Understanding the Internet of Things: definition, potentials, and societal role of a fast evolving paradigm.

The high penetration rate of new technologies in all the activities of everyday life is fostering the belief that for any new societal challenge there is always an ICT solution able to successfully deal with it. Recently, the solution that is proposed almost anytime is the “Internet of Things” (IoT). This apparent panacea of the ICT world takes different aspects on and, actually, is identified with different (often very different) technological solutions. As a result, many think that IoT is just RFIDs, others think that it is sensor networks, and yet others that it is machine-to-machine communications. In the meanwhile, industrial players are taking advantage of the popularity of IoT to use it as a very trendy brand for technology solutions oriented to the consumer market. The scientific literature sometimes does not help much in clarifying, as it is rich in definitions of IoT often discordant between them.