Abstract
In the past, the Internet connected people together; recently, however it has been extended to the Internet of Things (IoT), allowing all things in the physical world to be connected. We call a new society in which everything is connected through IoT a 'hyper-connected society'. IoT for a hyper-connected society is more than just connecting things to the Internet, it is an infrastructure providing intelligent services without human intervention by connecting things to the Internet using sensors and communication functions, collecting data from connected things, and analyzing and predicting information. Therefore, IoT is a convergence technology that includes not only sensors and communication networks but also big data and AI. This paper examines the short history of IoT, reviews its current trends, and finally, discusses its future direction.