Is There a Future for the Internet of Things?

I think we all want applications in so many different areas that generate and process so much data. One of the coolest projects I heard about was actually from academia, this is Professor Tim McKay in the physics department at the University of Michigan. He noticed some freshman students were having trouble with their very first courses at Michigan. So he decided to deploy data analytics and a big data approach to look at the various performance and behavioral indicators from students. And based on the analysis  he was able to send early warnings to students to tell them about how they should be managing their course load.