That's just embedded systems that have always been there though isn't it? Someone just stuck a marketing label on it.

"Big data" things used to be data warehousing. "Cloud based" used to be "web based". Maybe I a too old and cynical, but I rarely see genuinely new things, just rehashes of old things.

Yes. I think you've just been through a couple of cycles now like myself. Cynicism comes from watching the last disaster unfold :)

But embedded systems (as far as I know) weren't by default internet connected. They weren't easily merged with other APIs (again this may be my limited knowledge) to provide a more holistic vision of a system. They weren't easily accessible to be consumed as valuable data in real-time on phones.

Yes, an embedded system could get the soil conditions on a farm, but what did it do with that data? How was it made available to an end user.

So, I don't disagree that embedded systems have been in existence for a long time, but I think what we're seeing is the equivalent of moving from Compuserve to the WWW, and I think at the time, many people would have said that all the world-wide web was doing was making the information available through Compuserve's forums and networks distributed. But in reality, it was the early stages of a massive sea-change in how the technology is used.