From Augmented Reality to the Internet of Things: Paradigm Shifts in Digital Innovation Dynamics

In the past, “Augmented Reality” only meant that our real-world environment is extended by digital instruments which are equipped with sensor interfaces (sound, video, touching) to enhance men-machine communication. An even elder paradigm was “virtual reality” replacing the real world with a computationally simulated one. But, nowadays, exponential growth of computer capacities, Big Data and fast algorithms lead to a new paradigm with is called the “Internet of Things” (IoT) with dramatic change of our living world. Billions of objects (“things”) are equipped with trillions of sensors to communicate with one-another. This kind of machine-to-machine communication enables self-organizing IT-networks growing together with global technical and societal infrastructures: Smart cities, smart grids, smart mobility, and the industrial internet (Industry 4.0) are examples of cyberphysical systems. Reality is no longer only “augmented” by IT-technology. It is changed into a new kind of self-organizing superorganism controlled by fast Big Data algorithms as nervous system.