New Waves of the Internet of Things

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by Zhanna Lyasota · 4 min read
New Waves of the Internet of Things

The Internet of Things has been called the next Industrial Revolution — it will change the way businesses, governments, and customers interact with the physical world.

From the very appearance of the concept of the Internet of Things, the year 2013, Coinspeaker has been tracking the growth of the IoT.

The estimates from a research company IDC expect the IoT market to grow to a $1.7 trillion industry in 2020, up from $655.8 billion in 2014.

While some brands are just starting to realize a huge potential of the Internet of Things, some companies, including Dell Inc., are trying to stay a step ahead by building the tools needed to power the billions of gadgets of the IoT.

“If you [listen] to any analyst that covers this stuff, there’s going to be between 20 [billion] and 50 billion devices attached to the Internet by 2020. All of those smart devices generate data—some portion of that data has to be analyzed, moved and stored. All of that represents a huge opportunity for us,” said Joyce Mullen, VP and GM of Dell OEM Solutions.

During her interview with Adweek, Mullen shared that the company gives customers access to servers, storage, networking and analytics so that they can test their solutions without having to make big investments.

“We literally have benches where our customers can come and work with our engineers to see how to make their software work running on Dell equipment. That’s particularly effective for startup [clients] because they don’t have a ton of money to spend on testing equipment.”

At the moment, IoT seems to be closely embedded in our lives and 2016 and 2017 may be those transformational years when it goes from the ‘oh gee’ phase into realistic, everyday use of the IoT applications.

The potential of the Internet of Things to impact healthcare is wide ranging. There has already been an increasing movement towards fitness tracking wearables over the last few years. Putting patients at the heart of IoT of the future was at the core of the latest IoT Tech Expo from the speakers and the audience questions.

Jacqui Taylor, CEO of Flying Binary, talked about a focus on a consumption model, whereas a self-care and preventative model is a necessity. David Doherty, co-founder of 3G Doctor, emphasized that it is important to empower patients with their own data and doing so could be the opportunity for preventative medicine. Dr Shafi Ahmed, Consultant General, the Royal London and St Bartholomew’s Hospital, discussed ways IoT could minimize or save costs for the NHS.

Meanwhile, Transport for London (TfL) in London, UK is looking to utilize the IoT to improve services and the quality of living. The organization’s CIO, Steve Townsend, is looking at how best they can use data from a range of new sources to help improve services.

“We are looking at data from IoT and how it could mean we work differently in London; we are looking at how data can maximize every inch of tarmac in London, how we can solve congestion problems, how can we maintain our fleets of vehicles better, how can we use digital monitoring to do maintenance in a more efficient way to maximize our rolling stock, whether it be DLR or Underground or trams, and how we can utilize our internal data from IoT,” Townsend said.

Sensors would be to deployed capture data on passenger behavior. TfL already has some trials where the company has put sensors on some lifts and escalators so it is possible to predict when they might malfunction, and therefore carry out proactive maintenance. Bluetooth beacons are being deployed in congested areas of London to work out where its hotspots are, besides it is using Wi-Fi data to work out where people are at different times of the day.

2016 and 2017 will be the years in which enterprises focus on making the best use of big data from connected devices and cognitive computing may emerge as the most practical way to serve business value opportunities.

Internet of Things News, News
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