trends Archives

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IDC: 30 Billion Autonomous Devices By 2020

October 7, 2013 Paul Roberts

The official “numbers guys” (and gals) of the technology business over at IDC have just come out with a new report on The Internet of Things and it has some eye-popping numbers. Top among them: an (estimated) 30 billion autonomous “connected things” deployed by the end of this decade. The report, “Worldwide Internet of Things (IoT) 2013-2020 Forecast: Billions of Things, Trillions of Dollars” is a market outlook for the IoT ecosystem, which IDC says comprises “intelligent systems, connectivity services, platforms, analytics, and vertical applications” it also includes professional services and security for IoT infrastructures. While IP-enabled things aren’t exactly “new,” the IoT is being driven by factors that haven’t been common previously, namely: ubiquitous, wireless Internet connectivity, regardless of location, notes IDC analyst Carrie MacGillivray. IDC says the trend lines are pointing up in a serious way, with IoT related economic activity to grow at a 7.9% compound annual […]

Beyond ‘Likes’: CrowdOptic Uses Google Glass To Map Your Focus

October 4, 2013 Paul Roberts

Sometimes a technology becomes so ubiquitous and obviously useful that we (humans) cease to think critically about its shortcomings. As an illustration of this, imagine yourself teleported back in time to the island of Manhattan in 1900. You’d find a bustling metropolis, for sure. You might look around and notice that the people dressed differently, or that the skyline was different from what we’re used to. But I bet one of the things you’d notice first was the stench emanating from the piles of horse manure and puddles of urine. As this (great) post at The Daily Kos points out, there were 200,000 horses working in New York City by 1900. Those horses were dropping 4 million pounds of manure and 40,000 gallons of urine on city streets every day. “The ubiquitous street sweepers could only pile the stuff up in vacant lots, occasionally to the height of sixty feet. To […]

Losing The Future: Schneier On How The Internet Could Kill Democracy

October 2, 2013 Paul Roberts

With his deep background in both cryptography and Internet security, Bruce Schneier is of the most thoughtful commentators on all matters cyber. So revered is he, that he even inspired a list of humorous Chuck Norris-style “Bruce Schneier” facts . In recent months, Bruce has been an invaluable sounding board amid the drip-drip-drip of details of ubiquitous government surveillance stemming from Edward Snowden’s leak of classified intelligence on NSA spying and cyber operations. In this video, from a recent speech Bruce did at the TEDxCambridge event up here in the Boston area, he goes a bit deeper: drawing out the current trend lines like hacktivism, Facebook- and Twitter-fueled popular revolutions, civil war and mass surveillance, and trying to discern what the future might look like. /div> Bruce’s theory: although nimble groups of activists, dissidents and hackers have been more adept at using the Internet and innovative technologies and platforms built on […]

Set Top Boxes To Surveillance: Cisco Aims To Be IoT’s 600lb Gorilla

September 25, 2013 Paul Roberts

Cisco Systems is one of the biggest ecosystem players with its eyes trained on the Internet of Things. This makes sense. After all, the company made its fortune selling the gear – routers and switches – that make the Internet hum, and that helped extend Internet connectivity to homes and businesses. Along the way, Cisco has been aggressive about acquiring new and promising technologies that promise to grow its top line. took some bad turns – unsuccessfully branching into consumer electronics in 2009 with the acquisition of Pure Digital, maker of the Flip camcorder, and Linksys, a maker of home networking gear, in 2003. The company discontinued the Flip product and sold Linksys to Belkin earlier this year amid a major corporate shake-up designed to re-focus the company. Now, with the next wave (Cisco calls it the 4th) of Internet connectivity upon us – namely: the “Internet of Things” (or […]

World-is-Flat Author Weighs In On Internet Of Things

September 16, 2013 Paul Roberts

Those of you who don’t religiously read the Op-ed page of The New York Times, but who are interested in the Internet of Things, probably want to surf on over to the Times’s web site to check out Thomas Friedman’s opinion piece “When Complexity Is Free” from the Sunday Times. There are a couple of points, here. Friedman is one of the most astute observers of the geopolitical zeitgeist. His 2005 book The World Is Flat talked about the confluence of technologic innovation, the Internet and economic globalization. It is one of the most widely read works of “business writing” of the last century and helped explain, for the public and policymakers, the tectonic changes taking place in emerging and mature economies worldwide. Friedman’s stature as a trend-spotter (see #1) means that, when he says something is important (as he did with IoT this week) important folks take notice. In the […]