There are a number of services targeting the Internet of Things market that provide a place to store and view data over the Internet. These services typically include a simple HTTP API for streaming data to them, as well as a web interface for viewing the stored data, both as raw samples and in various visual ways. The idea is that you'd have a device like a BeagleBone on a local network, say at your home, and it would be routinely sampling some sort of sensor, say measuring temperature. Every time it reads a new temperature value, the BeagleBone will send it to the remote service's database over the Internet. Then you would be able to go to a website from anywhere, say if you were traveling, and look at the current temperature in your home, as well as track your home's temperature in the past. This is not the most exciting example, but even this could be practical as you could know right away if your heating has stopped working, and you could call to have it serviced before...