Editor’s Note: I’m excited to share today’s Daily with our readers… it’s loaded with a ton of fascinating, useful information. But I’m especially honored to feature our first item today. It’s from the Palm Beach Research Group’s publisher, Tom Dyson. You’re going to start seeing a lot more of Tom in these pages in the weeks and months ahead…

From Tom Dyson, publisher, the Palm Beach Research Group:

“Is this an April Fools’ Day joke?”

That was the first thing I thought when I heard about Amazon’s new Dash Button.

The Dash Button is a little plastic button with adhesive tape on the back. You’re doing the laundry. You’re running out of detergent. You press the button, which is stuck to the front of your washing machine. Two days later, a box arrives with a refill of Tide. Or you’re shaving. You insert the last razor blade on your razor. Press the Dash Button by the sink, and two days later, a new pack of razor cartridges arrives.

Amazon’s Dash Button is part of a trend researchers are calling the “Internet of Things” (IoT).

According to Business Insider, the Internet of Things will overtake the Internet of smartphones, tablets, and PCs market—in terms of number of devices—this year.

By 2018, it’ll be more than twice the size.

The Internet of Things is more than “just” a buzzword. It’s one of the largest investing trends we’ll see since the Internet itself. The trend involves the connection of everyday devices, from kitchen appliances to heart monitors, to the Internet.

Take Starbucks, for example. Right now, people use Starbucks’ Wi-Fi to connect their phones, laptops, and tablets to the Internet. It might sound silly now, but in a few years, every single “thing” in the store, like the espresso machine… the cash register… and maybe each chair and table, will have their own connections, too.

When this wave of machine-to-machine communication emerges, it will usher in a new age of automation. Technology research firm Gartner predicts the Internet of Things will connect 26 billion units by 2020.

“Trying to determine the market size of the Internet of Things is like trying to calculate the market for plastics, circa 1940,” says Michael Nelson, the former director of Internet technology at IBM. “At that time, it was difficult to imagine that plastics could be in everything.”

Networking giant Cisco reports between 2013 and 2022, $14.4 trillion of value (net profit) will be “up for grabs” for enterprises globally—driven by the IoT.

Early investors in this trend stand to make fortunes. There are literally millions of opportunities for the companies that make the devices and benefit from the information the devices supply.

Our colleague, Teeka Tiwari, editor of Mega Trends Investing (MTI), has prepared a full report on the Internet of Things. He covers the full extent of the opportunity, explaining what the Internet of Things is and how it’s going to impact the economy.