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The reality distortion field of IoT
By 2020, Gartner predicts that 20.8 billion connected things will be in use worldwide, across consumer and enterprise use cases, writes Mike Crooks, the head of Innovation at thr Mubaloo Innovation Lab. This year alone, Gartner expects 5.5 million new things will get connected every day, leading to services spending around IoT reaching $235 billion by the year end.
Everywhere you look, there is a vast amount of hype about what IoT delivers, where the market is heading and what can be achieved. We’d be forgiven for thinking that IoT is already a complete world changer, that is fundamentally changing the dynamics of how we live and work. 

In some cases, of course, it’s true. The average person may never be aware of the impact that IoT is having.

We live in a world that is more connected than ever. The farming industry is going through a large change, where its equipment is becoming ever smarter and more autonomous. Cars are starting to have autonomous capabilities, with the ability to self diagnose and trigger maintenance alerts. Smart thermostats are being installed in an increasing number of homes. All the big technology companies are turning more attention, and more money into the entire IoT ecosystem.

Yet, this would be masking over the reality of IoT. IoT has the potential to help us drive improvements in virtually every aspect of the way in which we live and work; but questions remain as to whether the world needs a tweeting toaster or a smart wardrobe.

In reality, how can we be close to the vision of IoT, when so much of the world and so many companies still aren’t properly utilising or understanding technologies that have been around for decades? The majority of companies hear terms like Cloud, Big Data and Mobile and admit that they are still stuck with legacy infrastructure, with no real clue as to how to move forward.

One of the big blockers for IoT over the past few years is that every company with a vested interest in it, has wanted to control it. This has led to any external customer, be it a consumer wanting a smart home, or an enterprise wanting smart infrastructure, having to use multiple systems. 

Many of the IoT deployments at the moment focus on the dots that get joined within an organisation, connecting their own assets and their own infrastructure. The vision of IoT that has been propagated over the past few years is that systems will share data, so that across the entire chain, transformation will take place.

Larger companies in every industry are currently struggling with a very real issue of transformation at the moment. In many cases, companies are skirting around their core infrastructure and using middleware as a way of doing iterative changes. IoT for the majority of companies is something that they see as a distant possibility on their roadmap, not something that they are able to pay much attention to now.

One of the major challenges with the reality of IoT is this; companies still aren’t able to properly understand the data being generated at the moment. It doesn’t matter how much infrastructure companies put in place or how connected the world may be, if they aren’t able to use that information properly, the ability to collect data is irrelevant

IoT is as much about what is happening in the background to understand and process the information as it is about the way in which that data is collected. If we look at the consumer market, Waze is, in many ways the perfect example of IoT in action. It turns millions of cars into a live data feed of road conditions and traffic information. This is fed through the app to help people optimise their driving, which is also fed into Google’s services, to the extent that Google Now is able to recommend that you leave earlier for a meeting.

It’s the intelligence that makes this useful and powerful, but this is precisely where companies struggle. The choices of whether to utilise cellular M2M, Sigfox, Wi-Fi technologies or Bluetooth; the sensors that you deploy — all of it means nothing without being able to analyse the data in real time.

In the enterprise space, this means that we will continue to see closed networks, where the value of deployment is to that company, and that company alone. Some data feeds may be opened up, but a vast amount of data will be kept private. Companies may not want to open up data about predictive maintenance for their assets or equipment, for understandable competitive reasons.

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February 2, 2016

Posted by: George Malim

Industrial IoT Europe Summit

Event date: June 7 – 8, 2016
Hamburg, Germany

The Industrial IoT promises to generate a new wave of technological innovation that is set to permanently redefine the current digital landscape.
Pioneering businesses are connecting complex, physical machines with first-class analytics to unleash a wealth of new insights that were never before possible. (more…)

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February 1, 2016

Posted by: IoT global network

What does the rise in IoT mean for cyber security?

Internet connected devices are becoming embedded in our everyday lives, with almost every object either already connected or currently being modified in an attempt to be smart, writes Grayson Milbourne, the security intelligence director at Webroot. (more…)

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January 26, 2016

Posted by: George Malim

Deepak Puri

From IoT Vision To Reality

Practical Lessons From Building An IoT Proof-of-Concept
What looks simple from 20,000 feet becomes complex as you get closer to the ground. Here are details on the approach we used, components we used and the lessons we learnt while recently developing an IoT proof-of-concept. (more…)

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January 22, 2016

Posted by: Skilled Analysts

Smart cities – the next IoT frontier

Across Europe, cities are racing to make themselves smarter, writes Ricky Cooper, the vice president of EMEA and APAC and Digital Reality. By harnessing the power of computing, networks and big data, their aim is to improve living standards for citizens and reduce the impact of urbanisation on the environment. (more…)

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January 19, 2016

Posted by: George Malim

IoT Global Innovation Forum

Event date: June 15-16, 2016
Barcelona, Spain

The 2nd Annual IoT Global Innovation Forum, June 15-16, 2016 in Barcelona, Spain, brings together leading technology innovators, business strategists and developers from around the world for two days of focused networking and information sharing at the IoT cutting edge. Expert speakers will discuss the latest applications for traditional commercial processes as well as new business models and opportunities within the emerging Internet of Things ecosphere.  (more…)

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January 14, 2016

Posted by: IoT global network

Don’t get caught with your IoT exposed – Part Two

In the second part of his blog on IoT security, Rob Greer, the chief marketing officer and senior vice president of products at ForeScout Technologies explains how organisations can stay ahead of the IoT invasion. (more…)

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January 12, 2016

Posted by: George Malim

Don’t get caught with your IoT exposed – Part One

We live on a hyper-connected planet, writes Rob Greer the chief marketing officer and senior vice president of products at ForeScout Technologies. Just over 40% of the world is online, with an average of five connected devices per US household. And now, with the Internet of Things (IoT) in full swing among individuals and organisations, those numbers are about to explode. There will be 30 billion connected things by 2020, compared to a relatively paltry 13 billion connected devices in 2015. (more…)

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January 11, 2016

Posted by: George Malim

IoT for critical infrastructure raises the security stakes

By connecting everything to the internet, the Internet of Things (IoT) promises to revolutionise the way we live, writes Tobias Zillner, the snior IS Auditor at Cognosec. The temptation to bring the latest technological advances to critical infrastructure is understandable – indeed, the optimisation of infrastructure is perhaps where the IoT has the most revolutionary potential. (more…)

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January 7, 2016

Posted by: George Malim

IoT – the hope beyond the hype

In 2015, the Internet of Things received the anti-award for being one of the most over-hyped emerging technologies in analyst firm Gartner’s Hype Cycle. In fact, IoT has held its position at the summit of the ‘peak of inflated expectations’ for two years running now, writes Darren Thomson, the chief technology officer and vice president of technology EMEA at Symantec. So when will we move beyond the hype? (more…)

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January 5, 2016

Posted by: George Malim