principles, architectures, applications,
challenges, and promises of the Internet of Things. This book is organized into two
parts. The first part addresses the details of IoT and its underlying technologies
from embedded systems to cloud computing and big data analytics. The second
part discusses the interaction of IoT and healthcare which heralds a paradigm
shift in this important area by providing many advantages, including availability
and accessibility, ability to personalize and tailor content, and cost-effective health
delivery.
vii
Greetings from a bygone era! We are writing this preface in May 2019, in the year
that fully autonomous and self-driving vehicles are not yet available. That being
said, we expect this book to be suitable for review and for classroom discussion
topics, as well as for practicing engineers and business managers who need to
obtain a deep technical understanding, even in 2025, when over 70 billion connected
devices are forecast. In 2019, the Internet of Things (IoT) tsunami has already
affected all aspects of our lives, from smart homes, smart cars, and smart city to
smart health and smart environment. People benefit from automatically controlled
room temperature/light to face recognition-based payment systems to various digital
voice assistants. But we expect that even bigger waves are coming as the result
of the convergence of IoT, artificial intelligence, machine learning, deep learning,
distributed ledger technology, big data, and 5G. What we see in Sci-Fi movies will
materialize to tangible and affordable technologies being tacitly integrated with our
daily routine. This transformation can be truly seen, heard, and touched by everyone.
In this technology revolution, we can never ignore the vast infrastructure
change beneath. The IoT wave is built upon rapidly growing and prevailing
cloud technologies, evolution of edge technologies, miniaturization of devices,
and powerful acceleration of computing capability in edge devices. Furthermore,
machine learning and data science, as a core of artificial intelligence, empower
the device, edge, and cloud layers to become smarter. In light of the above, this
book presents a timely and comprehensive look at cutting-edge IoT technologies. It
guides the reader through the fundamentals, principles, architectures, applications,
challenges, and promises of the Internet of Things. This book is organized into two
parts. The first part addresses the details of IoT and its underlying technologies
from embedded systems to cloud computing and big data analytics. The second
part discusses the interaction of IoT and healthcare which heralds a paradigm
shift in this important area by providing many advantages, including availability
and accessibility, ability to personalize and tailor content, and cost-effective health
delivery.
vii