2 Выбираем продукт

3 Выставляем Min и Max значение

Video calling is nothing new to the digital space, but the recent integration of video chat to the Internet of Things (IoT) devices has gotten people talking, both literally and figuratively.

The most notable new entry to video IoT is Facebook, which in late 2018, launched “Portal,” a range of stand-alone, AI-powered video-calling devices.

This move is an attempt from Facebook to earn a market share in the digital assistant space currently dominated by Amazon and Google.

But, will Facebook Portal disrupt the consumer IoT market?

As the first widely distributed and familiar video digital assistant, will Facebook portal make actual inroads against Amazon’s relative dominance in the consumer IoT space?

Portal Integrates Facebook’s Core Capabilities With Video

Facebook developed and launched Portal to capitalize on people’s preference for video and to improve the video-calling experience for users.

Portal makes video calls through Facebook Messenger. These calls take on the characteristics of the Facebook platform, which use an AI-powered camera to provide interactive features.

Portal also overcomes the disruptions and awkwardness of typical video calls by eliminating the need to stay in one place in front of the camera (or giving the other person motion sickness when you move around while holding your device).

Portal can zoom, pan, and frame the picture; it acts like a “personal cameraman” who has expertise following your every move. It gives you the feeling that you are talking to somebody who is really in front of you because you can share real-life moments like playing, gardening, or cooking.

The advanced visual components add value to its digital assistant, which early models of Echo and Google Home lack.

Portal Emphasizes Privacy Amid Past Mistakes

According to Facebook, Portal was created with privacy, safety, and security in mind.

That is important, considering Facebook’s history with sharing user data. Nearly half of people view Facebook more negatively as a result of the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

The security features Facebook touted for Portal include the following:

• Users can completely disable the camera and microphone simply and easily.
• Users get an included camera cover that can easily block the camera’s lens at any time without hampering the ability to receive incoming calls and notifications.
• Users can set a passcode to manage Portal access within the home, and changing the passcode requires the user’s Facebook password.

Facebook also allays security fears by keeping the Portal’s processes on the actual device rather than in the cloud, so the risk of being hacked is lower than with a smartphone or computer.

Facebook Portal Doesn’t Totally Compete With Amazon

Though Portal made a splash with its rollout, it actually uses Amazon’s AI technology for voice commands and integrates with Prime to allow people to order from their accounts. The fact that they depend on Amazon for core functionality underscores the fact that Facebook is a little late to the market.

Instead of competing against the established presence of Amazon and Google, Facebook has instead positioned itself as the leading platform for interactive video calls.

This, combined with its integration of Alexa voice technology, allows it to compete not with Amazon’s signature Echo product, but with its new video virtual assistant, the Echo Show.

Additionally, Facebook, leveraging technology from its VR acquisition Oculus, incorporates augmented reality (AR) effects to make Portal’s video calls a compelling experience.

Portal Represents a Bridge to the Future

The Facebook Portal video-call device has several benefits and useful functions, namely its smart camera combined with Alexa voice technology. However, in the long run, Portal is most likely just a bridge between two worlds of video communication. After all, it seems like only a matter of time before people will be able to use large-screen smart TVs to make video calls.

Until that happens, the Portal devices have solidified their presence as a platform for IoT development, though at a later date than others.

The GetResponse online campaign management platform helps to design, implement, and track digital marketing activities. Companies can do that using marketing automation, autoresponders, webinars, landing pages, advanced analytics, and over 50 other easy-yet-powerful features.

✅ Create an account: https://www.getresponse.com/?a=7jvq3VweQw

✅ Improve your marketing: https://www.getresponse.com/?a=7jvq3VweQw

All-in-one Online Marketing Platform to Grow Your Business

✉️ Email Marketing

🤖 Marketing Automation

🌐 Landing Pages

📹 Webinars

💬 24/7 Live Support

👔 CRM

The Internet of Things (IoT) industry has been the home of intensive innovation and significant transformation over the last few years. Nowhere have those innovations been more impactful than in the business models that those technologies enable. While traditional business models continue to drive significant revenues across the board, there are a range of hybrid and entirely new models that will begin to shape the future of the space.

Certainly, the future of the IoT and smart home space is bright indeed, both from a consumer and enterprise standpoint. Analysts at Strategy Analytics have predicted that the potential smart home market will be worth $130 billion by 2020, and continue to grow at a CAGR of 23.48 percent during the period 2016-2020, according to a separate report.

The Strategy Analytics report breaks down some of the market opportunities, placing emphasis on smart home safety and security applications, which are set to yield more than $26 billion per year globally, as well as self-monitoring smart home applications, where consumer spend could top $14 billion a year.

Security in Numbers

Even today, the IoT home security market makes up a significant portion of the total, and it is a microcosm of business models, both new and old. Traditional retail is, of course, a strong performer, but even this is seeing new drivers. Insurance companies are offering discounts to customers with approved systems fitted, while others are taking a logical step further, supplying discounted or subsidized hardware direct to consumers as a sales package.

Meanwhile, professional installer firms are increasingly targeting the technology-averse with pre-configured packages that can be installed in hours and remotely configured to suit the customer in minutes. Finally, and perhaps most interestingly for the future, the subscription monitoring services are beginning to see the opportunity to up their game, with the addition of localized warnings to other homeowners in the event of a break-in. There is also the possibility of gaining more powerful insights by overlaying sensors, such as linking a barometric pressure sensor and a window sensor to establish whether an open window and wet weather constitute an alert-worthy risk.

Blending the Business

This blending of business models is not unique to the security space, but the success of this niche has encouraged a surprising range of other sectors to approach the market. Another example is German utility provider Vattenfall (deeply involved in the UK wind energy market), which has retailed a variety of smart home packages to homeowners that have in turn been white labelled from the smart home arm of a major German telco.

Other business models that have been driven by IoT are those connected with compliance and regulation. Usually more B2B-focused, the impact of these models can be considerable. For context, Fortune Global 500 companies had to spend roughly $7.8 billion in order to ensure they were compliant with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), according to the Financial Times. In fact, American manufacturers spend an estimated $192 billion on compliance per year, so the opportunity to make cost savings is not to be lightly missed.

Remote Monitoring

In the oil and gas industry, IoT is enabling previously impossible levels of remote monitoring, such as checking for oil leaks and gas emissions, which would have been done manually just a few years ago. This not only reduces cost, but also generates far more complete and responsive data, which can then be used to model future yields and challenges far more accurately. In addition, the real-time data means that if a leak does occur, it can be dealt with immediately, limiting liability and environmental damage.

Environmental concerns are not limited to distant oilfields either, as utility firms across Europe are facing increasingly tough targets on efficiency. In some regions, power companies are able to offset smart thermostats against their targets, leading to a boom in installations as utilities incentivize, discount and in some cases install smart solutions direct to customer.

The major opportunities in the world of IoT for startups and incumbent players alike, are around leveraging the vast flows of data these networked sensors and devices are creating. By aggregating new data points created by connected home devices with increasingly efficient and reliable sensors integrated into them, entirely new business models, products and services can be created.

For example, there is immediate potential for micro subscription services, where IoT devices monitor their own consumables and reorder when required. Amazon’s Dashinfrastructure is only the touch of a button away, while Nespresso’s newest machines are just an app swipe off, as the machines report back to the app from a host of sensors throughout the machine, from safety pressure levels to the remaining number of pods.

Clearly, the future will see innumerable new products and services grow up around this network of home and environmental sensors, and the most dramatic will probably be those that create whole new ways of slicing and dicing data from different sensor sources. The days when technology was engineered to suit the business model are fading. Now, tech evolves the models and at an increasingly rapid rate. Welcome to the future!

Factor 1: IoT Is Naturally Multi-Party

One brand’s device needs to talk to another brand’s device, and this needs to be controlled by an app that runs on another machine (multi-party). Connecting devices is an n-squared problem. To connect nodes of a network, you need as many connections as the number of devices and apps in the system, squared. This is typically done with APIs. Each device, or back-end server, needs to work with as many APIs as it is connected to. Changes to APIs require changes to firmware. This is impossible to scale across all the permutations of APIs that any one device could connect to.

Multiple parties need a simple and common way to trustfully interact. Open-source tools are shared by the entire ecosystem, as opposed to some of the emerging IoT platforms that are centrally controlled and operated by a potentially competitive stakeholder. A well tuned IoT network is designed around community building in multi-party open source IoT systems.

Factor 2: IoT Tools Need to Connect to Other Standards and Systems

In a previous blog, Matthew Gregory, Ockam’s CEO, discussed why developers hate the idea of universal, siloed, do-it-all, top-to-bottom IoT platforms. The cloud developer’s open-source tools and services are organized into horizontal specialized layers that make up stacks. IoT tools must be interoperable with other layers in a software stack and fit into the cloud OSS frameworks that developers love.

For example, the open identity standard called decentralized identifiers (DIDs) make it easy to create cryptographically-secure identities for an array of entities. This feature extends not just to devices, but it’s also possible for DIDs to represent people, organizations, or any type of entity you could think of that is compatible with a DID registered device. In this way, developers are able to easily codify complex graph relationships between people, organizations, devices, and assets and to make these relationships available across the service stack.

Factor 3: IoT Relies on Certainty

IoT systems should rely on an immutable and unique cryptographic identity that has been claimed by each device in the network. Every time a device sends data to another device, or to a data store, it should sign that data with its cryptographic key. Moreover, a developer should be open to choose whatever cryptography method is appropriate for the security needs and hardware capabilities of their device without sacrificing system interoperability.

Each device also needs to know what type of cryptographic method was used to sign messages they received. This is solved technically and through open availability through the aforementioned DID standard. This guarantees that every bit of data that moves through the network can be trusted and that every device can be certain of who sent what data.

Factor 4: IoT Interacts with the Real World

IoT systems require fast finality in a state machine and consistent data everywhere in the network. Blockchain is a great state machine tool; however, many general purpose or financially-tuned blockchain networks are OK with temporary forks (aka data partitions) because the digital world can be corrected upon group consensus as time passes. Unfortunately, in the case of IoT, finality affects real world outcomes.

Consider the case of a remote-controlled floodgate. If an actuator on a floodgate gets a command to open the gate, water will rush down the hill. However, after a couple minutes, if the actuator learns it was connected to a partition of the network that had bad data, it can’t go back and put the water back where it’s supposed to be. This type of partitioning happens regularly in probabilistic finality blockchains such as Ethereum.

In distributed systems, what I just described is referred to as the CAP theorem. The CAP theorem states that a distributed system can’t have consistency, availability, and partition tolerance all at the same time. You must pick two at the expense of the third. Many blockchain networks are available and partition (“AP”) tolerant . However, because IoT affects the real world, the network needs to be a consistency and partition tolerant (CP) orientated system so there is consistent data everywhere in the network.

Factor 5: The Network Should Be Close to the Device

The closer a device is to the network, the faster and more reliable the connection is between device and network. If the network is broken up into zones, they can be distributed globally, thanks to the global footprint of public cloud infrastructure. This proximity maximizes performance between the IoT device and the network.

Factor 6: Achieve Scalability Through a Hub-and-Zone Model

Future scalability is a hot topic in IoT. Today’s IoT networks need to process high volumes of data. Tomorrow’s will need to produce tremendous amounts!

A hub-and-zone structure solves this problem. As IoT demands increase, a network can scale horizontally by adding as many zones as needed for throughput demand.

Factor 7: IoT Systems Produce a Ton of Data

As we previously discussed, we love blockchain’s structure as a state-machine that enables multi-party ecosystems. However, a blockchain network also needs to be tuned for IoT so it can accommodate the huge volume of data that IoT devices generate. In isolation, this data is of relatively low value. However, the true value of IoT is unlocked when huge amounts of data feed higher-order processes such as AI/ML. A blockchain network must have very low compute costs, which means developers can get more value (and trust) out of their applications.

To put it simply: moving data in an IoT network can’t cost more than the data packet is worth! This means compute resources need to be used to process transactions and not wasted on generating consensus through other mechanisms, such as proof-of-work-based systems.

Factor 8: Flexibility for Public and Private Consortia

A device owner may only want to share data among trusted business partners. However, they may also want to deliver a zero-knowledge proof on the state of their data to an external regulator, partner, or customer.

This is another benefit of a zone-based infrastructure footprint. Private zones should keep the data in the zone private to the zone but still allow permissions and proofs to be represented externally to public zones.

Factor 9: IoT Devices Need to Validate Network State

Most IoT devices are built to extremely tight tolerances and don’t have resources to spare. Low-power wireless devices with simple hardware need a low bandwidth way to stay in sync with the current state of the network.

Network clients need to be offered a light version that is honed for low-power devices. Moreover, devices need to sync with the state of the network when a device is turned on or comes back online. Catching up to the state of the network requires a network design that enables a low-power device that has intermittent connectivity to get caught up in a couple kilobytes.

According to estimates from Gartner, there will be approximately 20.4 billion connected devices by 2020. About 8.4 billion of those devices will be consumer products: wearables, smart TVs, smart light bulbs, etc. Add in smart electric meters, manufacturing equipment that sends you an alert that a problem is developing, and logistics systems that guide trucks to the least-congested routes, and I think we’ll get to a place where it will seem strange if something isn’t connected.

Digital Policies for IoT Devices

As exciting as it all is, I also find it a little unnerving. It reminds me of the early days of the internet, when we were developing new things as fast as we could, while rarely thinking of the potential consequences. Since then, my experience as a digital governance consultant has made me all too aware of how dangerous that was, and how lucky we were to survive it relatively unscathed. I sense that particular demon lurking in the background again, waiting to see if we make the same mistakes in the mad race to roll out the Internet of Things (IoT).

Whether IoT is the whole point of your business or you’re simply adding IoT connectivity to your legacy products, I can’t stress enough how important it is to build IoT on a foundation of strong digital policies. You do that by having some very honest conversations about what could go wrong and then establishing policies to keep those things from happening.

What Do You Mean, “What Could Go Wrong?”

No developer who’s all excited about a new project wants to focus on what could go wrong, but that’s exactly what must be done. Here are some of the questions that would be smart to ask when developing digital policies for IoT:

Consumer Products

What about security, which is a big issue with IoT devices intended for consumers? What will your minimum standards be? How can you mitigate these issues with your customers? Can you include coding, for instance, that forces them to change the default password on a connected device after a certain amount of time has passed? (Currently, 15% of people who own connected devices never change the default password.)

What about software updates? Should your devices update automatically? Should customers be able to prohibit them from updating automatically? If so, what sort of problems might arise from outdated software? How should you go about reminding consumers of needed updates and explaining their importance?

Do customers understand that connected devices add to the load on their WiFi network and could therefore slow things down? Should you communicate that to customers before or after purchase? What support should you offer customers who suffer a dip in their WiFi performance after installing your device?

Should customers still have the opportunity to buy analog versions of your connected products? A refrigerator that simply keeps things cold, for example? Will doing so make you more or less competitive? And should you charge more for devices that aren’t connected to make up for the lost data-mining opportunities? How will you explain that to customers, and what kind of backlash might ensue?

Should customers be able to override certain features? For instance, should customers be able to override a “low ink” warning on their connected printer? If not, what kind of social media crisis could ensue, such as from having a stressed-out college student who’s trying to finish a paper in the middle of the night but doesn’t have a way to get more ink?

If you do choose to allow user overrides, what criteria should you use to make that decision? In what situations could allowing overrides be harmful?

What are the opportunities for misuse (such as Alexa allowing children to order dollhouses), and what user controls should be put in place to prevent such misuse?

What about healthcare wearables, one of the fast-growing segments of IoT devices? The recently revealed Apple Watch Series 4, for example, has FDA approval to take EKG readings. Consumers might take a reading if their heart rate feels off, for example. But what will the consumers do with that information? Will they call their doctors, rush to the emergency room, ignore it, etc.? If consumers have access to more (and constant) data about things like blood pressure, heart rate, etc., whose job is it to educate them on what merits a call to the doctor (or 911)? Who will be responsible for validating the accuracy and relevance of that information? How will that information be incorporated into your customer support materials?

How often will you support and update older models? Will you make the decision to stop supporting older models so that consumers will be forced to buy new ones? What backlash might that cause from consumers?

What are your responsibilities when it comes to device malfunctions? For example, some people with diabetes use a special watch to monitor and manage their blood glucose levels. But what if the device fails to detect a dangerous change in blood glucose? Should the device warn the user that it’s malfunctioning, and should users be advised to carry old-fashioned testing kits as a backup? How should those situations be considered when conducting risk analysis?

Industrial/Commercial Devices

When it comes to your industrial and commercial devices, what will be your standards for uptime? Should that change according to the purpose of the IoT device? (An acceptable uptime rate for a device that allows a nurse to monitor the vitals of multiple patients remotely, for example, would probably be higher than for one who adjusts the thermostat at quitting time.)

If you’re in the industrial IoT market, how will you coordinate required updates and maintenance with your clients’ schedules?

If your devices are used in transportation, what information are they legally required to record (or prohibited from recording) by the countries where you operate? If requirements change from one country to another, how will you ensure overall compliance?

If your devices will be used in manufacturing plants, how will you ensure that plant employees will be able to use, install, repair, and replace them without violating OSHA regulations?

How will you ensure your devices can’t be tampered with (by truck drivers wanting to get more hours after they’ve maxed out, for example)?

As you can see, there’s a LOT to think about when it comes to developing digital policies for your IoT devices (this barely counts as an appetizer!). So, how can you ensure that all these issues are covered? The answer is to treat your IoT devices just like any other digital property by developing comprehensive IoT policies and making sure no IoT device rolls out without being examined through the lens of those policies.

If you already have a digital policy program, this simply adds another layer. If you don’t already have digital policies, your organization is at greater risk than you may realize. In that case, I strongly encourage you to consider working with a digital policy expert to help you get up to speed.

It may be that your exposure to augmented reality (AR) has been limited to searching for Pokemon while commuting or having a grand time putting dinosaurs on your furniture. However, the potential for AR innovations to alter the marketing world has been universally acknowledged as staggering. Recently, AdAge called AR a “trillion-dollar opportunity,” recognizing the seismic shift it portends.

If your company is not already contemplating how to integrate AR into your marketing arsenal, then you’re falling behind. Additionally, the place where AR tech combines with Internet of Things (IoT) data allows better functionality of service for consumers and improves the way your company can target specific demographics.

How Can AR and IoT Enhance Marketing Initiatives?

Some of the best ways to put AR to work for your company are in the marketing sphere. As IoT generates information about the physical world, it can be integrated with AR to create a better experience for your customer. AR is useful for many industries.

Location-based services: Perhaps the simplest way to create an AR experience through IoT is to have a marker for the location of your brick-and-mortar location (or your product within one). Apps like Wikitude show customers the physical locations for certain products they may be searching for. Or, you can create a better purchasing experience. For example, Gatwick Airport put in place locations services as wayfinding markers for airline travelers to reach their destinations more smoothly. This same tech can bring people to your products easily and efficiently.

Choice and experience-based services: Designers have been using AR and IoT to reimagine spaces, but consumers can use this technology to see how their furniture fits in the living room of a new house, or what the best color for a new shirt might be.

Metrics and data: Another good reason to integrate AR and IoT into your general marketing is that it has the functionality to allow you to target consumer actions more thoroughly and to work as predictors. Location services can give you a better idea of how your consumers act in certain situations. Even more importantly perhaps is that a majority of customers say they prefer using the engagement they get with AR related products, giving them more product information before they purchase.

It’s important that you break down and facilitate that data to create more effective marketing strategies. How does the weather affect your consumer, for example? What other real-world variables are changing consumer behavior? IoT and AR working together can tell you more about your user experience and allow you to troubleshoot to become more efficient.

f you look up the definition of a sharing economy, you will find it often includes the sharing of a good or service through an online platform. The truth is, sharing economies have existed for centuries—well before there was an online. Communities have historically shared resources, instead of owning one of everything themselves.

However, the advent of the Internet changed the possibilities of a sharing economy by expanding the reach of potential buyers to lenders. It gave rise to tech giants like Airbnb and Uber, allowing individuals to monetize their unused rooms, houses and cars. These companies provided people with a more affordable and accessible way to get from A to B,and stay in C, than their traditional counterparts.

The sharing economy has experienced waves of hyper enthusiasm, but it has yet to reach its full potential. The sharing of smaller items has failed to gain the want and necessity from would-be users, as transaction costs and convenience still favor purchasing the item outright. However, the development of technologies including blockchain and IoT are beginning to change these limitations. We’re seeing the next evolution of what a future sharing economy could really mean for individuals, the economy, and the environment.

Shifting Our Mindset

The boom of the digital revolution has allowed us to connect to the world in a way we couldn’t before. This has given us access to greater options for finding accommodation, transport and resources we may otherwise have found unaffordable or inaccessible. In the developed world, we still live like we need to own everything ourselves. From our cars, to our internet, to our dust-collecting DIY tools, we need it for ourselves. It might be convenient, but it’s costly and takes up space, and we often don’t utilize the assets full value. Private vehicles go unused for an estimated 95 percent of their lifetime, so why does everyone need their own car? What if cars were rented by the day or hour, and you only paid insurance for the period rented?

Learning a New Way to Trust

Online platforms listing available rooms or other assets exist because users need someone to trust in the transaction process. When you pay for a good or service, you want to know you will receive that item, and these platforms help instill that trust.

The arrival of blockchain technology, although initially intended to disrupt the finance sector, has resolved that need for trust. Blockchain’s key features—decentralization, transparency, immutability, and security—have prompted almost every industry to consider operational optimization. Blockchain provides a “trust-less” environment because it’s not controlled by a central authority. Instead, consensus on any given transaction is handled by a network of peers, or nodes.

To maintain honesty and integrity among the network, various incentive or disincentive methods are applied across blockchain models. This ensures that valid transactions are verified and confirmed, while discouraging motives to act unfavorably.

Blockchain’s ability to decentralize ownership means we can create an Uber-esque service without needing the company. This would lower operational costs incurred by the central platform, enabling a true peer-to-peer exchange where prices are agreed directly between seller and buyer. This would prevent your personal data from being collected, stored, and monetized by entities that have traditionally provided these trusted platforms.

Beenest is one example of a company using blockchain technology to improve the house-sharing economy, by eliminating the terms of service and costs incurred by the centralized giants that typically hold the market share. Improving on existing companies classified under the “sharing economy,” like Airbnb, Beenest allows the users, and not a company, to truly reap the benefits of what it means to share resources peer-to-peer. In this new model of house sharing, those with rooms or houses to spare are able to directly connect with those looking for accommodation, with no intermediary charging a commission or exploiting its user’s data.

Automation Drives Opportunity

Smart contracts are another element of blockchain. They remove the need for trust between parties providing or using goods and services. Smart contracts are a set of self-executing rules that run on an if-then premise between two or more parties. For example, if you wanted to rent a car for the day, you would send through the required payment to an account that is monitored by the smart contract. Once payment is received, the smart contract would execute, allowing you to unlock the car and switch it on. Once the rental period is up, the car would lock and no longer turn on.

Slock.it is a German-based company that is building real-world applications for the sharing economy, by enabling human-machine and machine-machine sharing through blockchain and IoT. Among their many endeavors, they’re developing smart switches.

Using smart contracts, these smartwatches can unlock the door to a rental home, office space, vehicle, or give access to services such as metered Wi-Fi, for the period paid. Through a simple app, users can search for connected devices to hire, pay and gain access to the device. History and use of these devices are stored on the blockchain in the back end, recording data including time used, amount paid, and so on.

For devices such as machinery, this record could also notify the device when it needs its next service. The use of smart contracts within a sharing economy model means there is a reduced need, or even no need, for third-party intermediaries who would normally serve as the trusted platform providing the services. This would reduce operational costs, thereby lowering costs for the renter while the provider of the good or service earns more.

With around 23 billion devices connected in 2018, we’re now able to share, locate, and track more assets reliably. Thinking beyond the current items in today’s sharing economy, there are many other resources to be added that are currently overproduced but underutilized. What if houses with solar panels could reallocate their unused electricity to neighboring houses via a power grid and families earned money instead of the power companies?

What about renting the extra disk space we have on our hard drives, or the extra 20GB of internet data in our monthly plan that we never use? Currently, it’s easier for people to buy their own plans and hard drives (whether local or cloud-based). But, what if there were convenient and affordable options for renting out these unused services that you pay for regardless?

It’s estimated that within the next 10 years, more than 50 percent of the global economy will be created from the major sharing economy sectors: peer-to-peer lending, music and video streaming, automobile sharing, house sharing, and online staffing. However, this could be significantly greater if we develop current and future technologies to increase accessibility to what we can share with one another. In a time where we are using too many of the earth’s resources, this could be a solution to today’s overconsumption and waste of resources.

We may also see a shift in the distribution of the economy as technologies such as blockchain allow everyday users to capitalize on their own assets. Of course, regulations, security, and policies still to need to be developed as we iron out what the sharing economy is and what it means.

It’s clear that consumers now have greater options for selecting products and services, while giving lenders the ability to offer their unused goods or services to a much larger audience. The economy works off supply and demand, and with the introduction of more services available, more competition will inevitably continue to foster innovation.

At the 2019 World Economic Forum, the Fourth Industrial Revolution will be one of the topics for discussion. We have much to thank the Fourth Industrial Revolution for gradually shaping a world that’s more transparent, efficient, and independent. In a fast-digitalizing landscape, we are experiencing the need for technology to be the bedrock of sustainable development. The Internet of Things (IoT) is a fundamental component of that bedrock.

Business models and digital strategies heavily rely on the tools of the day to create an ecosystem that is sustainably progressive. The impact of IoT cannot be emphasized enough in this disruptive paradigm. As we further the IoT journey, the world will see new cross-industry partnerships and innovative business models. This will result in the cost of deployment and subsequently generated value being shared by all stakeholders across spectrums.

Opportunities Galore

As the number of connected devices sees an unprecedented increase, the vast amount of data will create unique opportunities for improving services and livability. What are the opportunities that leaders and businesses can capitalize on to create a sustainable future using data and connectivity? The question is complex, but the answer isn’t. In a hyper-connected world that’s constantly focused on hyper-consumerism, the value generation will depend on IoT in a big way.

IoT’s impact is multilateral and overarching. Some of the key areas that stand to be benefited are the following:

1.  Optimization of work environments and improved worker safety: Shop floors and similar work environments are seething with safety hazards. IoT can help in monitoring and controlling the conditions, like temperature, air quality, humidity, and lighting. Additionally, wearables for safety of the workers can be leveraged to keep track of the individuals’ conditions and send timely alerts to centralized systems in case of emergencies. Interventions such as these will not only provide a safer work environments but will also improve the overall performance of the workforce. With safety comes greater efficiency.

2.  Better, more affordable healthcare: The aging population is growing rapidly, specifically in developed countries, thereby straining healthcare systems. IoT has the potential to deliver value in such a scenario by enabling doctors to monitor and treat patients remotely and to preempt the onset of illnesses with timely data and insights on patient health.

3.  Improved movement of people and goods: Fleet management systems that leverage IoT technologies to monitor vehicle movement in real time can be used for route optimization. This leads to reduction in fuel consumption and improved transit times across the supply chain. Such solutions can be deployed effectively in the transport of both goods and people.

4.  Natural disaster monitoring and prevention: We’re now seeing some traction in IoT applications that can warn us of impending natural disasters or even prevent the death and destruction caused by these distressing events. These applications can also be extended to facilitate efficient rescue and recovery efforts. For instance, effective prediction involves identifying hazard areas and potential triage zones on maps, facilitating communication through platforms that don’t depend on cellular networks or landlines. Sensors with high sensitivity and meters with greater data capabilities are being used to provide early warning systems for earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

One World, One Ecosystem

The key tenet of Globalization 4.0 is to bring the world together, thereby adding value to lives and businesses. The myriad of innovations is being leveraged in a varied scale in that quest. For a truly globalized world, data analysis and connectivity have to be on point. It’s, therefore, obvious that IoT will only grow in stature, and its utility will stretch over time.

While IoT applications offer promise in varied areas, we’re still grappling with challenges related to security, interoperability, and sustainability. Hence, it goes without saying that platforms such as WEF are seminal to bringing relevant stakeholders on the same page and facilitating significant deliberations in pursuit of resolutions for some of these challenges.

What Is a Smart Farm?

Smart Farming is an emerging concept that refers to managing farms using modern Information and Communication Technologies to increase the quantity and quality of products while optimizing the human labor required.

Among the technologies available for present-day farmers are:

• Sensors: soil, water, light, humidity, temperature management
• Software: specialized software solutions that target specific farm types or use case agnostic IoT platforms
• Connectivity: cellular, LoRa, etc.
• Location: GPS, Satellite, etc.
• Robotics: Autonomous tractors, processing facilities, etc.
• Data analytics: standalone analytics solutions, data pipelines for downstream solutions, etc.

Armed with such tools, farmers can monitor field conditions without even going to the field and make strategic decisions for the whole farm or for a single plant.

The driving force of smart farming is IoT —connecting smart machines and sensors integrated on farms to make farming processes data-driven and data-enabled.

The IoT-Based Smart Farming Cycle

The core of IoT is the data you can draw from things (“T”) and transmit over the Internet (“I”). To optimize the farming process, IoT devices installed on a farm should collect and process data in a repetitive cycle that enables farmers to react quickly to emerging issues and changes in ambient conditions. Smart farming follows a cycle like this one:

1. Observation

Sensors record observational data from the crops, livestock, soil, or atmosphere.

2. Diagnostics

The sensor values are fed to a cloud-hosted IoT platform with predefined decision rules and models—also called “business logic”—that ascertain the condition of the examined object and identify any deficiencies or needs.

3. Decisions

After issues are revealed, the user, and/or machine learning-driven components of the IoT platform determine whether location-specific treatment is necessary and if so, which.

4. Action

After end-user evaluation and action, the cycle repeats from the beginning.

IoT Solutions to Agricultural Problems

Many believe that IoT can add value to all areas of farming, from growing crops to forestry. In this article, we’ll talk about two major areas of agriculture that IoT can revolutionize:

1. Precision farming
2. Farming automation/robotization

1. Precision Farming

Precision farming, or precision agriculture, is an umbrella concept for IoT-based approaches that make farming more controlled and accurate. In simple words, plants and cattle get precisely the treatment they need, determined by machines with superhuman accuracy. The biggest difference from the classical approach is that precision farming allows decisions to be made per square meter or even per plant/animal rather than for a field.

By precisely measuring variations within a field, farmers can boost the effectiveness of pesticides and fertilizers, or use them selectively.

2. Precision Livestock Farming

As in the case of precision agriculture, smart farming techniques enable farmers better to monitor the needs of individual animals and to adjust their nutrition accordingly, thereby preventing disease and enhancing herd health.

Large farm owners can use wireless IoT applications to monitor the location, well-being, and health of their cattle. With this information, they can identify sick animals, so that they can be separated from the herd to prevent the spread of disease.

Automation in Smart Greenhouses

Traditional greenhouses control the environmental parameters through manual intervention or a proportional control mechanism, which often results in production loss, energy loss, and increased labor cost.

IoT-driven smart greenhouses can intelligently monitor as well as control the climate, eliminating the need for manual intervention. Various sensors are deployed to measure the environmental parameters according to the specific requirements of the crop. That data is stored in a cloud-based platform for further processing and control with minimal manual intervention.

Agricultural Drones

Agriculture is one of the major verticals to incorporate both ground-based and aerial drones for crop health assessment, irrigation, crop monitoring, crop spraying, planting, soil and field analysis and other spheres.

Since drones collect multispectral, thermal and visual imagery while flying, the data they gather provide farmers with insights into a whole array of metrics: plant health indices, plant counting and yield prediction, plant height measurement, canopy cover mapping, field water pond mapping, scouting reports, stockpile measuring, chlorophyll measurement, nitrogen content in wheat, drainage mapping, weed pressure mapping, and so on.

Importantly, IoT-based smart farming doesn’t only target large-scale farming operations; it can add value to emerging trends in agriculture like organic farming, family farming, including breeding particular cattle and/or growing specific cultures, preservation of particular or high quality varieties etc., and enhance highly transparent farming to consumers, society and market consciousness.

Internet of Food, or Farm 2020

If we have the Internet of Things (IoT) and the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT), why not have one for food? The European Commission project Internet of Food and Farm 2020 (IoF2020), a part of Horizon 2020 Industrial Leadership, explores through research and regular conferences the potential of IoT technologies for the European food and farming industry.

IoT has fostered the belief that a smart network of sensors, actuators, cameras, robots, drones, and other connected devices will bring an unprecedented level of control and automated decision-making to agriculture, making possible an enduring ecosystem of innovation in this eldest of industries.

Third Green Revolution

Smart Farming and IoT-driven agriculture are paving the way for what can be called a Third Green Revolution.

Following the plant breeding and genetics revolutions, the Third Green Revolution is taking over agriculture. That revolution draws upon the combined application of data-driven analytics technologies, such as precision farming equipment, IoT, “big data” analytics, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs or drones), robotics, etc.

In the future this smart farming revolution depicts, pesticide and fertilizer use will drop while overall efficiency will rise. IoT technologies will enable better food traceability, which in turn will lead to increased food safety. It will also be beneficial for the environment, through, for example, more efficient use of water, or optimization of treatments and inputs.

Therefore, smart farming has a real potential to deliver a more productive and sustainable form of agricultural production, based on a more precise and resource-efficient approach. New farms will finally realize the eternal dream of mankind. It’ll feed our population, which may explode to 9.6 billion by 2050.