The beginning of a inflection point for law, business and technology is staring at us. The Internet of Things has quickly become a new frontier for technology vendors to explore, the corporate world to consider, and the legal community to fear.
What is the IoT? Everyday objects—such as household appliances, light bulbs, coffee machines, automobiles, personal devices and health devices— that have network connectivity and can send and receive data without human interaction. A simple example: The Nest thermostat that can "learn" your heating and cooling preferences and then adjust them automatically.
Today there are around 10 billion Internet-connected devices in the world. According to Morgan Stanley, by 2020, there will be 75 billion. This huge projected rise in IoT devices strongly suggests we are at a defining moment in technology history. IoT qualifies as a potential inflection point due to the fact that each individual’s personal digital world will be able to interact with the world in general, autonomously. This independent (machine to machine) communication capability will also generate a great deal more data subject to potential federal oversight, litigation (e-discovery), and data breaches.