How Smart, Connected Products Are Transforming Competition
Information technology is revolutionizing products. Once composed solely of mechanical and electrical parts, products have become complex systems that combine hardware, sensors, data storage, microprocessors, software, and connectivity in myriad ways. These “smart, connected products”—made possible by vast improvements in processing power and device miniaturization and by the network benefits of ubiquitous wireless connectivity—have unleashed a new era of competition.
Smart, connected products offer exponentially expanding opportunities for new functionality, far greater reliability, much higher product utilization, and capabilities that cut across and transcend traditional product boundaries. The changing nature of products is also disrupting value chains, forcing companies to rethink and retool nearly everything they do internally.
Smart, connected products offer exponentially expanding opportunities for new functionality, far greater reliability, much higher product utilization, and capabilities that cut across and transcend traditional product boundaries. The changing nature of products is also disrupting value chains, forcing companies to rethink and retool nearly everything they do internally.
Source: Harvard Business Review
Gartner Says 4.9 Billion Connected Things
Will Be in Use in 2015
In 2020, 25 Billion Connected “Things” Will Be in Use
Gartner, Inc. forecasts that 4.9 billion connected things will be in use in 2015, up 30 percent from 2014, and will reach 25 billion by 2020. The Internet of Things (IoT)* has 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. They have no choice but to pursue IoT, like they’ve done with the consumerization of IT,” said Jim Tully, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner.
This sudden expansion will boost the economic impact of the IoT as consumers, businesses, city authorities, hospitals and many other entities find new ways in which to exploit the technology. Gartner estimates that IoT will support total services spending of $69.5 billion in 2015 and $263 billion by 2020.
Consumer applications will drive the number of connected things, while enterprise will account for most of the revenue. Gartner estimates that 2.9 billion connected things will be in use in the consumer sector in 2015 and will reach over 13 billion in 2020. The automotive sector will show the highest growth rate at 96 percent in 2015.
Source: Gartner
The Internet of Things and the Enterprise Opportunity
The Internet of Things (IoT) has rapidly become one of the most familiar — and perhaps, most hyped — expressions across business and technology. That hype, however, is entirely justified and is backed up by the numbers.
The world will see 25 billion Internet-connected things by 2020, and Gartner estimates that the IoT will produce close to $2 trillion of economic benefit globally. These things are not general purpose devices such as smartphones and PCs, but dedicated objects, such as vending machines, jet engines, connected soap dispensers and a myriad of other examples.
Clearly, the IoT will have a great impact on the economy by transforming many enterprises into digital businesses and facilitating new business models, improving efficiency and generating new forms of revenue. However, the ways in which enterprises can actualize any benefits will be diverse and, in some cases, painful.
Currently, IoT technologies — and business models that utilize IoT — are immature. Despite this immaturity, there are already sporadic examples of existing and planned uses across a wide range of industries. Enterprises will need to make plans and preparations now or risk being left behind by their faster-moving competitors.
Source: Forbes
Gartner Says Smart Cities Will Use 1.1 Billion Connected Things in 2015
Smart Homes to Lead with 294 Million Connected Things in Use in 2015
Increasing urbanization is putting unprecedented pressure on city mayors to constantly balance the challenge of resource constraints against environmental sustainability concerns. Gartner, Inc. estimates that 1.1 billion connected things will be used by smart cities in 2015 (see Table 1), rising to 9.7 billion by 2020.
Smart homes and smart commercial buildings will represent 45 percent of total connected things in use in 2015, due to investment and service opportunity, and Gartner estimates that this will rise to 81 percent by 2020. “Smart cities represent a great revenue opportunity for technology and services providers (TSPs), but providers need to start to plan, engage and position their offerings now,” said Bettina Tratz-Ryan, research vice president at Gartner.
Gartner defines a smart city as an urbanized area where multiple sectors cooperate to achieve sustainable outcomes through the analysis of contextual, real-time information shared among sector-specific information and operational technology systems.
“The majority of Internet of Things (IoT) spending for smart cities will come from the private sector. This is good news for TSPs as the private sector has shorter and more succinct procurement cycles than public sectors and cities,” said Ms. Tratz-Ryan.
Source: Gartner
Security and Privacy Threats in IoT Architectures General
In this article, we describe an overall architecture for Internet of Things (IoT) and analyze the known and new threats for the security, privacy and trust (SPT) at different levels of architecture, with attacker centric and system centric approaches. Our strong view is that IoT will be an important part of the global huge ICT infrastructure (“future Internet”) humanity will be strongly relying on in the future. While it is globally connected, it is divided into millions of management domains, such as homes, smart cities, power grids, access points and networks, etc. It will evolve both bottom-up and top-down. An important question is what consequences a bottom-up and top-down construction of the IoT infrastructure has for the security, privacy and trust. Another dimension is the energy consumption of IoT and its relationship with the architecture and SPT.
Source: Research Gate
Smart Cities', IoT's Key Challenges: Security, Lack of Standards
London Technology Week: At IFSEC, futurologist Simon Moores asks who’s responsible when a smart city crashes. “Who’s responsible when a smart city crashes?” Futurologist Dr. Simon Moores asked this question during his keynote session at IFSEC London today, but had no answer.
“Smart cities” like Songdo, Korea, are full of Internet-of-things devices — smart electric meters, street lights that adjust to the number of people on streets, RFID chips to monitor traffic flow or even to track how many recyclable items are being properly disposed of. Every smart building may be full of IoT devices running elevators, lighting, security, and HVAC systems.
Source: Dark Reading
Internet of Things in 2015: Security threats continue to grow
For all the excitement and hype surrounding the Internet of Thing (IoT), many are also expressing concern over whether the new technological trend is prepared to handle the latest security challenges.
The excitement is certainly understandable and in many cases it’s perfectly justified. The IoT essentially embeds sensors in all sorts of devices with the goal of connecting them to the internet while also enabling them to communicate with the user and each other. Research shows that by 2020 there could be up to 30 billion devices connected to the Internet, and that might even be a conservative estimate. The Internet of Things is growing, with more industries beginning to explore how they can take advantage of advancing technologies. With that growth, however, comes growing concerns over security threats, concerns that will need to be addressed if proponents of the IoT want more consumers to use it.
Source: IT Business
Data breaches and Internet of Things risks are among cyber-security executives' top concerns
With the annual RSA security conference in San Francisco on the horizon, CEOs and other security executives are thinking about breaches, Internet of Things devices and the need for government support in fighting cybersecurity threats.
This year will be an important year for technology, as Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which covers government surveillance, expires at the end of May. The stakes have also risen from data breaches, which have now become fireable offenses for CEOs.
Big companies like Google Inc., Facebook Inc. and LinkedIn Corp. have all signed a letter asking for Section 215 of the Patriot Act to be amended to reform this section, as security is on their minds. Edward Snowden’s revelation two years ago about the National Security Agency’s practices also drew people into the security scene who had no idea the government had a pipe going from your cloud provider to the NSA.
Source: Bizjournals.com
Internet of Things Privacy Threats and Countermeasures
The Internet of Things is exciting for Makers, entrepreneurs, and consumers, but they’re not the only ones. Retailers, law enforcement agencies, and of course the Feds are also taking advantage of the combination of sensors, networked cameras, and connected devices to learn things about us — whether we want them to or not. There are countless legal and social issues to be sorted out around surveillance and privacy. In the meantime, here are some of the IoT technologies that are pushing digital privacy concerns into the physical world — and some of the early ideas for circumventing them.
Source: Postscapes