Month: December 2014

Connectivity in the Smart Home. Thread or Bluetooth Smart?

This blog has already explored the multitude of standards currently being used as the basis for connecting sensors, object and all sorts of things  to the Internet and to each other. Nowhere is this problem more acute than in the area of home automation, where the lack of widely adopted standards results in systems that don’t talk to each other, and worse, in systems that quickly become obsolete and cease to be supported by their manufacturers. The situation where the home … Read more…

Microsoft surprise many by accepting bitcoin payments

This week Microsoft announced that it was opening up to accept Bitcoin payments for its Xbox Live platform and Windows and Windows Phone stores through an integration with BitPay, a firm that provides bitcoin payment processing. Initially, bitcoin will be used to top-up Microsoft accounts, rather than to pay directly for a service or payment. Nevertheless, this move makes sense for Microsoft and aligns well with the younger demographic of Xbox Live. It definitely adds a serious dose of credibility … Read more…

Square processes $100m in a single day

Square, the US-based payments company best known for its mobile point-of-sale system has just announced that it has processed more than $100million worth of transactions in a single day. Probably the fact that the upcoming holiday season makes this the busiest time of year for consumer spending has some impact. This comes hot on the heels of a couple of significant partnership announcements made last month. First is a partnership with Snapchat to send money between friends, clearly addressing the … Read more…

Wearables in the workplace. A genuinely transformative opportunity?

This blog has already explored the future of wearables and outlined directions in which they are likely to form an integral part of the way we interact with others and with our surroundings. One of the key factors touched upon was the fact that features and functionality alone don’t guarantee the success of wearables devices. Like clothing, jewellery and other fashion accessories, they have to fulfil the wearer’s emotional needs such as self-concept, acceptance by others, reassurance, and status. Arguably, this is already true … Read more…

Intel – From Edison launch to Google Glass

Last week, I was introduced in person to Intel’s latest creation aimed at the maker movement – the low-power, small-format Edison chip. In a hands-on event in Shoreditch, London organised by Intel, I got to explore capabilities of the tiny computer, not much bigger than an SD memory card. It is clearly a very capable device, providing x86 compatibility to a wide range of products, and as such provides an alternative to Arduino and Raspberry Pi products. However this is not … Read more…

Business Models for the Internet of Things

I unsuccessfully tried to avoid calling this blog “Business Models for the Internet of Things” as there is no shortage of web articles on this topic. A recent Harvard Business Review online issue on the Internet of Things has triggered a fair deal of debate on whether IoT radically changes business models or to what extent unlocks new value. Like all technologies in the hyped ramp-up phase, it is often difficult to separate fact from fiction, and prediction from fanciful guesswork. Here I … Read more…

New wireless networks for M2M and IoT

Earlier this year, Arqiva, a UK company that owns most of the broadcast masts in the UK announced that it was building a nationwide wireless communications network for the Internet of Things. As we are accustomed to hearing mobile operators tell us how many billions of pounds are invested in their networks, how can it be profitable to build such a network from scratch just to provide low-cost connectivity to connect meters, trackers and the like? The answer is to … Read more…