The Internet of things – Synergy Between Virtual and Real Word

The Internet of Things is a fast developing phenomenon playing an important role in more and more areas of human activity. It creates new powerful opportunities to improve efficiency, quality, accuracy and gains from the use of information systems. IoT can be also seen as an idea of strengthening the link between virtual and real world that creates and amplifies many synergy effects. Due to its power, size, value, possibilities but also threats of use, IoT should be (now and in the near future) one of main concerns of both regulators, managers, administration representatives and casual users. The publication presents the results of literature research in the area of synergy effects created by Internet of Things. The author discusses IoT not only from the technical point of view but tries to build a holistic ecosystem consisting of technical, economical, educational, law and social components. The main parts of the article are: IoT as interconnection between virtual and real world, IoT application areas, advantages and threats of IoT, regulation issues and finally some predictions about the future IoT development. The research shows that IoT is an important phenomenon, and will be even more important in near future, especially in the areas of process automation, infrastructure management, marketing, object tracking, education, and ICT law. IoT is also a great opportunity for developing countries (e.g. its appearance in global trade), gives also the ability to reduce the importance of cultural differences in international cooperation. It allows running and or strengthening many synergy effects. However power of strong interconnection between virtual and real world can be not only a source of new possibilities but also brings concerns and problems especially in the area of privacy, security and intellectual property. IoT future development is inevitable and should be seen as a next step of the information revolution.