Each year in Australia, for example, biologists plant a million or so plots of different types of grain to see which grow best in a wide variety of conditions. These plots are situated all over the country and create a logistical nightmare for the relatively small team who must monitor both the environmental conditions and the rate of growth of the plants. Their solution is a wireless sensor network that monitors what’s going on and sends the data back to the High Resolution Plant Phenomics Centre in Canberra which runs the experiments. These sensors are currently deployed at just 40 sites and generate some 2 million data points per week.
Various cities have kitted out their transport networks with sensors that broadcast the position of buses, trams and trains and make this data available to the public.
via 2013: The year of the Internet of Things | MIT Technology Review.
