{"id":5620,"date":"2013-10-07T11:06:10","date_gmt":"2013-10-07T10:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.mentor.com\/colinwalls\/?p=5620"},"modified":"2026-03-26T16:41:41","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T20:41:41","slug":"the-next-big-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/2013\/10\/07\/the-next-big-thing\/","title":{"rendered":"The next Big Thing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Way back when I first started this blog, I wrote about the way that embedded development is subject to fads and fashions<\/a>. Even though embedded developers are conservative and only adopt new technologies and ideas when they address real problems, when such adoption does occur it is always seen as a Big Thing. Every couple of years, something comes along that fits this category.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I have found it interesting to observe the arrival, the brief reign, and the descent into some level of obscurity [or normality] of numerous such technologies. What is hard [and risky] is to try to see them coming …<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Crystal ball gazing is probably never wise, but I am going to put my head on the line and predict what everyone will be talking about next year at Embedded World and DESIGN West [or ESC or whatever they call it now there is no DESIGN East]. That topic is the use of the Internet by non-humans. It used to be called M2M [machine to machine], but is now normally referred to as the Internet of Things [IoT] and it also encompasses the whole Smart Energy space.<\/p>\n

I am not saying this because of my own involvement – I recently chaired an online panel on Smart Energy<\/a> – but because of what I see in the news. Here is what I picked up [from just embedded.com] over the last month alone:<\/p>\n