The newest development in the technical world today is smart buildings, buildings. This development has been riding the wave of IOT. It has been expected that demand for such buildings will increase to 70% by 2050. Smart cities are also a possibility, using linking devices to communicate with each other thus making it possible to analyze huge amounts of data in real time. Efficient infrastructure and storage for the information is a necessity. This set of IOT solutions has huge potential which seek to improve quality of life and well-being clubbed with increased efficiency, productivity and economic growth. Similarly, the transport sector can also be upgraded by IOT. Smart transport for these smart cities can soon be a reality. To know more, please follow: http://www.dataversity.net/how-cities-will-benefit-from-the-smart-buildings/

Uncontrolled urbanization is posing as a great threat as it puts immense pressure on the resources available. Some of the issues that will be faced in this scenario are clean water, clean air, power, waste management and living space.
Big Data and Internet of Things (IoT) are some of the technological forces which are pushing towards smart cities. With the help of Big Data a range of applications are being made available with the help of which smart cities can be made more livable. Applications like smart street lights are already being used in smart cities like Birmingham. Street lights are attached with sensors which monitor footfall and noise levels and based on this data, the light turns on or off. Cities like Bristol, England are installing an infrastructural network that will support the data generated through Big Data and IoT.
These examples are minor steps in building of Smart cities which can sustain growing population without hampering the quality of life. Read more at: https://icrunchdatanews.com/big-data-building-smart-cities/

A certain cross-country survey revealed that the Internet of Things (IoT) was first adopted by the Healthcare Industry. Organizations that adopted the IoT, believed that they could meet business challenges like patient engagement, loyalty, safety and satisfaction without any delay.
According to Laura DiDio, Director of IoT Strategies Enterprise, the need for IoT is felt highly by enterprises to address and solve pragmatic business issues. Andrew Brown, SA’s Executive Director of IoT and Mobility says that IoT can also be used for cost savings, development of new services, increased competitiveness and better understanding of the business.
It can be said that the Internet of Things has great potential in the field of healthcare and with evolvement of mobile capabilities its growth rate will be escalated.
Read more at: http://healthitanalytics.com/news/healthcare-industry-is-an-early-internet-of-things-adopter

Some of the unconventional ways in which Internet of Things (IoT) creates economic and social value are by detection of earthquakes in hospitals and alerting the administration for evacuating patients, reporting and assessing severity of car crashes and thus helping the victims to get help faster.
Certain examples that show how IoT is integral to several industries:
• The era of “Agriculture 3.0” was characterized by farmers whose decisions about what crop to plant and when and where to plant them was based on analysis of sensor data, weather data and other factors. This form of farming helps increase the yield in a cost and resource efficient manner.
• European airplane manufacturing company uses scanners In airplane assembly lines in order to send required information to robots who then finish the work accordingly.
• Internet of Things is used in Restaurant business for ensuring data-driven quality control.
With decreasing cost of connected devices, the scope of IoT will keep increasing in the future.
Read more at: http://www.smartdatacollective.com/joshua-new/329188/internet-ordinary-things-still-extraordinary

Keeping tabs on products just got easier for manufacturers and retailers. Smart sensors, a part of IOT has enabled tracking of products from manufacturing till the time it gets sold. This technology has drastically reduced waste. Not only that, usage data could be collected throwing light on usage patterns and thereby helping improve the product from a consumer perspective. Interestingly it would help optimize product revenue and collect specific information related to individual consumers that might be used to expand sales or even invalidate warranty.  This sort of monitoring does not go down well with a section of consumers who believe this is an invasion of privacy. In this age of IOT, clear boundaries should be set demarcating what is acceptable in consideration of the benefits. To know more, please follow: http://www.dataversity.net/are-smart-products-getting-too-smart/

It depends on the enterprises' ability to find value in IOT generated data and come up with metadata fabric that enables efficient data analysis. Metadata fabric works in sync with IOT to benefit the enterprise. It can be viewed as the storehouse of business intellectual property. It makes data driven decisions a lot easier. Metadata fabric transforms unified interpretation of data and analytics into layman format and interface easily understood by businesses. IOT ecosystem often throws challenges as the number of unique data sets collected is smaller than the number of applications that need it. Introduction of an intermediate curation layer can solve this governance problem. The aim of the governance system should be to reduce onboarding cost with increasing chances of success. Optimization should also check for homogeneity in the collected data. To know more, please follow:

http://www.dataversity.net/data-governance-the-metadata-fabric-and-the-internet-of-things/

The dynamic interaction between human and artificial intelligence, is going to revolutionize the way, people perceive their IOT (Internet of Things) environment. IoT has numerous applications in businesses, from products like intelligent refrigerator and self-driven cars, to impacting a company’s costs and earnings. Artificial intelligence can help in understanding, say the time required to service a product, the cost incurred in the process and also the substitutes of the product. This knowledge helps in reducing production cost, generates new revenue opportunities, and also aids in diversification of the company in terms of new products. Read more at: 

http://venturebeat.com/2015/06/24/the-internet-of-everything-how-iot-and-machine-learning-will-revolutionize-your-business-webinar/

With IoT becoming the norm rather than the exception, there is an overwhelming amount of customer data at the disposal of companies. But with huge data comes huge challenges. The challenge of combining, cleaning and shaping data before the analysis. Cari Jaquet, vice president of marketing at Paxata, in a special guest feature in Inside Bigdata talks about why data preparation solutions are important to make data more consumable. According to a recent Gartner report, it has been advised to use simple data preparation tools to first, save analysts time and second simplify the task of data preparation from diverse sources. For a deeper insight into data preparation follow the link  http://insidebigdata.com/2015/06/19/data-preparation-the-key-to-unravelling-the-big-data-opportunity/

Self-learning machines need data to learn. So one possible way to get the data that is being generated from all the devices being used across the world is IoT-Internet of Things. Devices communicate with each other and are interconnected through various networks. This could help advance many fields especially medical field. But a standard protocol has to be developed for devices to communicate with each other. It was proposed that the protocol should take care of safety of humans, security of IT infrastructure.

To read more, follow: http://www.v3.co.uk/v3-uk/analysis/2410409/big-data-and-iot-powered-self-learning-machines-wont-take-over-the-world

While, IoT revolution is taking place all over the world, there are still some points that need to be taken into consideration to increase its use. One such point is its use in South East Asia.

Recently, Asia M2M IoT Business Platform 2015 conference was conducted in Bangkok, which focused on this issue. Although mobile technology adoption rate is very high in this subcontinent, people’s response to other new technologies is not that much. They are hesitant towards new technology.

Dana Blouin, Researcher at SIIT, who had attended this conference as a speaker, has listed down key themes discussed there. They are:

• Erratic Adoption
• Use What Customers Know
• The Value of the Smartphone

These points need to be kept in mind to make IoT, a more common phenomenon.

To know more, please read the following article at cmswire.com:

http://www.cmswire.com/internet-of-things/how-to-put-the-iot-in-the-hands-of-your-customers/

According to Bart Schouw, Director of IBO Solutions for Germany-based Software AG:

“The Internet of Things is a revolution. There will be serious threats to those who are not prepared and profitable opportunities for those who are issues such as security and governance will need to be addressed as IoT begins to impact more and more of our daily lives.”

In his report, eight insights on IoT are listed, that must be taken into consideration. Some of them are:

• Don’t Gamble
• Tap Analytics
• Pay-As-You-Go
• Expect More Regulation

To know more, please read this interesting article by David Roe, at cmswire.com:

http://www.cmswire.com/internet-of-things/the-iot-challenge-make-use-of-the-data/

Internet of Things has taken the world with a storm. It has delivered opportunities to almost every industry and function. Supply chain is not an exception to this. With the increasing number of online businesses, the importance of this function of management has increased multifold. Combining internet of things with this has introduced us to a vast expanse of opportunities and made the supply chain smarter.

Maha Muzumdar, in his article at Industry Week has shared a list of supply chain opportunities that companies can exploit by leveraging IoT technology. They are:

• Better Predictability of Demand & Inventory Visibility
• Better Tracking & Efficiency
• Accelerated Innovation & Product Support
• Improved Alignment & Collaboration
• Sustainability & Quality

He has also stressed upon the fact that supply chain executives must adapt IoT in their processes as soon as possible to gain its maximum benefits.

To know more, please visit the following link:

http://www.industryweek.com/supply-chain/internet-things-iot-opportunities-smarter-supply-chains?page=1

IoT has been present since long. But, recently this concept has achieved infinite fame with its easy to use nature and its feature of simplifying the complex devices. With IoT’s horizon widening and Microsoft being the Cloud software giant, with its program called, Azure, there are humongous possibilities of getting the benefits of both by combining their usage.

Kevin Miller, Microsoft’s Principal Program Manager for Azure IoT, has shared best practices for creating IoT solutions with Azure. They are:

• Think big. Start small
• Telemetry First
• Stream Analytics
• Don’t interrupt the fast path
• Defense in depth

Follow these guidelines and try the magic that this synergy provides.

To know more, please read the following article by Jonathan Allen at infoq.com:

http://www.infoq.com/news/2015/04/Azure-IoT

According to IT research firm IDC report, IoT market will grow by 19% in 2015. The increasing importance of the IoT in manufacturing and operations market, leads to the growth of the IoT by $56.6billion. Digital Signage market, which is used in the retail sector, will be the major driver for growth and IoT retail market will grow from $6billion to $35.7billion by 2018 in this market. The main reason for increasing demand for IoT is decreasing prices and technology advancement. Read more at: http://www.informationweek.com/it-life/iot-market-will-grow-19-percent-in-2015-idc-predicts/d/d-id/1320500

Web-Connected devices that can talk to each other, transfer data, and carry out tasks without human interaction, are what make up the Internet of Things (IoT). These devices/ things are becoming popular among any firm looking for an edge. Generally IoT refers to devices in Consumer products such as Smart Phones, Smart cars etc. In Industrial sector these devices are used to build smart factories by integrating sensors and software to complex machinery. Growth of these devices will be very high as suggested by a report from Deloitte and there are only few firms working in IoT/Industrial Internet implying that there will be enormous opportunities for entrepreneurs in this sector.

As is the case with any budding technology, this area also faces challenges. Some of which are data security, addressing potential customers’ concerns about privacy, the lack of common standards between companies developing software for these devices; and the need to build physical infrastructure to support the collection and analysis of the data.Read more at: 

http://www.wamda.com/memakersge/2015/05/5-minute-guide-internet-of-things

IOT refers to sensors that communicate over the Internet without human intervention. According to McKinsey and the Global Semiconductor Alliance report, surveyed 30 GSA members who were senior executives at semiconductor companies, “IOT has potential, but it has several hurdles which can delay it.” These hurdles are:
• Security and data privacy
• Customer demand
• Limited consensus on standards
• Market fragmentation
• Elusive new revenue sources
• Technology shortcomings
To know more about these hurdles and how they can affect IOT implementation processes, read an article “Internet Of Things: 6 Obstacles” given in the informationweek.com by Thomas Claburn (Writer at InformationWeek) at: http://www.informationweek.com/mobile/mobile-devices/internet-of-things-6-obstacles/d/d-id/1320434

According to Gartner’s report, “CRM will be at the heart of digital initiatives in coming years as enterprises look to create more targeted interactions in a multichannel environment.”

And the basis for these initiatives will be Internet of Things (IoT) because IoT is not only affecting the way people interact with objects and things but also the way customers interact with brands. In this IoT era, marketers have several new options for enhancing customer service as well as experience. Some of them are:

• Real time marketing promotions
• On-demand pricing
• Next-generation customer service
• In-store experiences
• Extensive use of wearable devices
• The self-marketing products

For these initiatives, a sophisticated set of CRM tools like Parature, Geotoko and Aislelabs are also available.

In the nutshell, to deal with today’s digitally empowered customers, organizations are realizing the need to change their focus from products to services.

To know more, please read the following article by Frank Palermo, Senior Vice President, Virtusa, at cmswire.com:

http://www.cmswire.com/cms/internet-of-things/a-new-frontier-for-crm-the-internet-of-things-029120.php

“Augmented reality is an environment in which elements are supplemented by computer-based sensory input.” This technology has now made a comeback and is gaining popularity in many fields. Its new uses are now being explored in strategy, analytics, retail, marketing etc. as it gives the users an experience of how a real world item may look in a particular situation. Ferrari’s Virtual Showroom application is an example of how AR enhances customer’s experience.

This technology can also be seen as a follow-up of following trends which the world is experiencing:

• Mobile Devices
• Internet of Things
• Cloud Computing

Thus, Augmented Reality is now emerging as a useful tool to connect with customers. To know more, read the following article by Pierre DeBois, Founder and Chief Digital Marketing Strategist, Zimana, at cmswire.com

http://www.cmswire.com/cms/analytics/the-latest-reality-on-augmented-reality-028928.php

Smart technology is part of the Internet of Things (IoT), and it is referred as the high-tech products equipped with an Internet connection which enables to communicate data to the owner. Now kitchen appliances, thermostats etc. are being created with sensors that can communicate information via an app or through email. These are meant to improve the quality of life for consumers, but it also opens up new marketing opportunities. These technologies are giving marketers an opportunity to know what people are buying, how satisfied they are with their purchases, and what they may be interested in buying in the future. Read more at: http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/understanding-internet-things-and-mobile-marketing

According to the market study by ABI Research, it was found that revenues generated from integrating, storing, analyzing, and presenting Internet of Things (IoT) data will reach $5.7 billion in 2015 and it is also estimated that it will account for nearly one-third of all big data and analytics revenues. Read more at: http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/how-iot-analytics-will-reach-57-billion-2015-0