The Internet of Things and Big Data

I’ve been following the developments in the “Internet of Things” and Big Data / Open Data markets as new apps and tools are released and they look to be two exciting technologies on a collision course. With the advent of internet connected home appliances like Wattvision and Nest that provide real utility to the average home owner at reasonable prices along with crowd funded projects like Air Quality Egg or Twine we should see an explosion in the kinds and amount of useful and real-time or near real-time data that is available to anyone with a smartphone. Health metric or “quantitative self” tracking devices such as Fitbit, Jawbone Up, and the Pebble watch will fuel this data explosion as well.
Racing to manage and make sense of this new information are some exciting startups and tools like BuzzData, Silk, and Wolfram Alpha Pro. I’d expect to see an increasing number of smartphone and tablet apps developed to help mobile users make sense of and to also generate more data.
Will these internet connected devices rapidly supplant  our current range of “dumb” belongings just as smartphones quickly are dumb feature phones? Will the tools to manage it all be able to keep up? Interesting times ahead for sure.