Guest blog post by Peter Diamandis, chairman and CEO of the X PRIZE Foundation, best known for its $10 million Ansari X PRIZE for private spaceflight.  Today the X PRIZE leads the world in designing and operating large-scale global competitions to solve market failures.

Every month I hold a webinar for my Abundance 360 executive mastermind members that focuses on different exponential technologies impacting billion-person problems.

This week I interviewed Padma Warrior, CTO and Chief Strategist of Cisco, to discuss the Internet of Everything (IOE).

Padma is a brilliant and visionary person, one of the most important female leaders of this decade.

She first got my attention when she quoted a recent Cisco study placing the value of IoE as a $19 trillion opportunity.

This blog is about how you can tap into that $19 Trillion.

What is the Internet of Everything (IoE)?

The Internet of Everything describes the networked connections between devices, people, processes and data.

By 2020, the IoE has the potential to connect 50 billion people, devices and things.

In the next 10 years, Cisco is projecting IoE will generate $19 trillion of value – $14 trillion from the private sector, and $5 trillion from governments and public sectors (initiatives like smart cities and infrastructure).

Imagine a Connected World

Let me try to paint an IoE picture for you.

Imagine a world in which everything is connected and packed with sensors.

50+ billion connected devices, loaded with a dozen or more sensors, will create a trillion-sensor ecosystem.

These devices will create what I call a state of perfect knowledge, where we'll be able to know what we want, where we want, when we want.

Combined with the power of data mining and machine learning, the value that you can create and the capabilities you will have as an individual and as a business will be extraordinary.

Here are a few basic examples to get you thinking:

• Retail: Beyond knowing what you purchased, stores will monitor your eye gaze, knowing what you glanced at… what you picked up and considered, and put back on the shelf. Dynamic pricing will entice you to pick it up again.
• City Traffic: Cars looking for parking cause 40% of traffic in city centers. Parking sensors will tell your car where to find an open spot.
• Lighting: Streetlights and house lights will only turn on when you're nearby.
• Vineyards/Farming: Today IoE enables winemakers to monitor the exact condition (temperature, humidity, sun) of every vine and recommend optimal harvest times. IoE can follow details of fermentation and even assure perfect handling through distribution and sale to the consumer at the wine store.
• Dynamic pricing: In the future, everything has dynamic pricing where supply and demand drives pricing. Uber already knows when demand is high, or when I'm stuck miles from my house, and can charge more as a result.
• Transportation: Self-driving cars and IoE will make ALL traffic a thing of the past.
• Healthcare: You will be the CEO of your own health. Wearables will be tracking your vitals constantly, allowing you and others to make better health decisions.
• Banking/Insurance: Research shows that if you exercise and eat healthy, you're more likely to repay your loan. Imagine a variable interest rate (or lower insurance rate) depending on exercise patterns and eating habits?
• Forests: With connected sensors placed on trees, you can make urban forests healthier and better able to withstand -- and even take advantage of -- the effects of climate change.
• Office Furniture: Software and sensors embedded in office furniture are being used to improve office productivity, ergonomics and employee health.
• Invisibles: Forget wearables, the next big thing is sensor-based technology that you can't see, whether they are in jewelry, attached to the skin like a bandage, or perhaps even embedded under the skin or inside the body. By 2017, 30% of wearables will be "unobtrusive to the naked eye," according to market researcher Gartner.

The Biggest Business Opportunities Will Be in Making Systems More Efficient

The Internet of Everything will become the nervous system of the human economy.

Entrepreneurs who capitalize on this will drive massive value and enable better decisions and reduce inefficiencies.

If you are an entrepreneur or running a business, you need to do two key things:

1. Digitize: Determine which of your processes are not yet digitized and find a way to digitize them. Then, collect data and analyze that data. Go from your old-style manual process (or data collection system) to an autonomous digital version.

2: Skate to the Puck: Have a brainstorm with the smartest members of your team (or find some local Singularity University alumni to join you) and ask yourselves the following questions:

• What kind of sensors will exist in 3 years' time, and what kind of data could we be collecting?
• In three years, which of our "things" will be connected and joining the Internet of Everything? With the answers to these two basic questions, come up with the business opportunities that will exist in three years… and begin developing the business models, developing the software and planning out your domination.

This is the sort of content and conversations we discuss at my 250-person executive mastermind group called Abundance 360. The program is ~88% filled. You can apply here.

Share this email with your friends, especially if they are interested in any of the areas outlined above.

We are living toward incredible times where the only constant is change, and the rate of change is increasing.

Best,
Peter

Originally posted on Data Science Central

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It is said that there are 100,000 freighters on the seas and that 90% of everything you have has come via container ship. The first time I saw Hong Kong Harbour from my swank room at the JW Marriott what struck me most was the number of container ships. As I scanned the waters I counted several dozen of the floating giants and imagined everything onboard was coming out of China and going somewhere on the planet.

Photo Credit: Andrew Smith via Flickr

Once at its destination port a gantry crane unloads the containers and places them either on a truck or a rail car. Then the goods are sent off to their respective warehouses, where another delivery vehicle most likely takes it to another vendor or supplier where it might eventually end up in your garage. Just thinking about this one aspect of transportation and logistics is mind boggling. And it’s perfect for IoT.

The fine folks at Deloitte University Press have written a wonderful overview on IoT considerations for the shipping and logistics industries. Entitled, “Shipping smarter: IoT opportunities in transport and logistics,” the report highlights that while companies in transport and logistics (T&L) have always been data-driven, with specific applications like real-time tracking of shipments, warehouse-capacity optimization, predictive asset maintenance, route optimization, improved last-mile delivery, and more, they still have a huge opportunity ahead of them in IoT.

The increasing number of connected devices, embedded sensors, and analytics technologies will only increase the data and accelerate. This will lead to more efficient use of transport infrastructure, better engagement with customers, and more informed decision making. The report has four recommendations for T&L and IoT, but what I found most thought provoking was their framework that captures the series and sequence of activities by which organizations create value from information: the Information Value Loop (see below).

You can find the full report here. Further reading on the subject is listed after the graphic.

Further Reading

• Big Data Analytics and Supply Chain Management - http://bit.ly/1KU0lOZ

• Sensor Applications Support the IoT: Part 1 Smart Transport - http://bit.ly/1Kt4YNZ

• How IoT Based Analytics Will Drive Future Supply Chain Operations - http://bit.ly/1OhOOJE

• Top technology trends in supply chain & logistics industry - http://bit.ly/1Lk6Bhw

• The Industrial Internet Comes to the Loading Docks - http://bit.ly/1iSEHOE

Last week Tom Davenport, a Distinguished Professor at Babson College, wrote about “GE’s Digital Big Swing” in the Wall Street Journal. As he cites in his latest piece, there are many others taking big swings in digital and IoT overall. (BTW - If you’re not following Tom, you really should do so now. His thoughts are a perfect mix of research and practice covering big data, analytics and changes in the digital landscape.)

During my time at Pivotal, I was witness to the digital big swing that GE took and saw the energy, effort and resources they were committing to make sure that whatever they made that could be connected to the Internet - jet engines, power plants, surgical image machines - would capture all data to improve products and the customer experience. I don’t think GE watchers - investors, competitors, partners - fully understand yet the enormity of this bet.

They keep making moves. This week the company announced the creation of GE Digital, a transformative move that brings together all of the digital capabilities from across the company into one organization.

Jeffrey Immelt, Chairman and CEO of GE, said, “As GE transforms itself to become the world’s premier digital industrial company, this will provide GE’s customers with the best industrial solutions and the software needed to solve real world problems. It will make GE a digital show site and grow our software and analytics enterprise from $6B in 2015 to a top 10 software company by 2020.”

GE, the industrial giant, a Top 10 software company? That’s taking GE’s slogan “Imagination at Work” and making it real.

Much like the cloud trend before it, the IoT trend is something where all major vendors are investing.

Yesterday at Salesforce’s behemoth customer conference Dreamforce, the company announced the Salesforce Internet of Things Cloud. Based on a home-grown data processing technology called Thunder, Salesforce touts their IoT Cloud as empowering businesses to connect data from the Internet of Things, as well as any digital content, with customer information, giving context to data and making it actionable—all in real-time.

With perhaps a nod of guilt to marketing hype, other notable big swings include:

• IBM - The company has created an Internet of Things business unit and plans to spend $3 billion to grow its analytics capabilities so that organizations can benefit from the intelligence that connected devices can provide. According to IBM, as much as 90 percent of data that is generated by connected devices is never acted on or analyzed.

• Cisco - Its approach focuses on six pillars for an IoT System - network connectivity, fog computing, security, data analytics, management and automation and an application enablement platform. You can buy all the pieces of the system from Cisco, of course.

• Samsung - They are betting on openness and industry collaboration. By 2017, all Samsung televisions will be IoT devices, and in five years all Samsung hardware will be IoT-ready. They also recently open sourced IoT.js, a platform for IoT applications written in JavaScript, and JerryScript, a JavaScript engine for small, embedded devices.

• Monsanto - Their near billion dollar purchase of The Climate Corporation is combining The Climate Corporation’s expertise in agriculture analytics and risk-management with Monsanto’s R&D capabilities, and will provide farmers access to more information about the many factors that affect the success of their crops.

In the wake of these giant big swings will be new and exciting startups - sensor companies, chip players, software, analytics and device makers. If you know of a compelling start-up in the industrial IOT space, drop me a line at david@iotcentral.io. We would love to hear from you.

Guest blog post by Bill Vorhies

Now that everyone is thinking about IoT and the phenomenal amount of data that will stream past us and presumably need to be stored we need to break out a vocabulary well beyond our comfort zone of mere terabytes (about the size of a good hard drive on your desk).

In this article Beyond Just “Big” Data author Paul McFedries argues for nomenclature even beyond Geopbytes (and I'd never heard of that one).  There is a presumption though that all that IoT data actually needs to be stored which is misleading.  We may want to store some big chunks of it but increasingly our tools are allowing for 'in stream analytics' and for filtering the stream to identify only the packets we're interested in.  I don't know that we'll ever need to store Geopbytes but you'll enjoy his argument.  Use the link Beyond Just “Big” Data.

Here's the beginning of his thoughts:

Beyond Just “Big” Data

We need new words to describe the coming wave of machine-generated information

When Gartner released its annual Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies for 2014, it was interesting to note that big data was now located on the downslope from the “Peak of Inflated Expectations,” while the Internet of Things (often shortened to IoT) was right at the peak, and data science was on the upslope. This felt intuitively right. First, although big data—those massive amounts of information that require special techniques to store, search, and analyze—remains a thriving and much-discussed area, it’s no longer the new kid on the data block. Second, everyone expects that the data sets generated by the Internet of Things will be even more impressive than today’s big-data collections. And third, collecting data is one significant challenge, but analyzing and extracting knowledge from it is quite another, and the purview of data science.

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Everything is connected, through the cloud all machine-generated data are collected and widely shared over the Internet. That’s how we imagine IoT – the Internet of Things.

Correction: That’s how THEY imagine IoT. What WE envision here is not just about the Internet of Things but also the Intelligence of Things. The idea is: When a device is equipped with connectivity and sensors, why not take another bold move to make the device intelligent? With an agile and affordable computing unit, every device has the power to analyze collected data and take fact-backed actions, thus making intelligence “in-place” a part of the Internet of Things, anywhere and at anytime. Intelligence, according to Jeff Hawkins*, is defined by predictions.

Computers, home appliances, vehicles – even the apparel and kitchenware – can be turned into a thinking unit.  They can help you act or react to the environment or your neighbours based on your behavioral routines and preferences. Your running shoes could control the friction of their soles according to your weight, the weather, and the kind of trail you choose. Your home theater system fine-tunes sound effects according to the movie genre and what time of day you are watching. There are plenty of exciting applications that come with the advent of intelligent things.

The question is, how does it work?

The data collected from sensors uploads to the cloud and is stored in (machine) learning systems, while streaming data input triggers an analytic engine to predict the best outcome and to react accordingly. Big data accumulates the background knowledge while small data evokes intelligence in-place.

In-Place Computing, fully utilizing the unbounded memory space of our existing 64-bit architecture, opens up the window for this sci-fi-like scenario. In-place computing utilizes virtual memory space, and thus avoids hardware lock-in and offers cross-platform computing power. As Qualcomm announced the introduction of 64-bit CPUs for handheld devices, now all mobile devices are entitled to serve complicated computing jobs at your fingertips. In-place Computing, can thus be the catalyst for a new era of “Intelligence of Things.”

*Check out this awesome video where Jeff Hawkins explains how brain science will change computing

Originally posted on Data Science Central

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The Internet of Things (IoT) is a phenomenon that is currently experiencing huge year on year growth. One of the fastest growing areas within the industry is in the market of home IoT devices. These are devices designed to make life easier, such as connected garage door openers, smart switches, smoke alarms, and even IP surveillance cameras. There are almost 5 billion connected devices being used today, and according to Gartner Research, that number is expected to grow by 500% in the next 5 years.All of this shows a promising industry, but unfortunately the risks are never covered as much as the growth figures. IoT devices are often designed without a necessary focus on security or user privacy, and this is something that the industry needs to address.

Security Risks for IoT in the Consumer Space

Although IoT can be found in industries as diverse as medical and even manufacturing, it is the home markets that garner the headlines and consumer mindshare. People have come to expect that their security cannot always be maintained online. But the difference with IoT is that we’re not simply talking about passwords, emails, and social media accounts. Instead, we’re talking about access to the garage door, the front door, or even knowing whether or not somebody is home.

There are plenty of examples where common IoT devices have been found to be unsecure, or at least at risk of being compromised with relatively little effort.

The Fortify Security Software Unit at HP released case studies last year where they compared ten of the most popular devices used in home IoT. They found that seven out of ten devices had significant security issues. An average revealed 25 security risks in each individual product. The most prevalent problem was that IoT data was unencrypted as it was transferred through wireless networks. Worryingly, six of the devices didn’t even download firmware from encrypted sources. This leaves a possible risk where malicious firmware could be directed to home devices, providing external access for malicious parties.

HP isn’t the only company to have taken an interest in IoT security. Veracode recently published a report that was based on a similar survey of consumer devices. While the HP survey focused on devices like thermostats and lawn sprinklers, the Veracode study included critical devices, such as the Chamberlain MyQ Garage door opener, and the Wink Relay wall control unit. Veracode’s study looked more at risk than actual vulnerabilities, but the results were still significant.

The Wink Relay, if compromised, could allow external audio surveillance inside a user’s home. Information could be used for blackmail, to aid identity theft, or even for industrial espionage in relation to the resident’s employer. The Chamberlain garage door opener, if compromised, could mean that a third party could tell whether a garage door was open or not, allowing opportunities for easy, unauthorized entry.

Even if these devices connect to a relatively secure cloud platform, there’s always a risk that a home network could be compromised, and the fact is, few consumers are even aware of the dangers.

As we move forward, it is clear that security needs to be a top priority within the Internet of Things marketplace. Which means that stakeholders need to:

• Understand the security risks involved with connecting home control devices to the cloud
• Provide necessary security on their platforms
• Educate consumers about security risks, and how they can protect themselves
• Focus on building a talent pool of network security professionals to complement their core IoT development teams

Internet of Things represents an exciting time in the evolution of consumer, corporate, service based, and industrial technologies. It is important that key developers and manufacturers don’t lose sight of security during times of rapid innovation. With the right talent, and the right approach, the industry can build highly secure infrastructure and devices. This will ensure trust and desirability remains high, with the potential to drive adoption and overall market growth.

How does your team ensure practical security with its connected products?

Is the IOT a Terminator or a Transformer? Where to look to get the most value out of the Internet of Things revolution.

The rebooted Terminator movie came out earlier this summer. Its blasted, futuristic landscape of robot killers and gun-toting, warrior humans probably started with enhanced computer technology similar to what we are experiencing today with The Internet of Things. I’ll be in the theater with my popcorn wondering: Will all this connectivity ultimately enhance our human experience or will we end up like the people on-screen, fighting to keep our place in this new world?

Of course, the Terminator movie is science fiction. But let’s look at the connected devices trends that will either displace or generate new opportunities for those of us in the trenches:

Healthcare

In a recent Goldman Sachs report (June 29, 2015), analysts predict that the healthcare arena is slated to experience extremely high levels of change based on the IOT:

"The service side of health care (hospitals, managed care) stands the most to gain from the adoption of digital health and IoT. Better patient management, streamlining the care continuum, reducing costly (and in some cases unnecessary) admissions all have the potential to improve the future economics for health care services," said the Goldman Sachs report. "The first wave of health care IoT technologies that prove successful will be those that drive specific action to improve patient care and correspondingly reduce waste and cost.”

I believe that this scenario provides more creative opportunities for connected Internet of Things developers in the healthcare space. Where can we take wearables in the digital age? We can reduce waste on the primary care side of things while creating opportunity for patients to gain unprecedented control of their health. And our IT geniuses can come up with new apps to connect it all.

Manufacturing

In a June 30, 2015 article in the Wall Street Journal, Ernst and Young’s acquisition of  “the systems consulting arm of manufacturing intelligence firm Entegreat Inc.” is just the latest in the mergers and acquisition free-for-all in the IOT (more accurately, the Industrial Internet of Things) space. The opportunities for eliminating waste in the industry are almost as plentiful as the thousands of connections that result when every node in a supply chain—from suppliers to customers and back—is integrated.  The production floor in an IOT-enabled factory will look quite different—yes, and probably will have fewer humans involved. However, the opportunity for job creation is endless—think about developers working to integrate old-school systems of record like MRP and ERP into new, cloud-based, mobile solutions. What about app developers—shop floor personnel might one day work from home—how can you translate inventory data streams, customer orders and work-in-process data to a tablet or mobile phone? These are the questions that new and emerging IT talents can sink their teeth into.

Everywhere Else

If you want to unlock the job creation potential of the Internet of Things, look no further than the latest McKinsey report. They’ve identified nine areas of growth to reach the $4 trillion to $11 trillion of value inherent in the IOT’s potential. I’m taking liberties here in placing the remaining seven (we’ve already talked about what McKinsey characterizes as the “human” (healthcare) and “factories” (manufacturing) categories) together in an overarching category of “everything else” with a few characteristics in common: Business Model and Modality Disruptions.

McKinsey talks about Business Model opportunities where the Internet of Things will create brand new ways of doing business. Its focus on “everything as a service” disrupting the traditional back-and-forth of business transactions is spot-on. However, the most opportunities for job creation (aside from the fact that these new business models might very well need a brand new breed of MBA) are what I call “modality disruptions.” These are the “how I will live my life” changes that provide the most value. For developers and IT professionals, this means that their discipline’s value will experience a sea change in the eyes of their leaders. With all of the changes in Cities; Homes; Vehicles, and among all of the categories of emerging value in IOT, the modality disruption of how we do business will ensure IT is not only an enabler; never again a not-so-benign cost center; but a true game changer whose capabilities will guarantee a company’s future—or its demise.

Give us your take on the Job Killer or Job Creator debate -  where do you stand, and what do you think will be the outcome?

When you read or hear about the Internet of Things (IoT), do you imagine that we’re not quite in an age where such a concept is able to be fully realized? Have you ever pointed towards the fragmentation in the market regarding devices and services, or even the complexity of IoT, and questioned how concepts like the connected home could be adopted on a widespread scale?

If you’re still questioning IoT at this point, then it’s possible that you’re simply not looking closely enough. Many of the products and services that you’re using are already a part of IoT.

Microsoft’s Office suite is a connected service on IoT, Apple’s ecosystem is IoT to the core, and even your late model vehicle is likely connected to IoT in some way. In the consumer world, IoT is simply the reality of all your devices being connected; from your game console, to your cellular phone, the computer in your office and on your coffee table, and even your automated home lighting, air conditioning, and garage door.

IoT as a concept was first described over 20 years ago by researchers at MIT. They spoke of a future where devices and sensors would collect and share data. There’s a reason why it is a buzzword today. Data capabilities, the decreasing cost of hardware, and the widespread adoption of the internet have made IoT possible for consumers, businesses, and large organizations across the world.

As a consumer, you’re probably already using IoT today. Your smartphone can connect to your home PC and control it remotely. You can set schedules for you Cable PVR and arrive home to your favorite programs already recorded and ready to play. You can even strap a smart device to your wrist while you jog, while also collecting data on your heart rate, the calories you’ve burnt, and even map a GLONASS or GPS tracked route of where you went.

You can then upload that data to the cloud and retrieve it later. You can share it with other people. You could even send the information to your personal trainer who can observe and advise around your exercise regime. This is what the Internet of Things is all about. For consumers, it’s all about the power of information.

IoT makes life easier. Progression has been gradual, and in many ways low key. This may be why many haven’t noticed it happening. When you used to collect your mail, there was one place where you could do it; your mailbox. Today, your mailbox is anywhere that you go, as long as you have a connected device. We used to bank inside buildings. ATM’s came later, and they increased the convenience. Today you can bank from a smartwatch. You can make payments with an NFC chip without swiping plastic. You can transfer your money from account to account from a Smartphone or PC.

The Internet of Things has provided countless advantages to society. From smarter automated manufacturing, to biometric implants in critical care patients, IoT does more than the average person knows. Perhaps the fact that we already use IoT without even knowing it, is testament to how important, influential, and firmly embedded IoT is in our lives today.

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JavaScript has proven itself worthy for web applications, both client and server side, but does it have potential to be the de-facto language of IoT?  

This is a topic I posed to Patrick Catanzariti, founder of DevDiner.com, a site for developers looking to get involved in emerging tech. Patrick is a regular contributor and curator of developer news and opinion pieces on new technology such as the Internet of Things, virtual/augmented reality and wearables. He is a SitePoint contributing editor, an instructor at SitePoint Premium and O'Reilly, a Meta Pioneer and freelance web developer who loves every opportunity to tinker with something new in a tech demo.

Why does IoT require a de facto language any more than any other system? Wouldn't that stifle future language evolution?

Honestly, I think it's a bit too much to ask for every single IoT device out there to run on JavaScript or any one de facto language. That's unbelievably tough to manage. Getting the entire world of developers to agree on anything is pretty difficult. Whatever solution the world of competing tech giants and startups come to (which is likely to be a rather fragmented one if current trends are anything to go by), the most important thing is that these devices need to be able to communicate effectively with each other and with as little barriers as possible. They need to work together. It's the "Internet of Things". The entire benefit of connecting anything to the Internet is allowing it to speak to other devices at a massive scale. I think we'd be able to achieve this goal even with a variety of languages powering the IoT. So from that standpoint, I think it's totally okay for various devices to run on whichever programming language suits them best.

On the other hand, we need to honestly look at the future of this industry from a developer adoption and consistency perspective. The world of connected devices is going to skyrocket. We aren't talking about a computer in every home, we're talking dozens of interconnected devices in every home. If each one of those devices is from a different company who each decided on a different programming language to use, things are going to get very tough to maintain. Are we going to expect developers to understand all programming languages like C, C++, JavaScript, Java, Go, Python, Swift and more to be able to develop solutions for the IoT? Whilst I'm not saying that's impossible to do and I'm sure there'll be programmers up to the task of that - I worry that will impact the quality of our solutions. Every language comes with its quirks and best practices, it'll be tough to ensure every developer knows how to create best practice software for every language. Managing the IoT ecosystem might become a costly and difficult endeavour if it is that fragmented.

I've no issue with language evolution, however if every company decides to start its own language to better meet the needs of the IoT, we're going to be in a world of trouble too. The industry needs to work together on the difficulties of the IoT, not separately. The efforts of the Open Interconnect Consortium, AllSeen Alliance and IoT Trust Framework are all positive signs towards a better approach.

C, C++ and Java always seem to be foundational languages that are used by all platforms, why do you think JavaScript will be the programming language of IoT?

My position is actually a bit more open than having JavaScript as the sole programming language of the IoT. I don't think that's feasible. JavaScript isn't great as a lower level language for memory management and the complexities of managing a device to that extent. That's okay. We are likely to have a programming language more suited to that purpose, like C or C++, as the de facto standard operational language. That would make perfect sense and has worked for plenty of devices so far. The issues I see are in connecting these devices together nicely and easily.

My ideal world would involve having devices running on C or C++ with the ability to also run JavaScript on top for the areas in which JavaScript is strongest. The ability to send out messages in JSON to other devices and web applications. That ability alone is golden when it comes to parsing messages easily and quickly. The Internet can speak JavaScript already, so for all those times when you need to speak to it, why not speak JavaScript? If you've got overall functionality which you can share between a Node server, front end web application and a dozen connected IoT devices, why not use that ability?

JavaScript works well with the event driven side of things too. When it comes to responding to and emitting events to a range of devices and client web applications at once, JavaScript does this pretty well these days.

JavaScript is also simpler to use, so for a lot of basic functionality like triggering a response on a hardware pin or retrieving data from a sensor, why overcomplicate it? If it's possible to write code that is clear and easy for many developers to understand and use without needing to worry about the lower level side of things - why not? We have a tonne of JavaScript developers out there already building for the web and having them on board to work with joining these devices to their ecosystem of web applications just makes sense.

Basically, I think we're looking at a world where devices run programming languages like C at their core but also can speak JavaScript for the benefits it brings. Very similar to what it looks like IoT.js and JerryScript will bring. I really like the Pebble Smartwatch's approach to this. Their watches run C but their apps use JavaScript for the web connectivity.

When it comes to solutions like IoT.js and JerryScript, they're written initially in C++. However they're providing an entire interface to work with the IoT device via JavaScript. One thing I really like about the IoT.js and JerryScript idea is that I've read that it works with npm - the Node Package Manager. This is a great way of providing access to a range of modules and solutions that already exist for the JavaScript and Node ecosystems. If IoT.js and JerryScript manage memory effectively and can provide a strong foundation for all the low level side of things, then it could be a brilliant way to help make developing for the IoT easier and more consistent with developing for the web with all the benefits I mentioned earlier. It would be especially good if the same functionality was ported to other programming languages too, that would be a fantastic way of getting each IoT device to some level of compatibility and consistency.

I'm hoping to try IoT.js and JerryScript out on a Raspberry Pi 2 soon, I'm intrigued to see how well it runs everything.

What do developers need to consider when building apps for IoT?

Security - If you are building an IoT device which is going to ship out to thousands of people, think security first. Make sure you have a way of updating all of those devices remotely (yet securely) with a security fix if something goes wrong. There will be bugs in your code. Security vulnerabilities will be found in even the most core technologies you are using. You need to be able to issue patches for them!

Battery life - If everyone needs to change your brand of connected light bulbs every two months because they run out of juice - that affects the convenience of the IoT. IoT devices need to last a long time. They need to be out of the way. Battery life is crucial. Avoid coding things in a way which drains battery power unnecessarily.

Compatibility - Work towards matching a standard like the Open Interconnect Consortium or AllSeen Alliance. Have your communication to other devices be simple and open so that your users can benefit from the device working with other IoT devices in new and surprising ways. Don't close it off to your own ecosystem!

What tools do you recommend for developing apps in IoT?

I'm a fan of the simple things. I still use Sublime Text for my coding most of the time as it's simple and out of the way, yet supports code highlighting for a range of languages and situations. It works well!

Having a portable 4G Wi-Fi dongle is also very very valuable for working on the go with IoT devices. It serves as a portable home network and saves a lot of time as you can bring it around as a development Wi-Fi network you turn on whenever you need it.

Heroku is great as a quick free platform to host your own personal IoT prototypes on too while you're testing them out. I often set up Node servers in Heroku to manage my communication between devices and it is the smoothest process I've found out of all of the hosting platforms so far.

For working locally - I've found a service called ngrok is perfect. It creates a tunnel to the web from your localhost, so you can host a server locally but access it online via a publicly accessible URL while testing. I've got a guide on this and other options like it on SitePoint.

Are you seeing an uptick in demand for IoT developers?

I've seen a demand slowly rising for IoT developers but not much of a developer base that is taking the time to get involved. I think partially it is because developers don't know where to start or don't realise how much of their existing knowledge already applies to the IoT space. It's actually one of the reasons I write at SitePoint as a contributing editor - my goal is to try and get more developers thinking about this space. The more developers out there who are getting involved, the higher the chances we hit those breakthrough ideas that can change the world. I really hope that having devices enabled with JavaScript helps spur on a whole community of developers who've spent their lives focused on the value of interconnected devices and shared information get involved in the IoT.

My latest big website endeavour called Dev Diner (http://www.devdiner.com) aims to try and make it easier for developers to get involved with all of this emerging tech too by providing guides on where to look for information, interviews and opinion pieces to get people thinking. The more developers we get into this space, the stronger we will all be as a community! If you are reading this and you're a developer who has an Arduino buried in their drawer or a Raspberry Pi 2 still in their online shopping cart - just do it. Give it a go. Think outside the box and build something. Use JavaScript if that is your strength. If you're stronger at working with C or C++, work to your strength but know that JavaScript might be a good option to help with the communication side of things too.

For more on Patrick’s thoughts on Javascript, read his blog post “Why JavaScript and the Internet of Things?” and catch his O’Reilly seminar here.

Big Growth in Data Security Provides Opportunities for Consultants

By 2016, the worldwide data security market is expected to approach almost $90 billion in total value. This means that security is big business, and it should be. Data security has become increasingly critical as businesses utilize increasingly complex technology. Likewise, businesses that are directly involved in technology, such as Internet of Things and connected devices startups, cloud service providers, and even internet service providers, all have a vested interest in maintaining the security of their data.

Three Core Influencers on the Security Market

There are three core areas of influence that are driving the key players in data security consulting. Market influencers, according to Gartner Research, include BYOD (Bring Your Own Device), big data, and the security threats themselves.

BYOD is changing the way that SMBs and enterprise clients think about security. In the past, security solutions could be rolled out and controlled across a limited number of devices that were usually owned and maintained by employers. Today, it is more common for executives and staff at all levels to bring their own devices, which can then connect to company applications and networks. This creates the challenge of implementing robust security policies and technologies that can cover a range of devices and access methods.

Increased connectivity has led to increasing levels of "big data" in business. Considering all of the channels where data is collected, whether it be through software, customer interactions, or even data that comes from IoT connected devices, it is becoming critical that big data is not only collected, identified, and categorized, but that it is kept secure. Security in the future will be essential for protecting IP, trade sensitive information, and maintaining privacy.

Finally, the increasing number of security threats that are present, are reshaping the market, and will continue to do so in the future. In addition to the attacks and exploits that have been common in the past, data security consulting professionals now have new technologies where compromises must be patched and anticipated. IoT devices, SaaS solutions, and an increasingly widespread cloud adoption will be major factors that shape the needs of future data security.

Data Security Consulting: What is Hot?

Recent graduates, professionals looking for new opportunities, and even CIOs within existing organizations can anticipate the opportunities and needs, by identifying current roles and niches in the data security consulting market.

A data security role may be completely specialized, or in some cases, generalized and more leadership based, depending on the size of an organization.

Information security can be broken down into two main areas. These areas are hardware, and software. A data security consultant may be expected to have a wider understanding of their industry, but in reality they will only specialize in some key areas. This means that employers need to be specific about who they’re looking for and the technologies that they use. It also means that jobseekers need to be upfront about their expertise, or they may risk finding themselves in a position that is beyond their current skillset, which could lead to career impacting underperformance.

As a consultant, the role is to advise, develop, and implement change. This change is usually to address a problem that already exists. In the case of data security, this could mean that a security threat has already been identified, or it could be to mitigate possible threats with new technologies.

• Consultants need superior application and network penetration skills. This means that they should be able to break down, and analyze the way that software works within any environment. This includes input and output channels. Networks need to be understood in the same way. The purpose of this knowledge, is to identify where risks exist, or where existing security breaches are occurring.

• Software algorithms are known to provide false positives, so a consultant needs to be able to identify these, and should have skill in determining viable threats. This will help the consultant to allocate resources where they are most necessary, which can benefit their employer, financially.

• Consultants should build an understanding of the technologies used by their employer. Whenever working on a contract, a consultant will deal with systems that they are unfamiliar with. Understanding the underlying technologies will be critical to implementing successful security solutions. This may require knowledge of cloud computing and infrastructure, IoT protocols and industry practices, or even specifics of networking or programming languages.

• Successful consultants will be experts in risk management. This should not just include software and hardware, but also their employer’s strategy when it comes to risk management. Some companies are willing to accept higher levels of risk, while some have more stringent expectations. Understanding the culture of any particular company will be critical.

As Data Becomes More Important, Security Consulting Becomes a Necessity

It does not matter whether a business processes EPS payments, collects consumer information for a large retail operation, or even deals exclusively in cloud technology and the Internet of Things. The reality is that, as long as they are collecting and storing data, they will need dedicated security professionals.

Protecting that data for commercial and privacy reasons, will best be achieved with the right candidates, who have the skills and experience to deal with security threats in the modern business landscape.

I found a great resource for planning for and making decisions about information security at the Gartner Research Security and Risk Management page.

The topic of IoT and farming keeps coming up.

Last month Steve Lohr of the New York Times wrote a fantastic piece on The Internet of Things and the Future of Farming. His colleague Quentin Hardy wrote a similar piece, albeit with a big data slant, in November 2014. If you have not yet read either article, I suggest you take the time to do so and also watch the video of IoT at work at a modern farm. It’s one of the better IoT case studies I’ve come across and shows real and practical applications and results.

Both stories highlight Tom Farms, a multi-generation, family owned farm in North Indiana. The Toms won’t be setting up a stand at your local farmers market to hawk their goods. With over 19,000 acres they are feeding a nice portion of America and conduct farming on an industrial scale producing shipments of more than 30 million pounds of seed corn, 100 million pounds of corn, and 13 million pounds of soybeans each year.

As the video points out, technology, data and connectivity have gotten them to this scale. After the farm crisis of the 1980s, they double-downed and bought more land from other struggling farmers. Along the way they were proactive in researching and developing new production technologies - everything from sensors on the combine, GPS data, self-driving tractors, and apps for irrigation on an iPhone.

Photo Credit: Gary McKenzie on Flickr

All this technology is taking farming to a new level, in what is know as Precision Agriculture. The holy grail of precision agriculture is to optimize returns on inputs while preserving resources. The most common use of of modern farming is used for guiding tractors with GPS. But what other technologies are out there?

For that, the Wall Street Journal explored yesterday startups that put data in farmers' hands. Startups like Farmobile LLC, Granular Inc. and Grower Information Services Cooperative are challenging data-analysis tools from big agricultural companies such as Monsanto Co., DuPont Co., Deere & Co. and Cargill Inc.

The new crop from all of these technologies is data.

This changes the economics for farmers making them not just traders in crops, but in data, potentially giving them an edge against larger competitors that benefit from economies of scale (to compete against giants like Tom Farms).  

With the amount of venture investment in so-called agtech start-ups reaching $2.06 billion in the first half of this year there will be plenty of bytes in every bushel.

For a deep dive into Precision Agriculture, the history and the technologies behind it, I suggest registering for and reading the Foreign Affairs article, “The Precision Agriculture Revolution, Making the Modern Farmer.”

You would think that in this day and age of infographics that finding a map laying out the ecosystem of the Internet of Things would exist. Surprisingly, a Google search doesn’t appear to return much. Neither does a Twitter a search.

Recently though I found two worth sharing. One from Goldman Sachs and the other from Chris McCann which I found very interesting - A Map of The Internet of Things Market.

Goldman Sachs’ map is pretty generic but it takes IoT related items all the way from the consumer to the Industrial Internet. In a September 2014 report, “The Internet of Things: Making sense of the next mega-trend”, Goldman states that IoT is emerging as the third wave in the development of the Internet. Much of what we hear about today are on the consumer end of the spectrum - early simple products like fitness trackers and thermostats. On the other end of the spectrum, and what I think IoT Central is all about, is the Industrial Internet. The opportunity in the global industrial sector will dwarf consumer spend. Goldman states that industrial is poised to undergo a fundamental structural change akin to the industrial revolution as we usher in the IoT. All equipment will be digitized and more connected and will establish networks between machines, humans, and the Internet, leading to the creation of new ecosystems that enable higher productivity, better energy efficiency, and higher profitability. Goldman predicts that  IoT opportunity for Industrials could amount to $2 trillion by 2020.

Chris McCann, who works at Greylock Partners, has an awesome map of the Internet of Things Market (below). This is what venture capitalists do of course - analyze markets and find opportunities for value by understanding the competitive landscape. This map is great because I think it can help IoT practitioners gain a better understanding of the Internet of Things market and how all of the different players fit together.

The map is not designed to be comprehensive, but given the dearth in available guidance, this is a great starting point. The map is heavily geared towards the startup space (remember the author is a VC) and I think he leaves out a few machine-to-machine vendors, software platforms and operating systems.

Other maps I found that are interesting are:

Thingful, a search engine for the Internet of Things. It provides a geographical index of connected objects around the world, including energy, radiation, weather, and air quality devices as well as seismographs. Near me in earthquake prone Northern California I of course found a seismograph, as well as a weather station, and an air quality monitoring station.  

Shodan, another search engine of sorts for IoT.

And then there is this story of Rapid7’s HD Moore who pings things just for fun.

If you have any maps that you think are valuable, I would love for you to share them in the comments section.

Follow us on Twitter @IoTCtrl

Today there are over 5 billion connected devices in the world that make up the Internet of Things (IoT). Research firms like IDC and Gartner predict that within five years’ time, this number will skyrocket to 25 billion. Although we often think of the ways these IoT devices can make our lives easier, make our homes smarter, improve manufacturing, and even revolutionize healthcare, there are some uses for IoT that aren’t as straightforward.

One of these, is how IoT has changed our ability to record the world around us, and immediately share what we capture. Combined with social media, this ‘right to record’ has brought into question when it is appropriate or not appropriate to record. More importantly, is it legal?

The Legalities of Recording in Public

Smartphones, tablets, and even connected eyewear are all part of IoT, and they’re all capable of recording pictures and video. The most obvious example to look at is the phenomenon of members of the public recording law enforcement officers, performing their duties.

• There are a number of states that have an ‘all parties consent’ law, requiring that subjects be made aware of video, image, or audio capture that is taking place.
• There is a clause, however. There should also be a reasonable expectation of privacy on behalf of the subjects. This means, with interpretation, that filming in public places, without consent, would be acceptable and legal.
• Illinois and Massachusetts have ‘all parties consent’ laws, however they don’t allow for the provision regarding the expectation of privacy. In 2010, Tiawanda Moore was arrested for attempting to record law enforcement personnel with a cell phone. She was later acquitted of all charges (http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-08-25/news/ct-met-eavesdropping-trial-0825-20110825_1_eavesdropping-law-police-officers-law-enforcement).
• It is not legal to record on private property, to make commercial gain from recorded material of another person’s likeness, or to use recordings to commit libel.

The Right to Record is a Two Way Street

Tech Republic, a leading trade publication for IT professionals, recently ran an opinion piece on how IoT and smart devices can cause controversy when it comes to the right to record. (http://www.techrepublic.com/article/the-right-to-record-is-not-a-question-of-technology-but-rather-power-and-policy/).

The article not only discussed the recording of law enforcement by private citizens, but also how it can be beneficial for law enforcement officers to constantly record their daily duties. Doing so would add a layer of transparency, and would serve to protect the interests of officers and their relevant governments, as well as the general public. This recording would be in addition to the already present police vehicle dash cams, and the surveillance cameras in most urban centers.

The questions then, are not as much about recordings been made in the first place, but rather about how they are used. Two key questions are;

• Should law enforcement agencies have the right to publish footage or images of suspects before they have been convicted of crimes?
• Should individuals have the right to publish police activity when footage or an image doesn’t portray an event or incident within its full context?

The Internet of Things is hugely dependent on constant information, easy accessibility to information, and the almost instant distribution of that information. IoT has changed the way that people expect services to work. Almost one third of those surveyed by the American Red Cross in 2012 would expect law enforcement or emergency assistance if they posted a request for help on a public social media website. Would those who are embracing social media be happy to post controversial images or videos of law enforcement agents in the line of duty? What if they were the ones being featured on a law enforcement social media account?

As more connected devices are able to easily record and share the world around us, lines will become blurred when it comes to rights. The ‘right to record’ could be considered a civil liberty under the right to free speech, so does the government share that same right? As IoT devices become more commonplace, and the internet of everything becomes a part of daily life, these questions will be answered, laws will be tested, and new precedents will be set.

20 million more IoT devices will be installed, carried, or worn by people at all levels of society, by 2020. Users and creators of IoT technologies will need to keep a close eye on ‘the right to record’, and how it impacts the industry and public perception of these devices in the years to come.

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The Internet of Things might seem like a buzzword right now. Google Trends shows continual interest in the subject each year, and the marketplace is growing. With an estimated 26 billion devices projected to be connected by 2020, it is actually something that you need to take seriously. It is more than some hip term, and may actually be the way of the future. 

Seeing actual examples of Internet of Things devices in action can help shed light on what these devices actually do. 

Take for example, the use of the internet of things in medicine. In a hospital, devices are connected to pagers, computers and other devices so doctors and nurses can easily monitor the stats of a patient, regardless of where they are in the world. If there is an alert, such as a patient coding, healthcare professionals are alerted at once.

Major cities are even incorporating the internet of things into how they handle their parking. In city parking garages, the IoT helps drivers know how many free spaces are available on each level. These sensors help drivers to locate spaces easier and help the garage to determine when they are filled to capacity. This is incredibly useful when a major sporting event or concert is going on.

Cities are also using the Internet of Things to help them to better maintain roads. Sensors located on roadways monitor the normal flow of traffic at a given time. In areas where traffic is heavier than others, these devices transmit counts to a central system. The city then can plan maintenance for these areas and increase lanes, based on the statistics these devices transmit.

Another way the Internet of Things is being used today is in your car. Some car insurance companies now have devices you can plug into your vehicle. This device monitors the speed you are going, braking habits and even how loud your radio is. This information is sent over the internet to the provider. Based on the transmitted data, the provider determines if you are eligible for good driving discounts. Of course, this is a double-edged sword. Those who drive erratically may also face higher rates based on the transmissions from this device.

As you can see, the internet of things is becoming an important part of our world. Every year, new industries are rolling out new technologies that incorporate, or take advantage of IoT. Before long, our world will be universally connected and our devices will be far more powerful than they are today.

In the 1996 sci-fi blockbuster movie “Independence Day”, there is a comical seen near the end where actor Jeff Goldblum, playing computer expert David Levinson, writes a virus on his Macintosh PowerBook that disables an entire fleet of technologically advanced alien spaceships. The PowerBook 5300 used in the movie had 8 MB of RAM. How could this be?

Putting aside Apple paying for product placement, we’re not going to stop advanced alien life who are apparently Mac-compatible.

I cite the ridiculous Independence Day ending because I was recently reading through a number of IoT security stories and began thinking about the implications of connecting all these things to the network. How much computing power does one actually need to hack something of significance? Could a 1997 IBM Thinkpad running Windows 95 take down the power grid in the eastern United States? Far fetching, yes, but not ridiculous.

Car hacks seem to be in the news recently. Recall last month’s Jeep hack and hijack. Yesterday, stories came out about hackers using small black dongles connected to a Corvette’s diagnostic ports to control many parts of the car through, wait for it, text messages!

Beyond cars and numerous other consumer devices, IoT security has to reach hospitals, intelligent buildings, power grids, airlines, oil and gas exploration as well as every industry listed in the IRS tax code.

IBM’s X-Force Threat Intelligence Quarterly, 4Q 2014 notes that IoT will drag in its wake a host of unknown security threats. Even IBM, a powerful force in driving IoT forward, says that their model for IoT security is still a work in progress since IoT, as a whole, is still evolving. They do suggest however five security building blocks: secure operating systems, unique identifiers for each device, data privacy protection, strong application security, strong authentication and access control.

In the end, it will be up to manufacturers to build security from the ground up and continual work with the industry to make everything more secure. As we coalesce around an ever evolving threat landscape, it will be the responsibility of smaller manufacturers, giants like IBM and industry organizations like the Industrial Internet Consortium and Online Trust Alliance’s IoT Trust Framework to help prevent the ridiculous from happening.

I’m guilty of hype.

As a communications consultant toiling away at public relations, media relations and corporate communications, I’ve had my fair share of businesses and products that I’ve helped get more attention than it probably deserved. Indeed, when it comes to over-hyping anything, it’s guys like me and my friends in the media who often take it too far.

Recently though, I came across an unlikely source of hype - the McKinsey Global Institute.

In a June 2015 report that I’m now reading, McKinsey states, “The Internet of Things—digitizing the physical world—has received enormous attention. In this research, the McKinsey Global Institute set to look beyond the hype to understand exactly how IoT technology can create real economic value. Our central finding is that the hype may actually understate the full potential of the Internet of Things…” (emphasis is mine).

If McKinsey is hyping something, should we believe it?

Their report, “The Internet of Things: Mapping the Value Beyond the Hype”, does point out that “capturing the maximum benefits will require an understanding of where real value can be created and successfully addressing a set of systems issues, including interoperability.”

I think this is where the race is today - finding the platforms for interoperability, compiling data sources, building security into the system and developing the apps that deliver true value. We have a long way to go, but investment and innovation is only growing.

If done right the hype just may be understated. McKinsey finds that IoT has a total potential economic impact of $3.9 trillion to $11.1 trillion a year by 2025. They state with consumer surplus, this would be equivalent to about 11 percent of the world economy!

Do you believe the hype?

IoT platforms make the developer’s life easier by offering some independent functionality which can be used by the applications they write to achieve their objective. Saving them from the task of reinventing the wheel. Given here is a list of useful IoT platforms.

Kaa

Kaa is a flexible open source platform licenced under Apache 2.0 for building, managing, and integrating connected software in IoT. Kaa’s “data schema” definition language provides a universal level of abstraction to achieve cross-vendor product interoperability. Kaa supports multiple client platforms by offering endpoint SDKs in various programming languages. In addition, Kaa’s powerful back-end functionality greatly speeds up product development, allowing vendors to concentrate on maximizing their product’s unique value to the consumer.

Axeda

The Axeda Platform is a complete M2M and IoT data integration and application development platform with infrastructure delivered as a cloud-based service.

Arrayent

The Arrayent Connect Platform is an IoT platform that helps to connect products to smartphones and web applications. It comes with an an agent which helps the embedded devices to connect to cloud, A cloud based IoT operating system, A mobile framework and a business intelligence reporting system

Carriots

Carriots is a Platform as a Service (PaaS) designed for Internet of Things (IoT) and Machine to Machine (M2M) projects. It provides tools to Collect & store data from devices, SDK to build powerful applications, deploy and scale from tiny prototypes to thousands of devices

Xively

Xively offers an enterprise IoT platform which helps in connecting products and users, manage the information and an interface to for product deployment and health check

ThingSpeak

ThingSpeak is an open source Internet of Things application and API to store and retrieve data from things using the HTTP protocol over the Internet or via a Local Area Network. ThingSpeak enables the creation of sensor logging applications, location tracking applications, and a social network of things with status updates

The Intel® IoT Platform

The Intel® IoT Platform is an end-to-end reference model and family of products from Intel, that works with third party solutions to provide a foundation for seamlessly and securely connecting devices, delivering trusted data to the cloud, and delivering value through analytics.

A votable & rankable list of these platform can be found at Vozag

Originally posted on Data Science Central

Summary:  Thanks to the IOT (internet of things) an internet-like experience of recommendations and awareness of your preferences is coming to the brick and mortar store near you.

You’ve probably noticed the huge difference in the tone of the conversation between data scientists and the general public over the issue of privacy and personalization.  The professional community is largely quiet but for the public you’d think we were developing bionic eyeballs tracking their most minute and private habits.

In my house my wife is always complaining that I can’t remember how many sweeteners she takes in her tea; who her favorite actors are, or whether she liked that Indian restaurant we visited last year enough to want to go back.  But if a web site shows her a picture of something she browsed yesterday, or if the recommended books and movies on Amazon are a little too on target she’s the first one to raise the hue and cry that her privacy is being violated.  My failing to remember – bad.  Their being helpful by remembering or recommending – also bad???

This is beginning to look like a real Catch 22.  Behaviors we wish for at home are suddenly evil if a web site does an even better job than your spouse at remembering your likes and dislikes.

Personally I think site personalization is a real blessing.  I don’t really want to see ads for rock climbing walls or baby diapers.  I’m not in that market so not being exposed to a random untargeted bunch of ads (think your Sunday paper – what’s a Sunday paper you say?) is all for the good.

Well web sites are one thing but these days with the emerging IOT our brick and mortar stores are gearing up to behave more like a web site and less like a random walk up one aisle and down another.  Here’s a brief update on who’s doing what in retail IOT.  I’m sure there are many providers I’ve missed and can’t say if these folks are good or bad at what they do but my hat’s off to them for trying something new that might make my life better even if my wife would find it a little spooky.

In retail Heat Maps (which products get picked up more often than others) and Flow Charts (how customers navigated the store) are all the rage.  Sensors also allow retailers to offer coupons over your smart phone that are tailored to your shopping pattern.  And by moving desirable merchandise with long linger times to better locations, frequently to deeper in the store, they can achieve that same ‘stickiness’ we associate with web sites to make us stay a little longer.  Where exactly are the customers going in the store, where do they pause and ponder, and how can the retailer use this information to revise the store layout, the merchandise displays, pricing, or anything else to squeeze out another dollar. 

The specifics of sensors and strategies differ from one vendor to another and in this early stage of adoption it’s fair to say that we’re waiting for the market to tell us which are most successful.  Some use your cell phone to triangulate your position, some use cameras, radio beacons, or even more exotic sensor types.  This is a good thing since all this experimentation will tell us what’s worth the investment and what’s not.  Any number of major retailers are running experiments. To name just a few:

Nordstrom – Euclid Analytics

Macy’s – Shopkick

Timberland and Kenneth Cole -Swirl Networks

Goldman’s Dept. Stores - RetailNext

The Future of Privacy Forum, a Washington, D.C., think tank, estimates that about 1,000 retailers are testing some sort of sensor strategy.

Swarm Solutions says 6,000 retailers have installed its door sensors to compare foot traffic with transactions.

Others working with Wi-Fi triangulation include Ekahau, Wifislam, and Prism Skylabs.  Apple’s iBeacon technology probably belongs in this group as well.

Blinksight and Insiteo are working with radio beacons.

Bytelight, Aisle411, Everyfit, and PointInside are all working with other sensor types including embedded floor sensors and even LED lights.

These 15 innovators are probably only the tip of the iceberg.  This is one of those ‘stay tuned for results’ stories.  The results aren’t in but there are lots of horses in the race.  Meanwhile, I’m still looking for the sensors I can install at home that will make my wife think I am a better husband.

Bill Vorhies, President & Chief Data Scientist – Data-Magnum - © 2014, all rights reserved.

About the author:  Bill Vorhies is President & Chief Data Scientist of Data-Magnum and has practiced as a data scientist and commercial predictive modeler since 2001.  He can be reached at:

Bill@Data-Magnum.com

The original blog can be viewed at:

http://data-magnum.com/privacy-personalization-and-the-iot-retail/

Originally posted on Data Science Central

This post is in a series Twelve unique characteristics of IoT based Predictive analytics/machine learning.

Here, we discuss IoT devices and the nature of IoT data

Definitions and terminology

    Business insider makes some bold predictions for IoT devices

    The Internet of Things will be the largest device market in the world.  

    By 2019 it will be more than double the size of the smartphone, PC, tablet, connected car, and the wearable market     combined.

    The IoT will result in $1.7 trillion in value added to the global economy in 2019.

    Device shipments will reach 6.7 billion in 2019 for a five-year CAGR of 61%.

    The enterprise sector will lead the IoT, accounting for 46% of device shipments this year, but that share will decline     as the government and home sectors gain momentum.

    The main benefit of growth in the IoT will be increased efficiency and lower costs.

    The IoT promises increased efficiency within the home, city, and workplace by giving control to the user.

And others say internet things investment will run 140bn next five years

Also, the term IoT has many definitions – but it's important to remember that IoT is not the same as M2M (machine to machine). M2M is a telecoms term which implies that there is a radio (cellular) at one or both ends of the communication. On the other hand, IOT means simply connecting to the Internet. When we are speaking of IoT(billions of devices) – we are really referring to Smart objects. So, what makes an Object Smart?

What makes an object smart?

Back in 2010, the then Chinese Premier Wen Jiabo once said “Internet + Internet of things = Wisdom of the earth”. Indeed the Internet of Things revolution promises to transform many domains .. As the term Internet of Things implies (IOT) – IOT is about Smart objects

For an object (say a chair) to be ‘smart’ it must have three things

• An Identity (to be uniquely identifiable – via iPv6)
• A communication mechanism(i.e. a radio) and
• A set of sensors / actuators

For example – the chair may have a pressure sensor indicating that it is occupied

Now, if it is able to know who is sitting – it could co-relate more data by connecting to the person’s profile

If it is in a cafe, whole new data sets can be co-related (about the venue, about who else is there etc)

Thus, IOT is all about Data ..

How will Smart objects communicate?

How will billions of devices communicate? Primarily through the ISM band and Bluetooth 4.0 / Bluetooth low energy.

Certainly not through the cellular network (Hence the above distinction between M2M and IoT is important).

Cellular will play a role in connectivity and there will be many successful applications / connectivity models (ex Jasper wireless which primarily require a SIM card in the device).

A more likely scenario is IoT specific networks like Sigfox(which could be deployed by anyone including Telecom Operators).  Sigfox currently uses the most popular European ISM band on 868MHz (as defined by ETSI and CEPT), along with 902MHz in the USA (as defined by the FCC), depending on specific regional regulations.

Also, when 5G networks are deployed (beyond 2020) - Cellular will provide wide area connectivity for IoT devices

In any case, Smart objects will generate a lot of Data .

.

Understanding the nature of IoT data

In the ultimate vision of IoT, Things are identifiable, autonomous, and self-configurable. Objects  communicate among themselves and interact with the environment. Objects can sense, actuate and predictively react to events

Billions of devices will create massive volume of streaming and geographically-dispersed data. This data will often need real-time responses.

There are primarily two modes of IoT data: periodic observations/monitoring or abnormal event reporting.

Periodic observations present demands due to their high volumes and storage overheads. Events on the other hand are one-off but need a rapid response.

In addition, if we consider video data(ex from surveillance cameras) as IoT Data, we have some additional characteristics.

Thus, our goal is to understand the implications of predictive analytics to IoT data. This ultimately entails using IoT data to make better decisions.

I will be exploring these ideas in the Data Science for IoT course /certification program when it's launched.

Comments welcome. In the next part of this series, I will explore Time Series data 

While we aren’t exactly “following the yellow brick road” these days, you may be feeling a bit like Dorothy from the “Wizard of Oz” when it comes to these topics. No my friend, you aren’t in Kansas anymore! As seem above from Topsy, these three subjects are extremely popular these days and for the last 30 days seem to follow a similar pattern (coincidence?).

The internet of things is not just a buzzword and is no longer a dream, with sensors abound. The world is on its way to become totally connected, although it will take time to work out a few kinks here and there (with a great foundation, you create a great product; this foundation is what will take the most time). Your appliances will talk to you in your “smart house” and your “self-driving car” will take you to your super tech office where you will work with ease thanks to all the wonders of technology. But let’s step back to reality and think, how is all this going to come about, what will we do with all the data collected and how will we protect it?

First thing first is all the sensors have to be put in place, and many questions have to be addressed. Does a door lock by one vendor communicate with a light switch by another vendor, and do you want the thermostat to be part of the conversation and will anyone else be able to see my info or get into my home? http://www.computerworld.com/article/2488872/emerging-technology/explained--the-abcs-of-the-internet-of-things.html

How will all the needed sensors be installed and will there be any “human” interaction? It will take years to put in place all the needed sensors but there are some that are already engaging in the IOT here in the US. Hotels (as an example but not the only one investing in IOT) are using sensors connected to products that they are available for sale in each room, which is great but I recently had an experience with how “people” are the vital part of “IOT” – I went to check out of a popular hotel in Vegas, when I was asked if I drank one of the coffees in the room, I replied, “no, why” and was told that the sensor showed that I had either drank or moved the coffee, the hotel clerk verified that I had “moved” and not “drank” the coffee but without her, I would have been billed and had to refute the charge. Refuting charges are not exactly good for business and customers service having to handle “I didn’t purchase this” disputes 24/7 wouldn’t exactly make anyone’s day, so thank goodness for human interactions right there on the spot.

“The Internet of Things” is not just a US effort - Asia, in my opinion, is far ahead of the US, as far as the internet of things is concerned. If you are waiting in a Korean subway station, commuters can browse and scan the QR codes of products which will later be delivered to their homes. (Source: Tesco) - Transport for London’s central control centers use the aggregated sensor data to deploy maintenance teams, track equipment problems, and monitor goings-on in the massive, sprawling transportation system. Telent’s Steve Pears said in a promotional video for the project that "We wanted to help rail systems like the London Underground modernize the systems that monitor it’s critical assets—everything from escalators to lifts to HVAC control systems to CCTV and communication networks." The new smart system creates a computerized and centralized replacement for a public transportation system that used notebooks and pens in many cases. http://www.fastcolabs.com/3030367/the-london-underground-has-its-own-internet-of-things

But isn't the Internet of Things too expensive to implement? Many IoT devices rely on multiple sensors to monitor the environment around them. The cost of these sensors declined 50% in the past decade, according to Goldman Sachs. We expect prices to continue dropping at a steady rate, leading to an even more cost-effective sensor. http://www.businessinsider.com/four-elements-driving-iot-2014-10

The Internet of Things is not just about gathering of data but also about the analysis and use of data. So all this data generated by the internet of thing, when used correctly, will help us in our everyday life as consumer and help companies keep us safer by predicting and thus avoiding issues that could harm or delay, not to mention the costs that could be reduced from patterns in data for transportation, healthcare, banking, the possibilities are endless.

Let’s talk about security and data breaches – Now you may be thinking I’m in analytics or data science why should I be concerned with security? Let’s take a look at several breaches that have made the headlines lately.

Target recently suffered a massive security breach thanks to attacker infiltrating a third party. http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-03-13/target-missed-alarms-in-epic-hack-of-credit-card-data and so did Home depot http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/11/06/home-depot-hackers-stolen-data/18613167/ PC world said “Data breach trends for 2015: Credit cards, healthcare records will be vulnerable http://www.pcworld.com/article/2853450/data-breach-trends-for-2015-credit-cards-healthcare-records-will-be-vulnerable.html

Sony was hit by hackers on Nov. 24, resulting in a company wide computer shutdown and the leak of corporate information, including the multimillion-dollar pre-bonus salaries of executives and the Social Security numbers of rank-and-file employees. A group calling itself the Guardians of Peace has taken credit for the attacks. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/04/business/sony-pictures-and-fbi-investigating-attack-by-hackers.html?_r=0

http://www.idtheftcenter.org/images/breach/DataBreachReports_2014.pdf

So how do we protect ourselves in a world of BIG DATA and the IOT?
Why should I – as a data scientist or analyst be worried about security, that’s not really part of my job is it? Well if you are a consultant or own your own business it is! Say, you download secure data from your clients and then YOU get hacked, guess who is liable if sensitive information is leaked or gets into the wrong hands? What if you develop a platform where the client’s customers can log in and check their accounts, credit card info and purchase histories are stored on this system, if stolen, it can set you up for a lawsuit. If you are a corporation, you are protected in some extents but what if you operate as a sole proprietor – you could lose your home, company and reputation. Still think security when dealing with big data isn’t important?

Organizations need to get better at protecting themselves and discovering that they’ve been breached plus we, the consultants, need to do a better job of protecting our own data and that means you can’t use password as a password! Let’s not make it easy for the hackers and let’s be sure that when we collect sensitive data and yes, even the data collected from cool technology toys connected to the internet, that we are security minded, meaning check your statements, logs and security messages - verify everything! When building your database, use all the security features available (masking, obfuscation, encryption) so that if someone does gain access, what they steal is NOT usable!

Be safe and enjoy what tech has to offer with peace of mind and at all cost, protect your DATA.

I’ll leave you with a few things to think about:

“Asset management critical to IT security”
"A significant number of the breaches are often caused by vendors but it's only been recently that retailers have started to focus on that," said Holcomb. "It's a fairly new concept for retailers to look outside their walls." (Source:  http://www.fierceretail.com/)

“Data Scientist: Owning Up to the Title”
Enter the Data Scientist; a new kind of scientist charged with understanding these new complex systems being generated at scale and translating that understanding into usable tools. Virtually every domain, from particle physics to medicine, now looks at modeling complex data to make our discoveries and produce new value in that field. From traditional sciences to business enterprise, we are realizing that moving from the "oil" to the "car", will require real science to understand these phenomena and solve today's biggest challenges. (Source:  http://www.datasciencecentral.com/profiles/blogs/data-scientist-owning-up-to-the-title)

Forget about data (for a bit) what’s your strategic vision to address your market?

Where are the opportunities given global trends and drivers? Where can you carve out new directions based on data assets? What is your secret sauce? What do you personally do on an everyday basis to support that vision? What are your activities? What decisions do you make as a part of those activities? Finally what data do you use to support these decisions?

http://www.datasciencecentral.com/profiles/blogs/top-down-or-bottom-up-5-tips-to-make-the-most-of-your-data-assets

Originally posted on Data Science Central 

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