10 Most Popular Uses For The Internet Of Things

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Wikipedia defines the internet of things (IoT) as “the network of physical devices, vehicles, buildings and other items—embedded with electronics, software, sensors, and network connectivity that enables these objects to collect and exchange data.” But what does that really mean? How does it affect me? 

Think about it this way; anything that can be connected will be connected in the near future. It means devices that have an on and off switch will be able to communicate with each other and be controlled and monitored from anywhere in the world as long as they are part of the network. This type of advances will greatly change the way we live and interact with other in social, financial and personal aspects.

Here we have, some of the most popular uses we are seeing today, for the Internet of Things.

1. At home

Smart homes are some of the most common examples of innovative technology using the IoT today. Houses that are connected, allow users to control everything from how the access the home, temperature, lighting, entertainment and home appliances. Systems can be as simple or as complex as users want, and there are a lot of big companies out there making sure they can offer users the latest gadgets to fit their smart home set up.

2. Wearable technologies

Smartwatches and fitness trackers are just a couple example of this category. There are also wearables for pets that allow owners to track their activity, sleep cycles an overall health with the help of monitors the animal can wear easily. Clothing off course is another obvious choice for developers of wearable devices made for athletes and fitness enthusiasts. These garments can measure muscle activity, vital signs and GPS location among other things.

3. City Management

Smart cities in the future will use technologies like the Smart Belly, a device that communicates with municipal services to let them know that a certain trash can needs to be emptied. There are also apps that can communicate to drivers the number of parking spots available in different city blocks with the use of infrared sensors located next to the curb or in parking garages connected to the system. Other uses that are already available include lighting regulators to use energy more efficiently as well as monitoring stations for pollution and noise levels.

4. Security

Close circuit security systems that can be accesses from your mobile phone as well as better alarm systems installed at homes that can be connected to emergency services. Another aspect of security that is of great importance is the need for better encryption in communication protocols due to being in an environment of enhanced connectivity.

5. Analytics

Understanding customer needs and processing feedback and suggestions will always be of great relevance in the future of telecommunications. The IoT allows delivering services, improving products, identifying and intercepting business moments.

6. Health

Health in general is another area greatly benefited. This can go from preventive medicine as it is in the case of sensors that track your health, all the way to emergency services and devices. It is worth also mentioning monitors for babies and for elderly members of the family that can help you be vigilant of their health as well as of possible hazards.

7. Retail Applications

Retail solutions can help to make the customer experience a lot better, as well as aiding with restock, reorder, tracking and product information. There are apps that also help human resources monitor staff activities and creates an internal network of instant communication between different areas of the business.

8. Farming

Image courtesy of joinash at Flickr.com

These applications can be used to track the health of livestock as well as help farmers monitor crucial vitals like humidity, air temperature and soil quality using remote sensors on their crops. Individual monitoring of plants and animals can help the industry be more productive and to minimize losses due to disease and detrimental conditions suffered due to different conditions.

9. Maintenance and repair

Moving components, vehicles and machinery in general need constant monitoring and inspection of parts and maintenance. Most of this is done manually and takes a lot of manpower. Making these processes automatic ensures that resources are used more effectively and only when needed, ensuring the safety of operators and reducing costs in a responsible way.

10. Advanced warning for disasters

The University of Loughborough’s has developed an Acoustic Landslide Detection system called ALARMS (Assessment of Landslides using Acoustic Real-time Monitoring Systems). It detects waves produced by soil movement and it relays information that can be used to issue early warnings to communities that could possibly be affected by natural disasters like earthquakes for example.

For more information in home networks and its advancement, check out this article at Don Burns Blogspot.

Internet of things: controversial changes for the future of the world

Image courtesy of Marcus Brown at Flickr.com

The next major trend that will impact telecommunications is the boom of connected devices. This internet of things, or “Thingification”, will add billions if not trillions of new connected data sources globally by 2020. Objects throughout our lives will become connected, aware and chatty, constantly transmitting information across our global networks. The upswing of all of these devices will be an astronomical growth in data volumes; we will quickly push through Exabyte volumes and enter the world of Zettabytes per year, as sensors are added to everything, and everything starts sending out signals, the trunk lines of our networks will have to carry this crushing load of information. The “Thingification” begins for example with a light bulb, which is not particularly smart and it doesn´t have a lot to say, it's either "on" or "not on”. The challenge grows as millions and then billions of bulbs and toothbrushes and microwaves all start pushing more and more information, all of the time. The aggregated traffic from all of these devices will be enormous, and will stress our networks to the max.

The internet of things (IoT) is the network of physical devices, like said light bulbs, plus vehicles, buildings and other items, embedded with electronics, software, sensors, and network connectivity that enables these objects to collect and exchange data. The IoT allows objects to be sensed and controlled remotely across existing network infrastructure, creating opportunities for more direct integration of the physical world into computer based systems, and resulting in improved efficiency, accuracy and economic benefit. The result of this begins with smart homes, intelligent transportation, and then smart cities. Each thing is uniquely identifiable through its embedded computing system but is able to interoperate within the existing Internet infrastructure. By 2020, the Internet of Things probably will consist of almost 50 billion objects. But what actually is this 'Internet of Things'? Basically, it's the combination of low-cost, low-power processors with 'real-world' electronic sensors and wireless network connectivity increasingly being added to a wide range of electrical devices. These sensors can measure everything from temperature and humidity to pressure, proximity, sound, light, gravity, movement, feedback and through on-board software, devices can record and action those measurements over the internet.

Imagine you wake up in the morning and the fitness tracker on your wrist has recorded how well you slept, uploading the results to your Twitter account. Your coffee machine reads your Twitter feed and knowing you're awake, begins brewing your first coffee of the day. Lights automatically turn on and off as you walk down the hall to the kitchen where your coffee is now waiting. As you leave for work, the robotic vacuum cleaner begins and updates its cleaning progress map to your phone. This is the world envisioned by tech giants powered by Internet of Things that promises to change the world we live in.

Today, there are already devices that work with the principle of IoT. In Denmark's a company named Scanomat has developed the TopBrewer, which lets you choose your coffee type from your Android or iOS phone or tablet. In Copenhagen, in TopBrewer Café, you can enjoy the service without queues, just your coffee ordered, brewed and paid for by your phone.

Image courtesy of Pierre Metivier at Flickr.com

This is definite frontier technology right now and the more we understand how it works, the data it generates and how that data is stored and used, the more we'll all be aware of the potential pitfalls and benefits the Internet of Things will bring. But there are two initial problems and a possible controversial third.

First, the IoT is beginning to suffer from the lack of consistent standards. Right now, the pace of IoT development is such that there's as much pressure to get product to market as there is to develop consistent standards to ensure we don't just see a bunch of devices that can't talk to each other. Everything from hardware interoperability to how recorded data is stored in the cloud is coming under scrutiny, with growing calls for standards to be set before the market progresses too far.

Image courtesy of Schneider Electric España at Flickr.com

Second, there is a battle going on, and that's for the platform. Not a day goes by without a new player claiming that their cloud hosted platform is best, from Apple's HomeKit, Google's Brillo and Intel's IoTivity to Qualcomm's AllJoyn, the UPnP Forum and ARM mbed, and the list goes on.

And third, there is no doubt Internet of Things could clash with our privacy ideals as the internet permeates its way into areas of our lives we probably never imagined.

This issue has been debated for years now. If you want to read more about it, go to: are we creating an insecure internet of things? And to know learn about facing the challenges in communications, follow this Link provided by Don Burns.

How Consumers Benefit from Bundled-Communication Services

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Telecommunication companies are constantly looking for ways to market their products and to analyze how clients can make use of all of the services they have to offer. Multi-play is the latest term that describes the way telecommunication companies are bundling their television, telephone, mobile phone and internet access into one package. Before companies used to only offer one or two of these services independently, but it seems to be the more the merrier. Back in the day each service was a completely different service offered, and it even had different companies offering each one. In reality, technology has taken us to the point where everything is converging into one service to the point that most home utensils are now completely integrated through the Internet of Thing (IoT).

For most telecommunication companies the services offered started off with landline phones. A landline in the 80s and 90s was the easiest way to communicate with others and keep in touch, or hold coast to coast meetings. The landline was the king of communications at a time. In 2013 statistics showed that there over 1.16 billion subscribers worldwide, which may seem like a lot of people, but in reality is a steep decrease if compared to the 1.263 billion subscribers in 2003. In ten years this tech, that uses radio waves for transmission, has become more and more scarce. The main reason is all of the updates that have occurred in the past decade that have almost completely replaced the landline technology with broadband and fiber optic connection, even in rural and remote locations. It is thought that by 2025, there will be no need for the landline at all. In the United States the current telecommunication companies are well aware of this, which has led them to package their services and find alternatives for users that include this new tech, but still does not leave behind the landline until the transition is complete.

For now, the major telecommunication companies in the US are bundling these services in a variety of different packages, known as multi-play. Multi-play is a term used in marketing that describes the way of bundling the different services like internet access, television, telephone and mobile phone service. This phrase covers all of these services and any other service that may pop up in the future or has now become more trending like VoIP or MiFi. It is divided into a few categories like dual-play, triple-play and quadruple-play. Dual-play services includes two services for example high-speed internet and a VoIP, or TV Cable and high-speed internet. These two services are bundled into one package deal with better rates than if they were taken individually. Triple-play where under one same subscription customers can bundle three communication services like internet, TV and landline. And finally, quadruple-play combines not only the three services mentioned above, but mobile services as well. By the end 2016 countries like the UK and the US expect all of their providers to offer quad-play. By convincing users of the need for each of the individual services and moreover that they are all needed simultaneously will be at the core of their success.  

Image courtesy of Ian Sterling at Flickr.com

There are many changes coming to the telecommunication industry, and the expectations that consumer have with what they expect to receive is becoming higher as the technology available offers new ways of communicating, or ways of doing it cheaper and faster. Consumers nowadays have their minds set on multi-use devices, networked products, personalized bundled packages and converged services. Convergence is known as the ability to migrate multiple communication services into one single network on a network architecture. A clear example of what is already happening in telecommunication convergence is a smartphone and how it allows you not only to place a phone call, but also go online to check social networks or email. These converged services could include on-demand video, digital TV, VoIP, wireless application and high speed internet. 

Most telecommunication companies are just starting to explore the different ways of offering convergence services. Although this is leading telecommunications to a brand new day where the three biggest telecom service companies will find that their objectives and services have merged, almost to the point where it will become only one industry that bundles all of them into one same network. The big players are all coming out to see who stays with the market and who can keep up with all of the demands of the tech-savvy users. At the end of the day, telecommunication and digital media are in need of monetization which boils down to traditional media networks, digital media networks, internet entrepreneurs and finally consumers. Consumers will always be after a high-quality service that offers excellent and interesting content. Traditional media networks, digital media networks and internet entrepreneurs are now seen with the task to fill the consumer’s needs by providing easy-to-find, niched content of high quality through membership or subscription packages that will be sure to give them everything they need in terms of telecommunication. The days of simply using the telephone to make calls is over, the future will be all about curation of content and bundling telecommunication services.