Through the Internet, humans have connected the world. People are closer to each other than ever while still remaining apart. The next phase of the the Internet will be about connecting things. The Internet of Things will be central to the infrastructure that we build.(The "Futurist's Cheatsheet" series surveys technologies on the horizon: their promise, how likely they are, and when they might become part of our daily lives. This article is Part 5.)

Think of a thing. Really, it could be anything. A chair, a toaster, parts of a car, the lights in your house, the electricity meter, the security cameras in your offices, a fire hydrant, traffic lights really, anything or everything that can exist could be connected to the Internet. Another name for the Internet of Things is a network of things. The network can monitor your home, your car, infrastructure (utilities such as electricity or water), traffic patterns and a variety of other possibilities to create a more informed and responsive system through data analysis.

Do you really need an Internet-connected toaster? Probably not. But, the toaster is a good place to start when discussing the Internet of Things.

What would you expect from a smart toaster? Perhaps a touch screen on which to schedule cooking. It could be connected to the coffee pot, enabling the perfect breakfast for you as soon as you wake. Your toaster could be programmed from your computer or a mobile app. Say you are laying in bed and know you are going to sleep in the next day, pull out your smartphone and reprogram the toaster to start an hour later.

A toaster could have its own IP address on the Internet. In theory, you could visit your toasters site. Giving things a full IP address is one way to tie a thing to the Internet. Another way, and the way in which many things will be tied to the Internet, is for a thing to just have the ability to connect to the Internet, without and IP address.

Now, imagine that there is no digital interface on your toaster. In this case it is just a toaster that happens to have cellular or Wi-Fi capabilities and sensors to monitor how well it performs. It sends sensor data back to the manufacturer through Internet nodes and portals without an individual IP address. The manufacturer uses this data to know how its product is working in the wild, how often it is used, and use this data to make a better toaster.

Go back and replace the word toaster with anything, say, a power meter. The same concepts apply. An Internet of Things can use the Web as an interface, or just use the Internet to move data. That data can be used to interact with the network of things or just as a pipeline where data moves two ways, analyzed and used to make objects smarter and more responsive to peoples needs.

There are so many ways that an Internet of Things could impact peoples lives that it is hard to describe everything. Distilling it to a few key areas helps define what the scope of an Internet of Things could be: infrastructure (buildings and utilities), consumer (cars and homes), health care and businesses (consumer products and retail locations).

Weather-related sensors could help agriculture by monitoring the moisture in the air or ground and give farmers warning about droughts. Smart buildings can provide enhanced security for the people that enter them or warning on disasters such as earthquakes. Connected cars can improve traffic flows or allow functions to be controlled remotely. Items within the home (such as the toaster) can be controlled and monitored and even connected to each other.

Health care is an interesting avenue for the Internet of Things. Certain aspects of the body could be connected to the Internet. Heart sensors could give patients and doctors data to prevent disease. Sensors that monitor white blood cells could give cancer or AIDS patients warning of a relapse.

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Futurist's Cheat Sheet: Internet of Things