News

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…

IOT World Forum Day 2 – completing the picture

Day 2 of the Internet of Things World Forum was characterised by a similar mix of speakers as the first day, with the mobile operator community being a lot more visible and engaged in the debate. Although there was no shortage of big numbers nor of technology companies offering solutions, a new set of themes emerged. 1. Manufacturing represents the biggest immediate opportunity Bernd Heinrichs of Cisco opened the session with a sweeping view of the IoT landscape. Much was made of the importance of … Read more…

IOT World Forum Day One – Some things we learnt

Today saw the first of two days at the Internet of Things World Forum in London (not to be confused with the event with the same title hosted by Cisco in Chicago earlier this year). Attendance was very high, though predominantly a corporate crowd – technology providers, IT companies, operators and investors. The vast majority of the smaller companies were so-called ‘horizontal enablers’ selling some form of IOT-related platform, middleware or gateway or other. Although much of the discussion was on innovation in individual segments … Read more…

The Future of Digital Health – Part II

Although it’s only been a few days since I discussed some of the ways in which digital health will be transformed by the nexus of wearables and data analytics, it is already time for an update. A company called BitBite is currently seeking $60,000 dollars to kick of production of a device that tracks eating patterns, including what foods are consumed, how well a person is chewing and how frequently he or she snacks. This is done through a wearable device that clips … Read more…

Digital Health gets real

Health & fitness is often touted as being one of the most promising segments of wearable devices. Evolved from the humble pedometer, these now boast an impressive range of sensors, capable of monitoring heart rate, stress levels, sweat, quality of sleep as well as physical activity to quantify in great detail every waking (and sleeping moment), creating a true ‘datafication’ of the self . Two of the most advanced proponents of this class of solution are the Jawbone Up3 and … Read more…

Gartner predicts 25 billion connected devices by 2020

Today Gartner released a report forecasting the number of connected “things” – i.e. excluding phones, tablets and computers that will be in use until the end of the decade. This year, Gartner estimates that there will be 3.7 billion devices in use, while this will jump to 25 billion by the end of the decade. This estimate is somewhat higher than that provided by Cisco, who predicted 7.3 billion devices by 2018. Gartner believes that the single three largest industry … Read more…

Amazon Echo – Who’s listening & why?

As discussed previously in this blog, the proliferation of connected sensors will produce a stream of information back to a cloud-based service provider about what a person is doing throughout the day. Last week saw the announcement of two products that make use of sound sensors (i.e. microphones) as a key part of the product experience. The one that has got most interest, is the Amazon Echo. This is essentially a voice-controlled Bluetooth speaker with Cloud-based Artificial Intelligence in a similar vein to Apple’s … Read more…

M2M device explosion to fuel growth in cloud infrastructure

This week, Cisco released its latest forecast on global data centre and cloud computing, covering the time period 2013 – 2014. During this time Cisco forecasts that annual data centre traffic will triple, a compound growth rate of 23%. But to what extent is this being driven by the growth in connected devices, and the traffic they generate? The answer can be found by digging into the Cisco Visual Networking Index (VNI) published in June. Over this period, it can … Read more…

First chips supporting Apple HomeKit start shipping

Although Apple announced Homekit, its home automation solution for iOS devices last June, its launch is not expected until early 2015. However yesterday Forbes reported that Broadcom and Texas Instruments have started shipping Homekit-enabled WiFi chips to their customers. While this is clearly too late for products aimed for the 2014 holiday season, it means that we should start seeing first products early 2015. Of course, the question remains whether people will buy into an Apple walled garden view of home automation, … Read more…

What are Gogoro up to?

Gogoro, a well-funded Taiwanese start-up founded by big-hitting former HTC-execs with a name plucked out of the Tech industry’s random name generator has hit the headlines this week for raising a further $100m over an initial $50m in April 2011. Its broad aim, in rather fluffy terms is to “utilize the power of mobile connectivity and data analytics to transform energy distribution and management in the world’s cities.” Additionally, it is participating in the creation of a “more intelligent and … Read more…

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