Why Copyrighted Coffee May Cripple the Internet of Things

Limiting the interoperability of the Internet of Things could also restrict systems far less trivial than coffee or kitchen appliances; it might have the greatest impact on infrastructure, in important questions that get decided far from the eyes of everyday consumers. As Kominers points out, hospitals are starting to benefit from interconnected sensors, which are finding their way into everything from medication dispensers to doctors’ pens to even (though monitoring devices) the patients themselves. One might hope that hospitals would ensure interoperability within their own internal systems. But without open standards, one hospital’s “Intranet of Things” might not be able to talk to another hospital’s network, causing much usable data to be lost.

Source: WIRED