Although the concept wasn't named until 1999, the Internet of
Things has been in development for decades. The first Internet
appliance, for example, was a Coke machine at Carnegie Melon
University in the early 1980s. The programmers could connect to
the machine over the Internet, check the status of the machine
and determine whether or not there would be a cold drink
awaiting them, should they decide to make the trip down to the
machine.