Earlier this month, the Economist ran a special report on Smart Systems, otherwise known as the Internet of Things. The piece, entitled “It’s a Small World”, looked at the convergence of the real and digital worlds and the potential impact this has on us as a society.

If we think back, two decades ago the world was revolutionized by a similar type of network that provided people with a way to interact with each other – the Internet.  In the last decade the evolution of the Internet, defined as Web 2.0 by Tim O’Reilly in 2005, added user-generated content and created the concept of software applications engaging with each other directly. (more…)