Internet of Things Applications

Most consumers don’t know what “the Internet of Things” means, and People Power’s David Moss thinks he knows why.

“Before you can experience what an Internet of Things is, you actually first have to go out and buy an internet-connected thing,” he said Wednesday night at Town Hall Seattle, during an MIT Enterprise Forum presentation about intelligent homes. “And why would you go buy an internet-connecting thing if you don’t know what value it can add to your life?”

To capitalize on the Internet of Things, or IoT, People Power came up with a free app called Presence, which turns a spare smartphone or tablet into a Wi-Fi home security camera.

Moss said he was amazed to discover that the app was being used for much more than home security.



“We had created a new thing, but I soon found out that the Internet of Things is actually not just about things,” Moss said. “While I was enamored with how cool it was to check in on my house from anywhere in the world, the stories that we were getting from our users were really about how they were connecting with other people, and their pets. The thing they had, this app, was just a way to connect with what mattered most to them.”

The way Moss sees it, calling the technology the “Internet of Things” doesn’t describe its true power. “I personally prefer the term ‘ambient computing,'” he said.

And however you call it, the technology is on track to become much more powerful, thanks to cloud computing – which provides the “brains” for the Internet of Things – as well as the social dimension.

See more: geekwire.com

The pitches have already started: Various vendors promise to help you manage the tsunami of internet of things (IoT) devices coming. But beware: IoT management will be very difficult for a long time, and it may never reach the steady state of mobile management.



Potential good news: You likely won't have a flood of IoT devices coming from all quarters as we saw in the early days of mobile BYOD. But what IoT devices you have will be very hard to manage.

Remember when there were iPhones, Android smartphones, BlackBerrys, WebOS phones, Windows Phones, and legacy Windows Mobile devices? IT shops freaked out at all the variations they'd have to support.

Imagine an IoT world where thermostats, door locks, light switches, elevator stop regulators, smart glasses, Bluetooth internal-location sensors, comm badges, security cameras, heat sensors, conference gear, alarms, and the gazillion other devices and sensors that might exist in the products you use and environments you manage -- as well as the possible IoT devices and sensors in health care, transportation, oil exploration, logistics, retail, and public safety. In comparison, the half-dozen mobile devices that so freaked out IT look as frightening as a sleeping cat.

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The best example here is Wi-Fi. Until the Wi-Fi Alliance, a vendor group, came up with the Wi-Fi wireless compatibility standard, businesses refused to adopt wireless LANs in any volume because pre-Wi-Fi devices could only talk to other devices from the same company, though they all used the same 802.11 transport protocol.

One example in IoT is the Data Distribution Service, a set of APIs and data transfer protocol from the Object Management Group. This lets various manufacturers' devices talk to various manufacturers' analytics back ends.



We'll see both patterns occur in IoT. But it will take years for the shift to either approach in each domain. In the meantime IT will be faced with a grim reality: Most IoT products will have their own security models and management tools, creating an unwieldy mess for IT. That'll slow IoT adoption out of necessity.

In the industry standardization game, someone has to blink first, but the stare-down will go on for years until someone finally has to back off. In the meantime, pick and choose your IoT initiatives carefully -- you'll be able to handle only so many of them.

See more at infoworld.com

The EU has floated a new idea to boost the security of Internet of Things (IoT) products – get manufacturers to stick labels on them telling buyers how secure they are.



It sounds simple enough. Products such as fridges, washing machines and ovens are already sold in the EU with mandatory energy efficiency ratings, so why not something similar for security?

In comments made at a weekend press conference, EU deputy commissioner for digital economy and society, Thibault Kleiner, spelled out some of the organization’s worries about the state of IoT.

Ever greater numbers of products were being sold with an IoT connectivity as a standard feature, he said.

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Despite there being at least five billion devices in service with IoT capability – Gartner reckons that this is expanding by 5.5 million new devices every day – security standards are only just emerging. Meanwhile, default security is often weak.

A warning of the potential for trouble came with the recent record-breaking DDoS attack on cybersecurity blogger Brian Krebs. The ‘Mirai’ botnet that generated this huge wave of traffic came from an army of poorly-secured network cameras, digital video recorders (DVRs), routers and printers.

The Commission believes that labels guaranteeing adherence to basic security standards would encourage manufacturers to work together more closely in the spirit of common interest.

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The EU is doing its best to speed up development, investing €192 million in IoT research as part of its Horizon 2020 programme.



Unfortunately, IoT devices need better security now, not years from now when the EU has agreed what the labels should look like – and mean.

What consumers and businesses will think about having another label to peel off shiny new IoT products when pulling them out of the box remains an unknown.

Will they have faith in them? Or will they end up feeling disappointed should securing IoT devices from real-world threats turn out to be more complex than the label suggests?

See more at sophos.com

The AllSeen Alliance, a pioneer in the so-called Internet of things, and Open Connectivity Foundation, a rival group, said on Monday that they will combine their efforts to speed up the adoption of connected devices.



In theory, this means that appliances or other gadgets using either the AllSeen-backed AllJoyn technology to connect online or OCF’s IoTivity technology will work together and that the combined alliance will sponsor both AllJoin and IoTivity as open-source projects, meaning that the related software will be freely available.

That newly expanded group, which will go by the OCF name, brings together a host of tech companies including Microsoft MSFT -1.31% , Intel INTC -1.84% , LG Electronics, Qualcomm QCOM -1.62% , and Samsung. They all have a vested interest in selling either the devices themselves, the connective tissue that ensures the devices can communicate, or associated services delivered by the connected system.



Executives from various member companies including AB Electrolux, Canon, Cisco Systems CSCO -0.99% , GE GE 0.42% Digital, Haier, Intel, LG Electronics, Microsoft, Qualcomm, Samsung Electronics will sit on an expanded OCF board of directors.

See more at: fortune.com

It is pretty much a given that social, economic, and political forces shape the demand for new technologies. Demography is “destiny” in the sense that the demand for new products and services depends on the number of people and on their ages, genders, locations, and cultural heritages. Economics also matter because the arrangement of economic activities and the amount and distribution of wealth affords some people the opportunity to purchase new goods and services while constraining the ability of others. Politics plays a messier role by providing ways for incumbents to hinder the entry of competitive new technologies and at the same time allowing enthusiasts opportunities to direct subsidies to favored options.



Many frustrated technologists with Libertarian sympathies agree with Sir Ernest Benn (in a quote that is widely misattributed to Groucho Marx) who said that “politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies.” Others look skeptically at the evolving direction of technology and desire political interventions to protect security, safety, health, and human dignity.

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This brings the story back to politics. When technological innovations begin to diminish our lives, people react. They demand protections, regulations, and public oversight. Savvy technologists anticipate this dynamic and work hard to design the undesirable features out of the system, impose codes of conduct to discourage malfeasance, and avoid unsavory business models. Yet self-regulation has limits, especially in a global context lacking universal norms. Governments need to backstop self-regulation with strong legal liability laws and clear regulations that prohibit bad behavior. When governments themselves are the problem, their citizens need to step into the voting booth or onto the street to redirect society’s institutions.



Calls for governmental intervention and political action are rarely welcomed in tech circles, where more Libertarian views often prevail. However, politics is clearly part of the toolkit for ensuring that the IoT and other innovations improve the human condition. Good design, strict professional norms, and honorable business practices play key roles, but so do tort liability and governmental regulation, as well as social protests and political action. Creative leaders as diverse as architect Frank Gehry and writer Ernest Hemingway (who never had quotes misattributed to Groucho Marx) uniformly agree that constraints drive genius. This outcome has also been confirmed in technology development, so those creating the IoT should embrace its emerging political constraints.

See more at: iotevolutionworld.com

Finding a way to adequately serve firms in the internet of things (IoT) space is the next area customer relationship management (CRM) providers need to target, according to electronics giant Schneider Electric.



“We want to make the IT and IoT world converge with a lot of customer context. If you have a lot of data generated without context, you cannot sell to a customer in a great way. It’s about connecting the dots so you better know the usage of buildings and devices,” Christophe Blassiau, senior vice president for customer experience and CRM at Schneider told the Sunday Business Post.

Blassiau made the comments at Dreamforce, Salesforce’s annual gathering in San Francisco which is attended by 170,000 people.

Tony Wells, senior vice president for marketing in North America with Schneider, said he expected artificial intelligence (AI) to play a pivotal part in bridging the gap.

“Being able to take the velocity, variety, and volume of this data being generated and being able to make sense of it is crucial. AI is going to play a role to work out what data really matters. There’s a huge amount of value that can be extracted from data but it has to provide benefits to customers and to us as a brand,” said Wells.

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Wells said this increase in customer demand had also presented challenges and opportunities from a marketing perspective.

“Customers aren’t coming to the company they buy from first when they are making a purchasing decision, they are usually 70 per cent of the way down. For us it’s about finding the right salesperson who can call on that salesperson and respond to their inquiries as quickly as possible,” said Wells.

See more at: businesspost.ie

The term Internet of Things (IoT) brings to mind the stereotypical image of a working woman who triggers the cooker at home as she leaves office to drive back home or a refrigerator which sends a replenishment note to a grocer as soon as it senses some of the frequently required items such as milk or butter are exhausted. Given the numerous possibilities which IoT can inspire, many large product companies have already embarked on programs to build IoT compatibility into their existing or new products.



What is IoT?
The Smartphone as a device of communication is an IoT device and knowingly or unknowingly we have already been using it. IoT enables each device or thing to communicate with other devices or things and perhaps be directed or direct the actions of other such devices.

An IoT enabled device must have a built in microcomputer and suitable sensor devices which will sense /capture important parameters in real life. In addition, it must have access to and be identifiable with a unique IP address. Increasingly, there are standard electronic communications modules available which could be connected to any device which you wish to enable them for IoT. The costs of such modules and standardized interfaces may seem a bit high as of now but this situation will certainly improve with increased demand and availability.

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IoT makes the owner omnipresent
in most food cooking and retail businesses such as a cookie/bakery stores, the owner is required to formulate an hourly forecast and plan the production accordingly .This plan has to be adjusted based on the day of the week, time of the day , cultural and religious sensitivities , seasonal variations as well as actual walk-ins into the shop. When the owner is away, the ability of the team to replicate such expertise becomes a challenge. IoT can help the owner to encapsulate his expertise in the form of business rules into the bakery systems which allows his team to exercise their judgment but within bounds and send alerts to the owner in cases of deviations and exceptional situations. The owner’s expertise is thus at hand at all times irrespective of his location. MSME with multi-locational operations can thus benefit immensely from the owner’s expertise.

IoT and autonomous systems
The machines learn with every transaction, production or service experience. This means that the encapsulated business rules in the controller attached to the machine can be changed based on new experiences. The communication between the machine, sensors, business rules engines and the machine learning algorithms on a central server all interact thanks to IoT. Add to this the ability of the machine to initiate actions on its own and we have ‘autonomous machines’ and in a larger sense processes and systems which can run on their own like the autopilot of an aircraft.

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In Conclusion
MSMEs can now manage their resources efficiently and effectively, create smarter products and build smarter services using the power of the IoT and associated technologies. The challenge of scalability and replicability of the owner’s experience and personal skills which are perhaps the biggest concerns among MSMEs can be dealt with quite effectively by IoT. Finally, IoT itself is a great opportunity for innovation and new product/service/business models. A proactive move in this direction would ensure that MSMEs find the path to growing into a dominant component of the emerging ‘Smart’ economy.

See more at: forbesindia.com

This week, the Raspberry Pi Foundation announced it has sold more than 10 million Raspberry Pi boards and celebrated the milestone by releasing a new Raspberry Pi Starter Kit. While many of these Linux-driven hacker boards were used for the foundation’s original purpose -- creating a low-cost computer for computer education -- a large percentage have been sold to hobbyists and commercial developers working on Internet of Things (IoT) projects ranging from home automation to industrial sensor networks.



Linux-driven open source and commercial single board computers and modules sit at the heart of the IoT phenomenon. They are usually found in the form of gateways or hubs that aggregate sensor data from typically wirelessly enabled, sensor-equipped endpoints. Sometimes these endpoints run Linux as well, but these are more often simpler, lower-power MCU-driven devices such as Arduino-based devices. Linux and Windows run the show in the newly IoT-savvy cloud platforms that are emerging to monitor systems and analyze data fed from the gateways in so-called fog ecosystems.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be analyzing the IoT universe, with a special focus on Linux and other open source technologies used in home and industrial automation. I’ll look at major open source products and projects, IoT-oriented hacker boards, security and privacy issues, and future trends.

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See more at: linux.com

Builders of the Internet of Things (IoT) have long promised consumers a more convenient future: We will all live in “smart homes” where surveillance cameras, thermostats and garage door openers will turn on and off automatically, our groceries will order and deliver themselves into our refrigerators, and our speakers will know our taste in music. In our “smart cities,” always-on surveillance systems will crack down on crime and sensor-driven roadways will put an end to traffic.



Yet this hyper-efficient, IoT-fueled future is years away and plenty of pundits and investors are talking about consumer IoT as a too-hyped trend that’s failing to take off. According to a 2016 Accenture survey, consumer demand for smartphones and IoT devices is stalling. So why aren’t consumers snapping up the new technology?

Industry insiders say the barrier is a lack of standards: connected devices can’t talk to each other, and each device comes with its own app, rather than being managed from a single point of control. Others think jargon-y marketing is to blame: Consumers still scratch their heads when they hear “Internet of Things.”

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The potential power of IoT is truly awe-inspiring, but in order to boost sales and drive demand beyond the early adopter set, we need to stop making toys no one cares about and instead work on building simple solutions to real, everyday problems for real people.

See more at: forbes.com

There is no hotter tech sector right now than the Internet of Things (IoT). Everybody and anybody who is offering an internet connected device has an IoT story. As with many hot technology markets, there comes a lot of noise and confusion. Just in the consumer IoT market alone, there are multiple competing platforms and not all of them enable devices to interconnect with each other. In the industrial IoT (IIoT) market, not only are there competing platform vendors, but there are many industry organizations trying to define IIoT interoperability. Confused yet? Just wait…

Now, when we start to talk about security, there is even more confusion on where to get started and how to implement a security strategy. There are no fully defined or adopted standards, or security architectures for either consumer IoT or IIoT today. Many consumer IoT device manufacturers are sacrificing strong security measures to get devices to market. This could create serious issues down the road if vulnerabilities are exploited and devices cannot be secured. In the IIoT market, industry groups such as the Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC) and Trusted Computing Group (TCG) are actively working with security vendors on frameworks for IIoT security. But, these frameworks are still in the early stages and interoperability will need to be tested and addressed before they can be fully rolled out and implemented.

Before I discuss how you can get started with an IoT security strategy today, I just want to reiterate why we want to connect things. The benefits are simple – greater access, control, efficiency and optimization. When everything is connected and communicating, things work together, we can access these things from everywhere and anywhere and collect, share and analyze data to better manage our homes, our health, our cars, the environments where we work and operations of industry. All of this connectivity leads to higher performing systems, cost savings and new revenue streams.

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In order to go to market today, IoT device manufacturers need to begin implementing security in the early design phases of their products. Security can no longer be an afterthought as it has in the past with so many legacy connected device and products. Trying to retrofit security into devices already in use can be difficult, costly and a burden on the users.

Key benefits of building identity in from the start:
- Gain a Competitive Advantage – Build identity into your IoT devices and services to leverage secure functionality as a competitive advantage.
- Offer a Superior User Experience – Make security and identity easy to offer your customers provides a positive user experience.
- Brand Reputation and Integrity – Assure products and software code are legitimate. Don’t let counterfeit products and malware impact your brand.
- Privacy and Safety Ensured – Ensure sensitive data remains private and the safety of your customers and users is not jeopardized by a malicious attack.

See more at: globalsign.com

You hear a lot of people talking about how great life will be when cars drive themselves and the Internet of Things is fully deployed. But while many of us dismiss this chatter as background noise, one industry is paying close attention and champing at the bit to get started.

Yes, of course, it's the advertising industry. After all, when cars drive themselves, you'll have more time to look at the ads that will be popping up on strategically located screens. Your refrigerator will automatically order almond milk, egg whites, and fat-free butter while it tries to get you to try a new kind of genetically engineered hot dog.

Right at the moment, the advertising trades are obsessing over self-driving taxis and dreaming of the contextual ad possibilities they present.

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Or as Hewitt put it in his interview with the Daily:

“Not too far into the future the ads will be contextually presented and may also be served up as bite-sized services instead of just targeted display advertising.”

If everything works out as planned, it will be just like having a little person on your shoulder, constantly nagging you to do all the things your favorite brands want you to do.

See more at: consumeraffairs.com

For those of us Boomers who have witnessed first hand the invention, application, proliferation and ultimately the world domination of the Internet, it might all seem like sort of a blur.



Doesn’t it feel like just yesterday that the nerdy guy in your office barged into your cubicle, took control of your IBM PC or Compaq or maybe even your Mac SE, and logged onto NetScape?

“This is the future of computing,” he might have said as you studied the awkwardly formatted text slowly rendering across your screen. I remember my reaction:

“Bull pucky! Where’s the sound, the music, the voice-over, the animated graphics, the color photos, the video windows?”

It must have been around 1994, and multimedia on CD-ROM, created in a popular authoring tool called MacroMind Director, was all the rage. How could the snail-paced, text-based content delivered on the NetScape browser over the World Wide Web possibly supplant the showbiz content we could deliver on CD-ROM?

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Some of us, regardless of the breadth or our attack surface and whether or not we like adjusting the temperature of our refrigerator from the golf course, are donning an extra layer of protection in the form of a Virtual Private Network (VPN). This service allows us to encrypt the data that travels from our devices to our Internet service provider. Corporations have employed them for years, which is what our corporate friends are talking about when they refer to information “behind the firewall.” VPNs aren’t a guarantee of complete safety, but they make our data more difficult to hack.

The net-net of it all: if we want to keep something private we’d better keep it offline, to the extent that we can. It may be a little more difficult to teach our kids, and especially our grandkids, about things like 35mm film, padlocks with real keys, checkbooks and other rapidly disappearing devices of the analog age.

Who ever would have thought that so much havoc could be wreaked with a bunch of zeros and ones?

See more at: huffingtonpost.com

As is the case with several other popular tech buzzphrases -- "big data," "cloud computing" and "cybersecurity" come to mind -- dozens of companies have talked up their investments in what they deem to be the "Internet of Things," or IoT. Big-name chipmakers, telecom service providers and cloud service providers all fit the bill here. But a look at just how much IoT exposure these companies have often shows that hype far exceeds reality.



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Second, Gartner expects about two-thirds of the connected things that will be in existence in 2020 -- 13.5 billion -- to be consumer devices. This appears to include smartphones and tablets, and broadly contains a number of products that aren't likely to fuel major growth for telecom or cloud service providers angling to profit from a surge in the number of connected devices.

Talk to Josh Corman long enough and the beeps and blinks of the Internet of Things (IoT) devices that increasingly dot our world take on a terrifying shape.



"There are more devices and more types of devices, so this just gives you more ways for people to track you or hurt you," Corman, a long-time security expert and cofounder of I Am The Cavalry, says. "What we've done is blindly assume that [adding software and connectivity] is always good. And we're making really horrible, horrible choices."

Corman founded IATC—a cybersecurity research non-profit focused on reducing IoT-related public safety risks—with security researcher Nick Percoco at a 2013 hacker conference. Medical devices are a big area of concern for Corman and his group. Besides vulnerable insulin pumps and pacemakers, hacker-researchers have shown high-tech hospital equipment—from Bluetooth-enabled defibrillators to remotely controlled drug infusion drips—could be manipulated toward grievous, even deadly, ends. IATC is also keeping an eye on connected cars, home security and automation systems and "smart" public infrastructure, like utility grids and traffic control.

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"The majority of the security industry has been focused on private sector, protecting a bank or credit cards," points out Corman. As software started springing up in insulin pumps and cars, he became more concerned. "I’m thinking, 'Guys, we can’t even secure credit cards with $80 billion of our best and brightest—why are we putting dependencies in areas that can kill people?'"

Through IATC, Corman and a network of volunteer cybersecurity experts and whitehat hackers have developed a five-point list of standards for connected cars and have started collaborating with the Society of Automotive Engineers. He plans to release similar guidelines for other "life and limb" applications of the technology, including medical devices and public infrastructure.

But security remains an optional pursuit for manufacturers. "IoT technologies in general don’t have good security," says Susan Landau, faculty member at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and a distinguished scholar on cybersecurity and privacy issues. "There are no legal frameworks that demand good security. We’re racing ahead yet again without putting the security and privacy in."

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Tien suggests that the fact that the well-meaning motivation that powers data collection in public places—for "smart city" initiatives, for example—helps normalize the Big Brother-esque creepiness of Big Data.

"There is a real attraction to what I would call dangerous surveillance practices when those practices are aimed at people and their everyday lives and trying to solve urban problems," he says. "If you associate the surveillance with Dick Cheney it’s bad; if you associate the surveillance with Bill de Blasio that is another thing."

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President Obama’s administration has taken up cybersecurity as a national safety and security issue with a recent push to enlist the help of private industry. In January, Obama proposed legislation that would help shield companies that share online-threat data with the government from lawsuits, and last month he signed an executive order that urges (but does not require) companies to share information on cybersecurity threats more broadly, in the interest of improving threat protection systems.

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Corman and other experts agree that the FTC’s broad recommendations for IoT manufacturers—build security in at the outset, implement lifecycle monitoring, train employees in security—are on the right track. But with the industry consigned to self-regulation for now, the current growing pains of data, security, and privacy within the IoT are likely to persist.

"We’ve moved into a completely new world," says Landau. "We are facing massive losses of privacy and, until we learn how to operate in it—we, the public, and we, the government—getting protection for it is going to be awkward. Or more than awkward."

See more at: fastcompany.com

The healthcare industry is plagued with data breaches and other cybersecurity nightmares. At the same time, connected medical devices – components of the so-called Internet of Things – are multiplying, opening more holes in security and creating terrible potential for patient casualties.



Without doubt, unsecured medical devices currently are putting hospitals and patients at risk, according to “Healthcare’s IoT Dilemma: Connected Medical Devices,” a new report from Forrester Research analyst Chris Sherman.

“You have less control over connected medical devices than any other aspect of your technology environment,” the report said. “Many times, vendors control patch and update cycles, and vulnerabilities persist that require segmentation from your network. Considering that many of these devices are in direct contact with patients, this is a major cause for concern.”

Additionally, medical devices are vulnerable to four attack scenarios, the report said. “Threats against medical devices include denial-of-service (DoS), patient data theft, therapy manipulation and asset destruction,” the report said. “Each represents risk to your organization, with DoS currently being the most severe.”

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1. Categorize existing devices based on risk.

Once an organization places a device on a network, it becomes part of a connected system. Websites like Shodan (“The search engine for the Internet of Things”) expose thousands of searchable end-points around the world that lack security and/or use default passwords.

“There are five key factors that contribute to the risk rating of any medical device: Potential impact to patient safety; Network connectivity; Data sensitivity; Likelihood of attack; and Vendor security SLA,” the report said. “For starters, use industry risk assessment guidelines, standards and expertise. The Medical Device Innovation, Safety and Security Consortium (MDISS) provides a space for industry leaders to collaborate and exchange ideas; the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE), established by the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST), released its first cybersecurity practice guide last year called ‘Securing Electronic Health Records on Mobile Devices’; and Forrester Research’s Medical Device-Risk Heat Map can help categorize devices based on risk.”

2. Implement a clinical risk management framework.

The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), for example, publishes voluntary standards across various technology industries.

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3. Ensure that your organization follows basic security hygiene.

Forrester Research reported that the vast majority of healthcare breaches in the past few years were due to social engineering and spear-phishing attacks. These problems have known solutions, but these solutions often demand a major cultural change by an organization.

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4. Include security requirements in new device requests for proposals and contract language.

Medical device manufacturers generally are not required to include security controls on their devices nor provide guidance to their customers on how to protect devices. But healthcare organizations, as potential customers, have the power to get manufacturers to do so.

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5. Apply a zero trust networking architecture.

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See more at: healthcareitnews.com

The world’s best athletes are currently on display at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Brazil, and some are using wearable technology powered by the Internet of Things to help them go for the gold.



United States sprinter Allyson Felix has reached Olympic glory already, taking home gold medals in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing and the 2012 Olympics in London, but she is still looking for a leg-up on her competition. According to a report from The Huffington Post, she is just one of several athletes embracing wearable IoT technology as they look to improve their training and boost their performance in the games.

Felix trained for her upcoming track-and-field events with a pair of 3D-printed shoes designed specifically for her feet. The sneakers not only conform perfectly to her foot but provide Felix with feedback on her performance.

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It’s not just American athletes, as South African track-and-field star Willem Coertzen trained for Rio using a Hexoskin smart shirt. The shirt, like the Solos eyewear, can measure information like heart rate, speed, breathing patterns and other biometric indicators.

Wearable technology is having a significant impact on the space, as can be seen in the PYMNTS.com Internet of Things Tracker. The latest tracker features several news stories about companies investing in wearable technology in products ranging from speakers to athletic gear.

See more at: pymnts.com

The Internet of Things may just hold the key to the future of banking, says Jacqueline Guichelaar, head of infrastructure and service delivery for Lloyds Banking Group. With the topic of transformation dominating banking industry conversations amid the race towards a digital future, it’s clear that the Internet of Things is driving that change.



The status quo simply cannot continue and the major new force that is IoT is serving to transform the industry from the inside out, pushed by the twin drivers of heightened customer and regulatory demand.

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The Internet of Things enables a whole new level of personalised banking - indeed, the possibility of branches becoming equipped with sensing technology that can recognise customers as they walk in and respond to their own particular needs suddenly becomes a tantalising reality.

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Hand-in-hand with the likes of the cloud and big data, IoT is set to be implemented on a massive scale, creating major new business opportunities as we continue to embrace a world that’s connected like never before. It could even serve to be the differentiator that separates the winners from the losers in the race for true banking innovation.

Change is now a must - and IoT is set to be the key competitive advantage that helps tomorrow’s market leaders set the pace.

See more at: finextra.com

Gone are the days when the only internet-connected devices we had were our phones and computers. With the passage of time, more and more home appliances and products are being added to the list of devices that are connected to the internet, or the so-called “Internet of Things” (IoT).



The list includes but is not limited to smart thermostats, security cameras, washing machines, smart kettles, smart refrigerators, etc. Some offer smart optimization of resources on the basis of your data while some offer remote monitoring from a distant location.

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SMART HOMES – A SERIOUS THREAT TO PRIVACY! We have finally managed to make our homes “smart,” but at the cost of our privacy and security. Every home device connected to the internet is a security threat, as malicious actors can use it to spy on you and steal information about your lifestyle and personal life. Marketers can use this information to target you with unwanted ads. At the same time, government agencies and third-party party firms can steal and sell your data.

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MR. ROBOT – THE TRUE DEPICTION OF SMART HOME HORRORS If anyone still wants to see how this heavenly technological blessing can turn into a disaster, just watch the TV show Mr. Robot. The show depicts how most people carelessly use web-enabled devices when they are generally cautious of their home privacy and security. It also portrays how technology can be disastrous if used without any reasonable security measures.

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These tips will not guarantee 100% security for your devices, but it will surely boost your devices’ security and ultimately, help you to guard your privacy. Be safe, everyone!

See more at: tripwire.com

We’ve been reading about how Internet of Things will revolutionise the tech world. But it also has a fair share of drawbacks, especially security concerns. Bruce Schneier, a security technologist, author and the CTO of Resilient Systems, now warns about the outcomes of IoT and how software hacks could get worse. “On the Internet of Things, integrity and availability threats are much worse than confidentiality threats,” he writes.



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Talking about interconnections, he explains how systems will become interconnected, leading vulnerabilities in one resulting into an attack on another. “Vulnerabilities on one system cascade into other systems, and the result is a vulnerability that no one saw coming and no one bears responsibility for fixing. The Internet of Things will make exploitable vulnerabilities much more common. It’s simple mathematics. If 100 systems are all interacting with each other, that’s about 5,000 interactions and 5,000 potential vulnerabilities resulting from those interactions,” he adds.

Finally, our devices are getting autonomous. This also means attacks can take place automatically and ubiquitously. We’ve already seen Fiat Chrysler recall 1.4 million vehicles to prevent hacking. The report explains how, in future, the governments could face large-scale issues due to IoT. He also adds that governments should in fact play a larger role by ‘setting standards, policing compliance, and implementing solutions across companies and networks’.

See more at: firstpost.com

A match lasts a few seconds, after which it’s just a splinter of burned, useless wood nobody would bother keeping. For an entire generation, this ephemeral quality is precisely what the internet now symbolizes: a place that can provide simple but powerful tools, allow you to express yourself, and then, immediately, it disappears, not by accident, but because that is how it was designed.



A good article in The New Yorker called “Snapchat, Instagram Stories and the internet of forgetting“, discusses the launch of Instagram Stories, which in many people’s view is the best copy of Snapchat ever created – at the third attempt following the previous failures of Facebook Poke and Slingshot – and proof of how the internet is moving from being a place where we store things permanently, where we store our memories, to one of expressing ourselves in real time, and that once published, disappears within 24 hours. After initially looking as though young people would only use Instagram Stories to ask for follows on Snapchat, now the app is becoming more popular and winning over users from a wider age group than Snapchat has attracted, while the founder of Instagram, Kevin Systrom, openly admits that the concept is Snapchat’s and that copying is seen in Silicon Valley as valuable.

[...]

Things changed with Snapchat. Nobody really knows if the change was about not wanting reminders of things we’d done popping up 20 years down the road, or whether it was about doing something different to our parents, or about privacy, or perhaps a mix of all of them from the perspective of a generation that has become perfectly used to carrying a camera that is essentially a powerful computer around, but the truth is that young people discovered a new way to use the internet, a way in which the value was in the moment, the conversation, the joke, the wink: like a conversation at the bar, which nobody imagines anybody else is listening to, and much less recording. The youngest generation feels more comfortable without anybody eavesdropping on them, and decided to use a new communication channel for fleeting conversations.

See more at: forbesc.com

Ever since personal computers began to creep into our lives in the mid-to-late 1970s, people have been talking about home computers and home computing. Microprocessors and high-tech sensors were going to be embedded into everything, and we were going to live in smart homes, drive smart cars, and rely on robots and other devices to do all the things that we either could not do well or did not want to do. As we were told in grammar school, things would continue to get easier and we would live happily ever after.



[...]

In his book Future Shock, Alvin Toffler told us that for every modern convenience, there is an equal and opposite inconvenience. If you watch the news, you might think that Alvin was right. While new technologies and products come with great benefits, we have learned that these benefits often come with new problems that typically fall into at least three categories:

1. Greater complexity. Many of us have discovered that our new cars are sometimes smarter than we are. Learning how to operate them is not a trivial exercise that can cause problems when we rent them at an airport or receive a loaner when we bring them in for service.
2. Bad guys can take advantage of the same benefits. As products become more complex, they come with vulnerabilities that hackers and people with bad intentions can use against us. Identities are being stolen, credit cards are being hacked, and evil forces are penetrating security systems to steal or manipulate whatever they want.
3. More can go wrong. As products get more complex, there are more things that can go wrong with them. And, when they break, they are not so easy to fix. Is the problem in the hardware? If so, where? Is it a bug in the operating system? Is in the applications software? Is it operator error?

One thing we know for sure is that operators are making more errors. Distracted drivers cause 40% of traffic accidents, and according to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, (NHTSA), they cause 10% of all fatal crashes and 17% of injury-causing accidents.

[...]

No matter what the obstacles, the IoT is likely to charge forward because of its potential to save and improve lives, give users piece of mind, and save time. After all, people want to be able to (1) check on the kids when they leave them with the baby sitter or find them when they get lost in a department store, (2) make sure they locked the door or turned off the oven, or (3) notify the doctor right away if they are experiencing a life threatening event. For companies that want to sell their IoT related products and buyers that want to use them, the IoT holds great promise. The more buyers and sellers know about the benefits and potential pitfalls, the more likely they can enjoy the benefits without suffering serious consequences. Since the IoT can do a lot of great things, it is important for buyers and sellers to better understand it so they can help to overcome the obstacles for the greater good.

See more at: huffingtonpost.com

South Korea has launched its first commercial, low-cost Internet of Things (IoT) network aimed at making the country even more connected.



The network would allow smart devices to talk to each other via the network.

Phone carrier SK Telecom is behind the initiative, which uses technology that will allow it to reach 99% of the country's population.

[...]

In a statement it said the price plans are "highly affordable" and cost one-tenth of its current LTE-based IoT services which will ease the cost burden of startups and small and medium enterprises.

The IoT can help appliances like fridges or printers tell its owners when it needs to be refilled, help customers locate lost smartphones and even monitor pets.

See more at: bbc.com

CANNES, France—The internet of things (IoT), as a topic, has had marketers buzzing for a few years now. As it slowly becomes a reality in the lives of average people, some brands are getting out in front of the space more than others.



But there's an emerging concept within IoT known as calm design, explained Haydn Sweterlitsch, chief creative officer at HackerAgency, who spoke at Cannes Lions earlier this week. Calm design is all about creating technology that blends seamlessly with regular life, where consumers don't have to necessarily focus on a device or feature while using it. A teapot is an old-world tech example, where one doesn't have to be in the same room to know that the tea is ready thanks to the whistle.

According to Sweterlitsch, Amazon, Google, Telsa and Volvo are brands leading the calm-design movement. None of the brands are his clients, to be clear. In the video below, he explains why those companies already have a competitive advantage.

[...]

What other problems could calm design solve? This is a great question. The [internet of things] is going to fundamentally change how people relate to technology, so the tectonic shifts in marketing are really only the tip of the iceberg. The world of tech follows Darwinian principles. Only the platforms, devices and products that gain traction with users or industry segments survive. And beyond survival, for successful technologies to really thrive, they must continually adapt and evolve as user needs and the ecosystem changes. With the velocity of progress we're seeing in AI, robotics and data, we're on the threshold of an absolute explosion in connected, intelligent technology, right? We can only imagine what new strains and demands this will cause on the already frayed and frantic psycho-emotional state of the average user. As Mark Weiser predicted: The scarce resource of the 21st Century won't be technology, it will be attention. Calm design is an effective, elegant and empowering way to have meaningful, useful interaction that doesn't add to the noise and toxicity of our hyper connected world. Our prime functions, as humans, should be thinking, feeling, relating, deciding and acting—not computing. With the ubiquity of connected technology that we'll be immersed within, things may fast-forward from magic to manic to toxic. Calm design and the atmospheric approach to marketing will help allow humans to remain human, in a very real way. And that, in and of itself, is huge.

See more at: adweek.com

BlackBerry's Radar could be compelling evidence that the company can use its mobile, embedded systems and security knowhow to grow in new industries.



BlackBerry has talked internet of things, beefed up its software business via acquisition, has an asset in QNX that is powerful in the auto industry, but hasn't created a product or service that's fresh and organic in the new era.

Could BlackBerry Radar, which is designed to track trailer assets in the trucking industry, be that product?

We all know the hardware business that made BlackBerry famous is in decline if not going to zero in the years ahead. Given that decline, BlackBerry wouldn't be crazy to eventually exit the device business entirely.

[...]

According to Chan, Radar's total addressable market is $2.1 billion in hardware and $1.7 billion in annual recurring. Should Wal-Mart be a Radar customer, other industries would follow.

In these industries, companies want an end-to-end integrated system since it doesn't make sense to cobble together one. BlackBerry's hardware is a standalone monitor that is installed on the door of a trailer. From there, the device connects to the mobile network.

The bigger picture here is that BlackBerry's Radar could be compelling evidence that the company can use its mobile, embedded systems and security knowhow to grow in new industries.

See more at: zdnet.com

We’ve all heard by now that the internet of things is inherently insecure and personal data related devices handle could end up in the hands of wrongdoers. One could assume some security measures could be set in place to prevent that from happening.



While that is true to some extent, security researchers have found several common vulnerabilities in IoT devices that traditional “smart devices,” such as laptops or smart phones, would have never got away with. Connectivity between IoT devices is often exploited, especially when it involves in-transit data encryption, default (or lacking) authentication credentials, or vulnerable communication protocols.

Updates and Patches?

Besides hard-coded passwords and open remote connection ports, some smart devices can be difficult to patch by non tech savvy users. For instance, some smart thermostats may require users to manually download updates on removable drives, mount them, and then apply the necessary updates manually.

[...]

What should be done?

Following best practices already established in the industry in recent decades, any IoT device that hits the market should support a software update mechanism and enforce basic security. We’ve been educated to use strong passwords and encryption on our PCs and mobile devices for years, but we haven’t been educated to apply the same scrutiny to IoT devices as well.

[...]

Integrated Home Network Security for IoT

One way of going about the problem of security IoT devices is going at the gateway level and simply plugging in a device next to your home router that’s able to quickly and seamlessly identify all household smart devices and protect them from outside attacks.

[...]

See more at: macworld.com

Across the world, governments and companies are waking up to the potential of networked technologies to improve productivity and raise standards in the waste management and cleaning industries.



You may not be able to hear or see it, but around the island, thousands of litter bins, trash cans, and neighbourhood waste compactors are silently broadcasting to cleaning crews when they are full, beckoning to be emptied.

This is just one of the many ways that the Internet of Things is having a profound impact on daily public services, where ordinary, everyday objects such as waste bins and soap dispensers are networked and connected to each other and to the information superhighway. Amid rapid urban growth, the Internet of Things can make cleaning and waste management more efficient for healthier, more liveable cities.

[...]

"Besides raising productivity, other benefits include new insights arising from the data thus collected through IoT systems, which could potentially open up new business opportunities." said Patrick Pang, chief technology officer, National Environment Agency (NEA)

[...]

“The system not only facilitates the move towards needs-based waste collection, it also optimises the deployment of resources and improve service delivery,” Pang adds.

[...]

One future trend is to integrate machines with buildings. That’s not a sinister cyborg future – a rather prosaic example Pang gives is allowing robotic floor scrubbers to ‘talk’ to a building’s lift system, so they can ride the lift and access all the building’s floors with no human operator needed.

And the IoT will deliver a mountain of data for as-yet-unforeseen uses.

Pang adds: “Besides raising productivity, other benefits include new insights arising from the data thus collected through IoT systems, which could potentially open up new business opportunities.”

See more at: eco-business.com

Raymond Hightower remembers exactly the moment he has learned the meaning of the word “Internet.” But when it comes to the phrase “Internet of Things,” the universe of IoT, he is clueless as to when and where he heard the phrase for the first time.



“The Internet of Things has just flooded into computer science,” said Hightower, a 52-years-old native of Chicago and software development entrepreneur. “Nowadays, everybody is experimenting with it, with the same excitement we were experimenting with the Web in 1993.” Hightower himself is currently exploring how to integrate the IoT with the apps for business his company WisdomGroup produces and sells. And he’s not the only one who sees potential to generate revenue by using IoT applications in the Chicago area.

The Midwest – and the Windy City in particular – is positioned to be a leader in the emerging IoT sector, according to a report released in April by the Illinois Technology Association. The inventory of the number IoT companies includes 75 headquartered in Illinois, some of them well-established or even public (such as Gogo Wireless or Motorola Solutions). But the majority are new-born.

[...]

A product connected to the Web is the idea that most people have about IoT. “For example, if I left the garage door open, a sensor would send me a notification,” said Don DeLoach, 55, member of the executive committee of the Illinois Technology Association for the past five years. However, the IoT is far more than that. To explain what the IoT is, DeLoach describes a 5-step process involving an everyday object – a dishwasher.

Step One is simply a machine that washes dishes.

Step Two is a dishwasher with some programmable functions – a smart product.

Step Three is a dishwasher that the owner can control remotely, by using a smartphone – a smart connected product.

Step Four is a dishwasher that is part of a home network – a system.

Step Five is a dishwasher that can use information by accessing another system. For example, a dishwasher that is aware of its own energy utilization by tapping the energy system for a residence – a system of systems.

“The IoT is the technology from Step Three to Step Five,” says DeLoach.

[...]

“IoT requires a lot of hardware support,” said Scasny. “Do we really need to spend money in sensors? Most sensors have also batteries that needs to be replaced from time to time. How should batteries be replaced in a network that consists of, say, 10,000 sensors?”

Lakeview resident Brent Uzelac, a 32-years-old project manager for a major IoT corporation, is not concerned at all about the downsides of the IoT.

“As long as I use Internet of Things for my purposes, I don’t have any privacy concern,” said Uzelac. “Internet of Things is a sort of child of the telegraph: a tool to make lives better.”

See more at: northwestern.edu

A new study from research firm Gartner suggests that there will be 25 billion connected devices in use by 2020, and that the Internet of Things (IoT) will support total services spending of $263 billion. At the moment, they are forecasting 4.9 billion devices during 2015, which will be an increase of 30 per cent from this year, and spending of $69.5 billion. It believes the IoT sector has already become a powerful force for business transformation, and its disruptive impact will be felt across all industries and all areas of society.



“The digital shift instigated by the Nexus of Forces (cloud, mobile, social and information), and boosted by IoT, threatens many existing businesses,” said Jim Tully, VP and distinguished analyst at Gartner. “They have no choice but to pursue IoT, like they’ve done with the consumerisation of IT.”

[...]

“Government will take the number three spot as it invests in smart street and area lighting for energy saving reasons,” said Tully. “Utilities will move to the number one position because of investment in smart meters.”

[...]

“The number of connected intelligent devices will continue to grow exponentially, giving smart things the ability to sense, interpret, communicate and negotiate," said Prentice. “CIOs must look for opportunities to create new services, usage scenarios and business models based on this growth.”

[...]

See more at: telecomtv.com

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The next generation of cellular technology, 5G, will power networks at speeds far greater than the current 4G can handle.

BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, expects 5G, when fully deployed, to increase network capacity to handle the increase in data that will be transmitted by the more than 34 billion connected devices on the planet by 2020. And 24 billion of those will be IoT devices.

A recent Ericsson survey found that 95% of leaders at mobile network operators believe that 5G will help support the surge in data from these IoT devices.

[...]

It’s not science fiction. This “next Industrial Revolution” is happening as we speak. It’s so big that it could mean new revenue streams for your company and new opportunities for you. The only question is: Are you fully up to speed on the IoT?

[...]

See more at: businessinsider.com

It’s one of the core tenets of any business or technological initiative: In order to achieve mainstream success and widespread adoption, the primary concept must be able to scale. Sure, it is a great proof of concept if you can effectively deploy a technology in one location, but if you want to make a major impact, you have to be able to replicate that ability across many places.



Unfortunately, achieving scale often does not come easy — or at all.

Because of often minor (and sometimes major) differences between locations, environments, equipment, personnel, processes and many other factors, the solutions put together in one context often do not work in another.

Early adopters of Internet of Things products and technologies in business environments have started to discover that these scale challenges are very real. As a result, their IoT deployments are moving at a much slower pace than they originally hoped. In fact, many organizations are still in the POC (proof of concept) stage for IoT, even after several years of trying.

[...]

IoT in business environments is not a product or even a technology, it’s a process. That makes it extremely challenging to scal

[...]

So, does this mean all is lost when it comes to Enterprise IoT and that we’ll one day look back on it as yet another technological passing fad? Hardly. There is a reason the vision of billions of connected devices and all the potential information and capabilities they can enable is such a compelling concept. There is a real "there" there, and the prospective value IoT offers is an attractive proposition that will keep smart people and smart companies working toward bringing at least some of its potential to life for some time to come.

The timelines for when any meaningful payoffs arrive and the pace at which the technology will actually be deployed, however, are in need of some serious reexamination. Achieving scale in a process-driven business will not come quickly, and companies at all levels of the IoT value chain need to adjust their expectations accordingly.

See more at: recode.net

The Internet of Things (IoT) has been labeled as "the next Industrial Revolution" because of the way it will change the way people live, work, entertain, and travel, as well as how governments and businesses interact with the world.



In fact, the revolution is already starting.

That brand new car that comes preloaded with a bunch of apps? Internet of Things. Those smart home devices that let you control the thermostat and play music with a few words? Internet of Things. That fitness tracker on your wrist that lets you tell your friends and family how your exercise is going? You get the point.

But this is just the beginning.

BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, has tracked the growth of the IoT for more than two years, specifically how consumers, businesses, and governments are using the IoT ecosystem. John Greenough and Jonathan Camhi of BII have compiled an exhaustive report that breaks down the entire IoT ecosystem and forecast where the burgeoning IoT market is headed. And you can learn more and purchase the report here: The Internet of Things Ecosystem Research Report.

[...]

The choice is yours. But however you decide to acquire this report, you’ve given yourself a powerful advantage in your understanding of the fast-moving world of the IoT.

See more at: businessinsider.com

More and more brands have jumped on the IoT bandwagon. We have an excess of wearables—activity trackers, smartwatches, smart glasses and sneakers, and more—that track seemingly endless datapoints.



But here's the funny thing... Most consumers don't even know what IoT is, and unless there's a compelling and meaningful benefit from it, they don't really care. "Socks that monitor my foot landing? Maybe if I was an elite runner, but I'm not. So, why should I pay extra for this irrelevant feature?"

Creating more wearables that track data shouldn't be the aim of brands; delivering meaningful, tangible relevance to their users should be.

Enhance Personalization Capabilities and Experiences

We're in a period in which the IoT pendulum is still swinging. Initially, it swung toward "smart for smart's sake," and many brands remain in that corner. But many brands are also gradually opting for more strategic approaches. They're taking a breath and stepping back to examine both existing and potential IoT experiences, asking themselves whether their products lend real value.

[...]

Where IoT Experience Transpires

I bought a connected scale at the Apple Store the other day. My expectations for this high-tech "body analyzer" were off the charts... but all the scale does is weigh me. The real activity and experience —wellness recommendations, diet plans, my home's indoor-air quality—happens in various apps it syncs with. The scale just gathers the data.

[...]

Equilibrium With IoT Pendulum

Eventually, the pendulum will swing back in the other direction, and we'll reach an IoT equilibrium.

Consumers will expect devices they use and items they wear to be connected and add value to their lives. We'll expect scales to weigh us, assess our body fat, and sync with our mobile device for personalized recommendations. Connected devices will be just another touchpoint in our increasingly digital lives.

[...]

See more at: marketingprofs.com

Like much of my writing these days, I started drafting this article while I was on a flight for my business trip. The roaring of the massive turbo engines just about 10 feet away reminded me about the nuggets Jason Mulvin, Chief Data Architect at GE Aviation, shared at Gartner EIM Summit in Dallas earlier this year.



These engines generate massive amount of data from each flight, in the range of 2TB per two-hour trip. This is huge data. And at the same time, very important for the aviation industry so they can make sense of this sensor data to identify how tens of thousands of these engines are performing and determine their next best step.

Data is the lifeblood of every organization today. The emergence of new types of transactions, interactions, and Internet of Things (IoT) data means organizations are dealing with data flowing at breakneck speed. However, the struggle for organizations is not in collecting this data, but how they can make that data actionable.

[...]

In my recent ComputerWorld article, I shared a story about GE Aviation. GE connects Owner, Operator, and Monitor information in MDM to real-time streaming data generated from the engines that are powering flights around the world. Since the engine’s performance data is identified by the aircraft tail number and engine position, MDM can relate the tail and position of the plane to the Engine Serial Number (ESN). This allows GE to link all the constituents together and get a complete picture.

An early repair of the engine may make it expensive for GE to operate, while a delay may cause flights to break down potentially causing life-threatening situations. Given there is a flight taking off every two minutes somewhere in the world, it is critical for GE Aviation to understand the location, the operators, and the performance of the engine, so they can make the best decision based on the insights their data provides.

Similarly, there are a number of industries that can benefit from IoT and MDM. - Wellheads are the most valuable assets of oil & gas companies that are at the brink of IoT revolution. Every wellhead today is geared with sensors that analyze different aspects of its performance and connecting this streaming data to core information about wellhead and its position managed in MDM is critical to derive insights. - For utility companies, smart meters come to the rescue by measuring customers’ consumption more accurately and at more frequent intervals. By connecting customers, the meters they have installed, and the data generated from those meters can provide better visibility to customers’ monthly consumption patterns. - Logistics and delivery firms track traffic and weather patterns to develop more efficient delivery routes that get packages to customers’ doors more quickly.

[...]

The value and impact of the Internet of Things (IoT) on business are huge…and extend far beyond this article! But one thing remains constant with all the case studies I’ve observed: Master Data Management provides context, an absolute necessity that ensures companies get actionable insights and maximum value from IoT data.

See more at: blogs.informatica.com