How IoT Could Help the Emergency Services

There are few institutions out there that have a nobler intention than the ones that provide emergency services. Be it fighting blazing fires or getting a dying patient to a hospital, emergency workers are heroes who are revered with both admiration and respect by the entire humanity for the services they provide at great risk to own lives. There are several processes that help emergency and rescue systems function ranging from field work to dispatch and records. All of these aspects get updated constantly so as to keep up with the growing needs of the global human populous. Among all the technologies applied so far in Emergency services, there is one technology that is seldom discussed in this context despite its high prospects for such a field, IoT. So, let us now discern some of the most important aspects of Emergency services and how IoT could help various emergency response institutions cope with them.

Emergency Response Hotline

The easiest numbers to dial, often restricted to a maximum of 3 numbers, and capable of connecting without having a Sim Card, the emergency services numbers are often the first and last hope for people in varying levels of danger. The idea behind keeping these numbers simple and easy to dial like 911, 100 or 999 is to ensure that anyone in immediate danger can receive help immediately. But how reliable are these numbers and how would they cope during a busy day? Despite their simplicity and ease of access, there are some issues associated with them.

Network Traffic

Relying on one number all over a country makes sense for emergencies, but, connecting hundreds of millions of people and even in countries like India more than a billion people is no easy task. Heavy traffic on the emergency lines can cause a considerable amount of delays in relaying calls through to the concerned departments.

Location Tracking

Even though emergency services get constant updates to their infrastructure like new models of fire trucks, ambulance vans and police cars, their location hardware, as well as software, is still ancient. Even in countries like the United States where most of the domestic infrastructure is pretty developed, pinpointing the exact location from where an emergency call has been made is a challenge. Today approximately 2.5 Billion people in the world either directly use or have access to a smartphone. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. Traditionally emergency phone operators triangulate a call’s source by referring to the address to which the number is registered. Ever since cell-phones have come around this has been rendered obsolete and operators have to rely on the use of GPS. Which again due to infrastructural constraints is proving to be a great challenge. Studies state that in countries where GPS systems are employed for tracking calls, the local food app more accuracy than the government emergency system.

How IoT can help with the Calls

Using IoT cell phones can be connected to the emergency services network allowing emergency services personnel to easily triangulate the source and use their guidance system to track them down easily. There could even be a system where an application could be used to send out an emergency message or a beacon of sorts to alert the services. There is also a prospect to automate the process in such a way that a signal is sent out immediately without someone having to do so manually. One way to do so would be relying on CCTV cameras, car sensors and other sensor-based technologies to detect accidents, fires, crimes and such. A system with such devices connected to an IoT network could be an ideal solution for reducing delays caused due to the problems in the phone network.  While this may sound like a far-fetched concept, it is presently being applied by a few cities. Cities like New York have provided their Police Department with an IoT system that allows them to detect and triangulate gunshots using car sensors. The same technology is applied by the fire departments as well.

Dealing With the Traffic

Overpopulation has been a problem for quite a number of years now and there seems to be no viable solution to dealing with all the problems that stem from it unless an asteroid was to strike and trigger another mass extinction. Like almost everything affected by overpopulation, emergency services also have their fair share of woes. One of the biggest ones being the constant surge in traffic. It is estimated that in the year 2015 there were approximately 947 million passenger cars and 335 million commercial vehicles actively in operation around the world. The traffic issue in crowded cities is a problem just as old as overcrowding itself. Even cities that have experienced a recent and sudden surge in population and infrastructure growth like Bangalore can feel the pinch (although often it feels more like a punch in the stomach after being stuck for hours in traffic).

This truly puts emergency vehicles in a spot of bother when they run into gridlocks when they are racing against the clock. With an IoT system, an emergency vehicle could have real-time access to an entire city’s traffic light system and could somehow manipulate it to allow them to pass through. As a matter of fact, such a system has been tried before but with very less effect. Because no matter how well connected a system may be, aspects like traffic need a human presence to deal with them effectively. So, there are quite a few kinks to be worked out here, but there is still plenty of prospect for an effective solution to this through IoT.

The Potential for the Advent of Robotics in Emergency Services

We have discussed Calls, the vehicles, and tracking, but, all of this would be just moot without the sweat and blood of the emergency responders. The Paramedics, the Firefighter, the Police Officers, all risk their lives every single day to keep the World safe. Their jobs are anything but safe and they try to ignore this fact when getting a job done and often end up paying the ultimate price for doing so. All the protective gear and safety measures in the world could fall short in the most critical of situations.

Robotics to this end seems to be a potential solution to minimize casualties and work under situations even the most staunch of firefighters couldn’t handle. While Robotics is already in use in an infinitesimal capacity in certain aspects of Emergency management there have been no such results that would prompt further proliferation. However, there are plans in place to employ IoT to introduce the robotics elements on a mainstream level in Emergency response. By employing robots for certain tasks, the effectiveness of the process could be increased while minimizing the risk. The robots could be dispatched ahead of a firefighting team or a police squad, to asses the situation and start the implementing rescue or relief measures. Establishments like the United States’ National Institute of Standards and Technology are already working on making robots designed to perform quite a few ambitious tasks such as search and rescue, climbing up stairs with various degrees of inclination, working in pitch dark or extremely bright environments and so on. With the use of IoT, these efforts could be put into overdrive and an almost automated system could be created which can work alongside the Emergency responders to produce a cumulative result which could only be achieved by the sum of both man and machine.

How IoT can improve CX at Airports

From arrival to security checks that people face in an airport, it can prove to be hectic and irritating. The passengers have to go through multiple checkpoints in order to board a flight. In the end, it all becomes an experience that no passenger likes.

However, things are changing with the enhancements of technologies. Over 95 percent of passengers carry a mobile device while visiting airports. And that presents a great opportunity for airports to integrate IoT in their services to improve the customer experience. The well-connected Internet of Things can not only reduce the time requirement, but it can also improve the security measures for an airport.

Here, in this article, you will find all the customer experiences that can get an immense level of improvement with IoT.

1. Effortless security checks

The security checks are the biggest considerations for customers as well as airport authorities and IoT can become an effective solution to that problem. The automatic sensors can be implemented at security checkpoints which can help to reduce long queues.

These sensors can connect to the mobile device of the passenger to know the person’s identity and boarding details. The same information can reach the security guards on her device along with the analysis reports of their luggage.

The facial recognition technology can also be attached to the security checkpoints. A customer can opt for such a technology, which will allow airport authorities to match his or her facial features with the data available in blockchain systems.

As a result, every security point will receive information related to the identity of the passenger, which will reduce the time requirement of security checks.

2. Easy luggage handling

Another aspect of customer experience that people care about is luggage handling. Airport authorities can include the smart device features in their baggage management.

First of all, the luggage should provide the ability to the passenger to receive information regarding the weight of the luggage on their mobile device. Also, it should include a mobile payment facility too. Authorities can include tracking sensors in the scale to get a report of the baggage.

There are smart bags available in the market that provide valuable reports regarding the temperature, g-force, humidity and other data on a smartphone. These smart bags are able to give alerts whenever the bag is opened. Similarly, the bags have an automatic lock system, which activates whenever the luggage gets out of reach from your mobile device.

The airport security can open and check your bags, but the complete report can appear on your device. This can reduce the problem of losing your items from the luggage.

3. Boarding assistance

IoT facilities can also improve customer experience in terms of boarding. The information about the flights, directions, and location can help passengers navigate their way in an airport on their own.

The smart devices can become their personal assistance and lead them towards the right direction. The devices can offer an exact boarding time to the passengers. So, a passenger doesn’t have to keep waiting in one place for the boarding turn.

There are various other customer experience aspects that IoT can help with. But, it is all about correct application.

Do let us know in case there are any other ways through which IoT can elevate the overall airport experience!

Outlook of Internet of Things (IoT) in 2018

The humongous connection of sensors, human beings, computing devices, and other things connected over the internet to pass information holds tremendous potential. This underlying principle of IoT can shape lives to be better than before and get proactive alerts rather than a reaction.

It is this possibility that is taking IoT to a whole new level of adoption across the planet. Consider the below numbers –

1. The number of connected devices will rise from 15.4 billion (2014) to 30.7 billion (2020) and further to 75.4 billion (by 2025)
2. The global spending on IoT (hardware, software, integration, monitoring, and analysis) was $737 billion. This will go reach a whopping $1.29 trillion by 2020!

This data proves that IoT holds substantial value in our lives in the coming years and businesses are already marshaling their resources to help take this technology mainstream.

How IoT impacts customer lives?

IoT provides personal assistance by regulating temperature, locking doors, activating burglar alarms, and so on. The continuous data flowing through all the objects connected over the IoT has provided a new dynamic in the world of AI. Companies are actively using IoT paired with AI to create interesting and useful products.

Here are some ways in which IoT will influence customer lives in 2018.

1. Voice Technology

IoT and AI paired together have provided people with a way of managing everything ranging from their personal to professional lives, through speech. Be it controlling AC temperature to turning on car ignition, voice assistants are fast becoming a part of everyone’s daily lives.

Ford has incorporated Alexa into their cars to enable easy radio toggle and accurate traffic updates which the user can ask for, through his speech. This will make driving safer. Alexa can also be installed into your home to act as a hub to control your personal gadgets and electronics.

2. Healthcare

The massive data collected by IoT can help determine diseases quickly and also provide accurate and relevant medications for the same. This is done by gathering information and insights on the disease from the internet.

IoT can help hospitals maintain patient records, manage workflow, and optimize appointments to help doctors carry out their duty more effectively. Using IoT enabled software to monitor blood pressure and heartbeat can help doctors recognize the cause by studying data provided by IoT.

3. Smart Refrigerators

Imagine if you were to be informed beforehand of a shortage of supplies in next 1-2 days so that you can fill in the grocery provisions easily? Yes, that’s what the IoT enabled refrigerator of the future would be capable of doing. It will generate a grocery shopping list based on which staple is running low on supply.

At the store end too, they can push notifications to your smartphone right when you step into the supermarket. They will alert you to add specific items on your list/shopping cart based on your past buying behavior or trends.

Thus, IoT as a tech trend has been advancing rapidly due to the immense value it has displayed across various facets of our lives. It will continue to grow and influence people in a positive way in 2018 and beyond.

Designing an intuitive dashboard for IoT Products

Smart homes are soon becoming a more acceptable norm of society now with devices such as Amazon Echo, Google home, Alexa etc. But it is not just the technology that makes these products a massive hit among customers. A lot of thought has gone into designing such user-friendly IoT products.

As a product engineer or a UX designer who is working on an IoT project, your main focus is centered on creating and designing a product that brings immense value addition to your client.

One of the most crucial designs in IoT products involves the look and feel of an IoT dashboard which serves as the touch point for the user to interact with the device.

In this blog post, we are going to talk about the 4 steps involved in designing an intuitive dashboard for IoT products.

1. Break down the User Journey:

Take this a thumb rule – before you even get to the stage of picking up your pencil and sketch pad, spend some time to research and understand what kind of IoT product are you designing for?

It could be anything ranging from a smart system that controls the lighting of the house to a smart refrigerator that sends updates on the grocery list or a super efficient home locking system.

For better understanding, let us take the example of designing an IoT dashboard for a smart refrigerator that allows the user to track the details of grocery items and to set up reminders in the user’s mobile to stock up items.

Now, before we get down to designing this dashboard, as a product designer you first need to understand the underlying technology that will be used by the refrigerator such as, what kind of sensors would be triggered, what kind of data will be recorded, how will the data be analyzed etc.

Your job is to represent this underlying data in an intuitive manner. This is where your creative mind kicks in and is expected to think about the user journey and different use case scenarios. Also, while designing it is very necessary to be mindful about the target audience who is bound to use the product.

In the above example, the smart fridge is going to be used by a household which would include:

• a family of 4-5 members
• the users could be aged between 24 to 55 years
• the user could be either male or female
• pet-friendly house

Now based on the above user scenarios, you will be able to sketch out different user journeys.

2. Create the Skeleton with Wireframes

This is the fun part because here is where you actually visualize each and every action of the user. Some people call the wireframe stage as setting up the blueprint of the design and functionality of the product.

Now, when you are designing the dashboard of an IoT product, it is necessary that you visualize each and every step of the user and jot them down into squares, circles, and triangles. The key here is attention to detail. Step into the shoes of the user and think of the ways he/she will use the product on a real-time basis. Document scenarios that are not so obvious but have a probability to pop up.

In this stage, you also get to logically test the flow of user actions. Yes, ‘Logic’ is the word here. Don’t just go by your gut or instinct, you need to think if the steps in your wireframe make logical sense in the bigger picture. Sketch out as many possible scenarios here. Do not restrict your mind to – ‘this is it’! Explore different options and also be conscious to capture different user emotions while sketching the wireframes.

Don’t just put a button because it has to be there. Think of how you expect the user to navigate to a particular page such as – to check the grocery stock, to get alerts on food items that are running low on storage, setting timers for bakery products etc.

Once you have a gamut of ideas, sit down and evaluate the best possible user flows to create an unparalleled user experience (UX). This is the most important part of the whole designing process and so it is imperative that you get it right. The UX is the make or break deal for the success of your IoT product.

3. Bring your Product to life with Visual Designs

For all those creative artists out there, this is the stage where you need to find the Picasso inside you and splash those colors into the wireframes. But don’t just add any color – keep in mind factors such as color psychology and branding guidelines (if any) while choosing the colors.

Let us go back to our example of the refrigerator dashboard and see the kind of colors we could use.

It would be advisable to use a lot of white space in the design to give it a neat and easy user interface (UI). Also, depending on the USP of the overall IoT product, either blue or green could be a great choice of color for a dashboard.

If the highlight is more on the technology, then blue would be an ideal choice as it showcases intelligence and is a color that is most commonly used with electronics. But let’s say if the USP of the IoT product is to highlight health or any environmental benefits, then green would be an excellent choice to complement the messaging. Also, colors such as red, yellow and green can be used to indicate any functionality features to the user.

So, in a nutshell, while you are creating the visual designs keep the end user in mind and choose colors that are able to communicate instantly with the user.

4. Test your Designs – Time to Prototype:

This is the last and final stage of the design process where your designs are put to the ultimate test. With the help of many online tools such as Adobe XD or Invision, you can test your designs in real time and showcase the functionality to your clients.

This real-time feedback helps you to iterate designs on-the-go and incorporate all feedback at one point. It is important that all designers prototype their designs since quick and responsive designs translate into happy clients.

Thus, designing for IoT products can be slightly different from creating mobile apps and websites as User Experience is the key here. But with the above-guided approach, you can be assured of designing a vibrant and intuitive dashboard for IoT products

IBM Bluemix – A Mix Of Amazing Things

IBM Bluemix is a cloud platform as a Service based on open standards such as Cloudfoundry, Docker & Openstack. Bluemix comes in 3 deployment models – Public , Dedicated & Local. Bluemix Public is a multi-tenant where as Dedicated & Local are single tenant environments. Dedicated resides on IBMs Softlayer datacenter and Local resides behind your firewall. You have choice of deployment models which may not be available with Amazon or google.

Many enterprises have hybrid cloud requirements so Bluemix and other IBM Cloud offerings would be able to offer end to end solutions.

Watson based cognitive services, integrated DevOps , range of mobile backend services , database & analytics services makes IBM Bluemix a very rich platform. There are over 150+ services on the Bluemix platform.

Its very difficult to compare pricing as most of the public PaaS offerings are never easy to compare. For example, the cost of Bluemix Services are based on API calls (& storage) and there are no charges for data traffic. Many vendors may charge you for the data going out of their datacenter.

Recently IoT became has become a big tech to invest in. It is far easy to use BlueMix with Arduino or Raspberry Pi than anything else. Number of projects on Github, documentation, community help on Stackoverflow are enormous.

Advantages Of IBM Bluemix

1. Simplicity and speed: By focusing on the DevOps model, Bluemix can reduce the downtime of redeploying applications. Continuous delivery is one way this can be provided. The integrated environment provided by Bluemix allows developers to automatically deliver code without the hassle of building and debugging installation scripts. This reduces the time needed to manage code delivery and puts it in the hands of the testers and user community faster. The application can be deployed to multiple spaces which allow segregation of environments for development, testing and production. Automatically delivering code keeps developers focused on coding, not installation.

2. Agility: Bluemix allows developers to focus on delivering business value, rather than on maintaining the development environment, by scaling environments elastically based on business demand. Instead of manually deploying workloads, Bluemix will automatically redeploy workloads to other virtual machines (VMs) if there is an outage. To provide continuous availability, Bluemix abstracts the underlying architecture and keeps the manageability of services and applications at an easily understood level. Users are able to stop or start applications and define how much memory is associated with each application while Bluemix manages the rest.

3. Tools: With Bluemix, developers have the freedom to choose the development tools that work best for them. Developers don’t always want to work with the same tool sets and Bluemix provides several options, including the following:

• Command line: The Cloud Foundry (CF) command line provides integration for developers that prefer coding without an integrated development environment (IDE). This is also helpful for developing automation scripts with Bluemix. The CF application programming interfaces (APIs) can be integrated with multiple languages, frameworks and services.
• Eclipse: Since Eclipse is widely used by developers, they can continue to use the tools with which they are comfortable. The Cloud Foundry integration can be installed from the Eclipse Marketplace. This provides integration with Bluemix from the Eclipse client.
• Web IDE: Developers can work with the Web IDE directly in Bluemix. This allows modification of the application without any development environment installed on the developers’ laptops.

4. Source control: Bluemix also comes with integration to several source control management (SCM) systems. These include Git, GitHub and Jazz SCM. These environments can be configured to deliver application changes continuously. Open source Cloud Foundry applications can be forked and loaded to Bluemix. This provides a great place to start development of a new project.

5. Services marketplace: Services leverage APIs and software development kits (SDKs) that can quickly and easily be incorporated with Bluemix applications. Although IBM provides many services, Bluemix offers an open and flexible ecosystem which allows other companies to provide services that can be integrated into applications. Companies can be both providers and users of services. Two types of services are available:

The “Managed Service Offering” is not available in the beta, but will be available soon. Services in the marketplace can be at no charge or have a pay as you go (PAYG) pricing model. These services are available to all Bluemix customers.

“User Provided Services” can be added so that organizations can share services within their organization. This promotes more reuse and standardization of services within the company.

Understanding Internet Of Things

“Anything that can be connected, will be connected.”

People who understand Internet Of Things and its potential will tell you that the Mantra above will be the talk of the town in the coming years. Anything you can imagine, anything at all would be connected to the internet, it is happening now and will only expand aggressively. So, wouldn’t it be imperative to know what exactly IOT is and how it works?

Imagine this situation. You logout of your office swiping the access card, the sensor sends a message to your car parked below which has already started and the navigation system has already plotted the route to your home alerting you about the traffic on different possible routes. The air conditioner in your house switches on automatically before you reach the house and adjusts the temperature according to the weather outside. The coffee brewer on intimation brews some coffee for you and the refrigerator sends you a message about the missing groceries. At a single touch, before you reach your house, the coffee is brewed, the air conditioner has set the tone for your comfort and the groceries have arrived at your doorstep. This is the power of Internet Of Things.

Every single device connected to the internet and integrated to feed off data from each other to make our lives better is probably just the gist of it. And this is not just for machines, it can be even for the minutest component of your machines. From a commercial airliner to a sewing machine, from your car to a water heater, everything is soon going to be unified on a single network. The opportunities are unlimited. Most of which might be out of our analytical might. Yet harnessing even a portion of it can create something as revolutionary as the wheel or fire.

 5 Internet of Things Application

Change has always been the buzzword. It is what signifies human existence. The change was first seen in 1974 with the Automated Teller Machines(ATM), and now amazingly there are far more objects connected to the internet than people on the planet. The most accepted ones so far are vehicles with all their user enhancing systems on board. With the advent of wearable devices such as fitness trackers and smartwatches, the horizons have expanded even more. Smart Kitchens, Smart living rooms, Smart houses, imagine every single electric impulse transferred as data to the internet for other user oriented actions. And if this is just the beginning, we already have over 4.9 billion connected devices and counting.

 Now, that we have a fair idea of what really Internet of things is, let us see how it will revolutionize our lives in the coming future:

1. Smart Highways:  Roads with ‘on the go’ warnings about weather expected ahead and diversions in case of mishaps and blockages will soon be functional across the globe. Smart highways will have a unified platform that will integrate data from traffic signals, traffic sensors, vehicle movements and on board GPS. It will be similar to living organism that constantly updates the vehicles about traffic patterns, speed limits and adversities.

2. Autonomous Cars: Cars with auto park feature are already in the testing phase. Many cities across the globe have given a green signal for testing the driver-less car as well. The autonomous cars, equipped with intelligent sensors will feed off years of data from vehicle databases to analyse driving patterns and road hazards. Autonomous cars will constantly update itself to make the driving experience a risk free and a safe one.

3. Patient Surveillance: Monitoring of vital signs for patients in hospitals and elderly people in old age homes is an important application of Internet Of Things. Right from the blood pressure, heart beat and other vital stats, to minute changes like changes in the pressure and temperature patterns of the room, all the data can be monitored to ensure better patient surveillance.

4. Smart Homes: Internet Of Things can automate an entire home filled with appliances and lighting systems. A single touch of hand can automate appliances even before you enter the house. Right from your groceries to garbage disposal, every household chore can be planned and scheduled for. It will give you the comfort of controlling your appliances even when you are miles from your home.

5. Defense Systems: Defense forces across the world have already started applying this technology, some of them on their more secure systems. The defense capabilities of any nation will surge ahead and their warning systems will become more accurate.

How Internet Of Things is changing lives:

As discussed earlier, Home Automation with the assistance of Internet Of Things is soon going to change the way we live. Smart Homes are going to make our lives much more comfortable and hassle-free. By 2025, more than a quarter of the world’s population is expected to have a semi automated smart home.

A step towards this was taken by GoodWorkLabs, recently.They created an application for one of their clients which offers complete home automation solutions. With the Internet of Things application developed,  the user can control the functionality of  home appliances with just one touch:

1) Adjust the AC temperatures in your Bedroom before you even reach home.

2) Set an alarm so that you are never late for the important things in life.

3) Adjust the lights in your living room to create evening.

4) Enjoy movie nights by setting your favorite movie lists on the TV.

5) Never miss out on your grocery lists.

Read more: Click

These are just a few of the important applications we would see in the coming days, as mentioned earlier, the uses are limitless. We need to expand our horizons and think further ahead to employ ways that can protect human interests. Internet Of Things is the result of human evolution eventually. Everything we have ever invented, every medium we have explored and every thought we have recorded, all connected together.

Technically, it maybe devices connected to each other. In reality, it is every single person connected through their devices.

“If you think Internet has changed your life, think again. The internet of things will change it all over again.” – Brendan O’Brien, Aria Systems

Virtual Reality to Practical Confidence.

“People think every creative idea possible has already happened, unfortunately, technology is greedy, it wants more.”

In this hotchpotch of a world that we live in, sometimes some souls lack behind in certain basic skills such as communication and decision-making. It is either due to lack of exposure or hereditary to put it in simpler terms. Most of us are afraid of the stage or fear facing a huge crowd. And some of us live with that fear forever, protecting ourselves in a cocoon not realizing how it affects our overall growth. It is not just the basic skills that need confidence. It can be your professional skills as well. And it is time proven that confidence can only be harnessed through practice and gaining experience.

Virtual reality is capable of stimulating experiences in our mind that as of now no other tech can match up to. It can virtually make you face your worst fears and teach you to cope with them. VR can fool your mind that you’re already well versed with something which you may or may not have experienced in reality.

Let us discuss 7 possibilities on how VR can train the mind:

1. Medical Training: Medical students can now perform surgical procedures on live 3D models of the human body instead of corpses till they perfect the procedure. They will get a hands-on experience with virtual patients and emergency cases. This will result in medical professionals with experience and embedded with confidence.

2. Stage fear: There are already mobile apps that let you practice in front of a virtual audience in your choice of environment. From best man speeches, lectures and interactive talks, you can practice them beforehand and be more confident at delivering your words. Soon, there will be Tedx talk environments for the enlightened ones as well.

3. Meditation: Imagine meditating in the middle of a forest under a banyan tree sitting on a couch. Virtual reality can take you anywhere you want, with minimal noise and utmost peace. Stimulating the senses in such an environment can calm our emotional facade.

4.Therapy: Stress and mental fatigue can break down anyone. Virtual reality can provide relief to the affected by psychologically planned scenarios, creating a therapeutic environment or interacting with a long distanced loved one in a VR environment.

5. Military Training: A trainee soldier or a trainee pilot can now experience real-life attack scenarios and respond accordingly. The military will save tremendously on their training costs and in turn, will gain soldiers who are ready for the brunt of their profession.

6. Sports: Virtual Reality can entirely change the way a batsman, footballer, athlete or a race car driver practices. It can simulate different environments, difficulty and fatigue levels to keep the players geared up for the action by enhancing their confidence levels.

7. Surrealism: Sometimes, all we need is time by ourselves. It is a proven fact that solitude once in a while can do wonders. Virtual reality can set up an environment of your choice, on a beach, on the top of a hill or just floating in the outer space. This will immensely help you feel better and drive your productivity sky high.

Escaping reality is not a bad idea, in fact, it is one of the best ideas mankind has had. Right from books, media, and gaming, we have been constantly evolving ourselves to diverge from reality for a few moments. And when technology is in our hands, why not use it and improve our personality, stimulate our minds for an improved performance and in the overall process boost our confidence.

You would be hard-pressed to find anyone who is aware of the ‘Internet of Things’ and isn’t aware of its key to the future. Studies suggest that by 2020, the global IoT market will be worth more than $1.3 trillion with a CAGR or 16.9%. The world has already started experiencing IoT equipped devices in homes and offices, and the number of these devices will surpass 50 billion in next three years. These figures are good enough to avow the claim that IoT market is going to get bigger with time, and the success of IoT, in the long run, will be very much determined by machine learning. Before going into details, let’s take a look at how both of these terms are related to each other.

Internet of Things & Machine Learning

IoT is nothing but the inter-networking of devices in such a way that they can send and receive data automatically without any manual interference. Due to this data automation, IoT saves a lot of time and efforts, which results in higher productivity and better user experience. Machine learning, on the other hand, is a type of artificial intelligence that enables computers to learn quickly without being programmed explicitly. It automates the data analysis process and enables computers to learn from data using novel algorithms and hidden insights.

Some of the examples of machine learning can be – self-driven cars (Tesla & Google), online product recommendations on e-commerce sites, knowing what customers are saying about any brand on Twitter/Facebook, etc.

Can Machine Learning Determine The Success of IoT?

The sole reason behind why IoT witnessed a massive success in such a quick succession is because it has the potential to make everyone’s life easier and more hassle-free than ever before. Machine learning is another in-demand technology just like the internet of things and has everything required to take the success of IoT to whole new heights.

In an IoT based environment where terabytes of data need to be analyzed for capturing value, it becomes important for it to adopt machine learning to keep up with this IoT data and generate insights from it. Machine learning is perfectly capable of taking the billions of data points, review them, analyze them and unlock patterns or recurring trends. Doing this in an enhanced way without adding to cost overheads will make machine learning a key success driver in IoT.

Are there any barriers?

Although IoT has opened new doors to success for businesses, there are many unanswered questions which need to be addressed soon. With the passage of time, the data volumes and varieties will continue to increase. In order to compile it quickly in an efficient manner, and use for attaining organizational objectives, businesses will need to learn the proper application of IoT and Machine Learning as soon as possible.

What do you think about machine learning and IoT? Are they both required for a faster business growth? Share your feedback in the comments section.

One fine morning you wake up to find all your regular devices functioning in a unique manner. Your wristwatch successfully detects your wake-up time and communicates it to the thermostat in your room. The thermostat immediately adjusts its temperature according to your preference. As you gear up for office, your Smartphone’s geo-location function gets active and detects your arrival, the moment you step into your workplace.

Readers might think these situations to be nothing but overly ambitious imaginations of the future. However, that’s not what reality has to state. With the latest tech revolution named Internet of Things, these scenarios could be real in no time.

Understanding IOT

Although we hear and even speak a lot about IOT, very few of us know what it actually stands for. For a detailed insight into the topic, it’s high time we stop tossing the term in casual conversations and get down to knowing the basics.

So, what is it that defines IOT?    

According to the technical definition, Internet of Things defines the development of electronic devices used for receiving and sending data across shared networks. Most importantly, this particular technology stands for an advanced level of machine interaction, thus negating human-to-machine functioning or interaction.

Statistics speak

If reports published by Gartner are anything to go by, then users will come across almost 6.4 billion web-connected things in 2016. And all of them will be very much in use. Therefore, it’s quite evident that IOT will impact human lives and work cultures in ways more than one.

Let’s find out how.

•     Access to actionable data

With such widespread information transmission, you will have a gala time leveraging these data sets for your business. You can collect crucial business data via reporting tools, thus driving better business performance and huge profits.

•   Robust customer connections

IOT devices help you strike effective communications with your clients. By connecting with their smart devices and Smartphones, you can provide your target consumers with personalized experiences.

•      Enables easy location

Every business owner needs to keep a track of tools and equipment used in their business. And it is the IoT technology that helps them track their business tools in virtual time.

•       Increased safety

With Internet of Things, you will have the chance to track employee location. That will be quite helpful in ensuring optimum safety for them.

•      Reduced wastes

Every entrepreneur will come across resource wastage in their workplace. Although these might appear to be minuscule concerns at the very first go, it won’t take them much time to scale up. IOT will help you identify such wastages, thus ensuring better resource management.

•    Low risks

Knowing about poorly functioning instruments and machinery beforehand will help you reduce severe operational risks. IOT will help you identify such issues promptly.

• Identifying problem areas

Whether it is an equipment breakdown or resource wastage, IOT will help you identify the problem areas right at the time of their occurrence.

• Ensuring better performance

As a collaborative technology, IoT will help you track your performance highs and lows. You will know where you went wrong, thus continually improving your performance.

•       Healthy life

Let the fitness wearables monitor your physical activities, leading you to a healthy and active life.

• Future growth

With IoT or Internet of things, your dream venture will have unique growth opportunities.

So, that’s how IOT can change your work culture for the better.