Amazon's Echo Home-Automation Device Signals Emerging Opportunities, And Serious Threats, For Solution Providers. Amazon's decision to open the technology that enables the voice-recognition capabilities of Echo, the smart-home device that hit the wider market this week, to outside developers signals both emerging opportunities and potential threats for the channel, according to several AWS partners.
The brain of Amazon's new Internet-of-Things device is called Alexa, a cloud-based artificial intelligence that responds to voice commands. Amazon said Thursday that it not only will make available a kit that partners can use to take advantage of Alexa's advanced speech recognition capabilities and link to its backend cloud services, but that it also has dedicated $100 million to invest in companies that are developing such devices.
Welcome to Forbes. The Industrial Internet: Big Machines, Big Data, Big Impact. ARM, IBM: We've Connected The Internet of Things To The Cloud. IBM Smarter PlanetVoice: The Internet Of Things Will Transform Retail As We Know It. By Keith Mercier, Global Retail Leader for IBM Watson The number of smart devices in your home, on your body and around your office is increasing everyday.
By 2020, there could be as many as 30 billion devices hooked up to the Internet of Things (IoT). Presumably, this massive network of gadgets, household appliances and even jewelry, will know a lot about your life. A wristband for your smartphone, for example, might take your vital statistics, which would be transmitted to your doctor in nearly real-time. If your blood pressure is high, the doctor could instantly order a prescription for you, which might be delivered to your door within 24 hours.
As far as business goes, few industries will be more profoundly affected by the IoT than the retail sector, which will be a major topic of discussion at the National Retail Federation’s Annual Convention and Expo this week in New York. Some people may abandon brick-and-mortar shopping completely. How IoT is Changing Customer Service. By Carl Krupitzer, ThingLogix The “Internet of Things” (or IoT for short) is not only changing the way we interact with our devices, but also the way that customer service departments help customers troubleshoot issues.
For instance, when your smart TV or phone has a software update available to fix a bug or other enhanced functionality, these devices can download the software wirelessly, often automatically or with just a few clicks. Convergence In The Internet Of Things Is Priming The Tech World For A Major Cultural Shift. Editor’s note: Artyom Astafurov is the chief innovation officer at DataArt and co-founder of DeviceHive.
To anyone who is tuned into the tech world, it should not come as earth shattering news that machine-to-machine (M2M) technology and the Internet of Things have hit a major convergence point in the tech industry. What is fairly new however is that the two have become so closely intertwined with each other that you can no longer think about one without thinking of the other. If you look back in time at the progression of both concepts though, you’ll discover that these were in fact two starkly unrelated ideas at one point that have since evolved from a loose correlation to a tightly interwoven dependency.
In fact, in order to understand from today’s standpoint the current and future relationship between the two, you must first understand their nuances, as well as the transformations they have undergone as one technology has begun to flow into the other. Salesforce CEO discusses new wearables, Internet of Things startup fund. SAN FRANCISCO---Now a regular fixture at TechCrunch Disrupt annually, Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff sat down with Michael Arrington on Tuesday morning for a wide-ranging fireside chat, starting by swapping jokes over the simultaneous iPhone 6 and Apple Watch announcements.
Being a startup-focused event, the CRM giant's new pool of money was at the top of the agenda. On Monday, Salesforce Ventures, the venture capital arm of the San Francisco-headquarted corporation, announced a new $100 million investment fund dedicated to businesses building new mobile apps and connected products tapping into the Salesforce1 platform. The first wave of investments already includes DocuSign, and InsideSales.com, among others.
"We've had a great experience with our investments," Benioff reflected, briefly noting a few have stemmed from previous Disrupt startup participants. Special Feature Wearables: Fit For Business? Salesforce launches $100 million dedicated fund for internet of things. If there is any inkling that the internet of things movement and connected devices needs some extra nudging (or funding), Salesforce.com is planning to fuel and fund some innovators on its own.
Salesforce Ventures, the venture capital arm of the San Francisco-headquarted corporation, is launching a new $100 million investment fund for businesses building new mobile apps and connected products tapping into the Salesforce1 platform. Salesforce1 is the foundation for Salesforce's internet of things (or "Internet of Customers," in the case of the CRM giant) strategy. It was first unveiled at Dreamforce 2013 last November. The platform taps into Salesforce's cornerstone Sales and Service Clouds, the AppExchange, and the ExactTarget Marketing Cloud, the last of which has been branded one of Salesforce's most prominent takeovers to date.
As for the Salesforce1 fund, the first wave of investments already includes DocuSign, and InsideSales.com, among others. UK funds development of 'world wide web for machines' While this goes some way to realising the vision of the 'internet of things' – allowing everyday objects to communicate with each other without human intervention – APIs are limited in that they confine data to narrow vertical silos based on commercial partnerships between companies.
In other words, a Jawbone Up wristband and a Mercedes-Benz car can communicate with a Nest thermostat, because Google has partnered with those companies, but a Garmin Vivofit wristband and a Volkswagen car cannot. Now a group of over 40 British-based companies including BT, ARM, BAE and Rolls Royce, known as the HyperCat consortium, has been awarded a total of £8 million in government funding, via the Technology Strategy Board, to develop a publicly-available universal specification for the internet of things. What the Internet of Things Means for Your Business [Slideshare] Have you ever received a text from your stapler?
![What the Internet of Things Means for Your Business [Slideshare]](http://cdn.pearltrees.com/s/pic/th/internet-slideshare-salesforce-90558574)
How about a reminder from your refrigerator that you’re low on milk? Or maybe a warning from your car that your brake pads are getting a bit worn down? Chances are you haven’t—but don’t expect it to stay that way. The Internet of Things at home: Why we should pay attention. Computerworld - What is the Internet of Things (IoT), exactly?
If you're a consumer, then the first thing that leaps to mind might be a Nest Wi-Fi thermostat, or perhaps those smart health bands that let you monitor your activity level from an app on your smartphone. That's part of it. But if you're an engineer, you might think of the smart sensors that General Electric embeds in locomotives and wind turbines, while a city manager might be considering smart parking meters, and a hospital administrator might envision swallowable smart pill sensors that monitor how much medication you've taken or blood pressure cuffs and blood glucose monitors that can monitor patient health in the field and wirelessly stream updates into clinical systems.
Why Cloud-Based Apps Are Key to Unlocking the Internet of Things. Simply put, the Internet of Things takes physical objects, connects them to the Internet, and allows them to be read and controlled remotely.
But gathering this intelligence isn’t enough. It’s also important to understand the context around it. The data from connected devices becomes more meaningful when it’s combined with applications and cloud services that help you gain insights and take action. In addition, this improved understanding gives businesses the power to evolve their operations and interactions with customers, and improve revenue.
There are many paths to a smart home. And that’s the problem. How many companies does it take to connect a light bulb? Why connect the light when you can connect the switch? Or outlet? Or socket? How many companies does it take to turn on a connected light? One to make the light and 40 or 50 to access the API. Okay, these aren’t funny jokes. So far this summer we’ve seen a giant expansion from huge players in the tech and retail worlds with regard to the smart home. And more is coming.
7 Steps to Success on the Internet of Things. The Internet of Things (IoT) has untold potential for how businesses connect to their customers. Companies can become far more intelligent about the world their products exist in and customers can get much better service by being offered solutions even before they are aware they need them. Still, understanding how to apply the power of IoT -- and what IDC predicts will be a $7.1 trillion industry -- to a specific enterprise, is where many of us get stuck.
The following list will help demystify exactly what you need to leverage IoT to transform your business. Read through this quick overview and for a much more comprehensive look, join us Monday, July 28th at 10 am PST / 1 pm EST for the free webinar 7 Steps to Success on the Internet of Things. 1. Before you decide on your IoT strategy, you must first think through the entire process. 2. If It Ain't Broke, Fix It Anyway: How The Internet Of Things Is Changing The Industrial Enterprise. Internet Of Things in 10 Minutes: Hands-On with The Device Cloud. Lots of people want to understand the Internet of Things — so here’s a demo you can complete in about 10 minutes.
I’ve shown examples of direct connections with quad-copters and 3D printers, and I’ve talked about the Six Requirements for Your First IoT Project and how to Understand the Internet of Things in 5 Easy Steps. This is a different, all clicks no code approach. Today I want to show you a powerful approach to IoT using The Device Cloud, an offering from Salesforce partner Etherios. Etherios has created a great solution that let’s you harness sensor data in Salesforce. It also handles a lot of inputs, acting as an intermediate destination for high-volume data.
In this Internet of Things tutorial, you’ll harness real-time sensor data from your iOS device and use it with your Salesforce1 Platform app. Let’s get started with a quick demo from Brad Cole, Device Cloud Architect, who was also kind enough to write up the detailed instructions below. ?utm_content=bufferf50c3&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter. You're watching a cooking TV show and there's a recipe you like. You save it, and send it to your refrigerator. Your refrigerator logs the recipe and lets you know whether or not you have the groceries available. If you do, you connect to your oven so it knows to preheat immediately. All of this is done without leaving your couch. Salesforce CRM Gets Industry Specific for Internet of Customers. Cloud CRM company Salesforce.com has a new industry-specific strategy to help drive its own growth and popularity to the next level. With its new Industries Business Unit in place, Salesforce plans to target a number of vertical markets individually with optimized solutions for customer relationship management (CRM), sales automation, and social marketing, offering both mobile and cloud-connected services.
The first six vertical markets that Salesforce plans to tackle include financial services & insurance; health care & life sciences; retail & consumer products; communications & media; automotive & manufacturing; and the public sector. Why an Industries Business Unit -- and why now? Why is the Internet of Things set to "swamp" CRM? Salesforce’s Michael Lazerow: Connected Products Will Change Marketing In 2014. Last year we asked a handful of senior execs at platform companies to answer the question, “What will happen next year in marketing and advertising that hasn’t happened before?” This year we invited some of those contributors to evaluate their earlier forecasts and update them for 2014. The below is from Michael Lazerow, chief marketing officer of Salesforce Marketing Cloud. "Last year in AdExchanger, I said that 2013 will be the year when everyone in the company becomes a marketer, and that data will drive better marketing experiences.
How the “internet of things” will replace the web. 2014 is the year of the internet of things—no, seriously, we mean it this time. Salesforce IoT, ThingMonk & the Frankencoffee. The Unevenly Distributed Present of The Internet of Things. 5 Ways Machines Will Change the Game for Customer Loyalty. The rise of social media and mobility has made it more important than ever before to foster a customer-focused company. The advent of mobile devices means social media is always at customers’ fingertips, and that instant feedback in the form of tweets and Facebook posts gives them a voice that can’t be ignored. Want to connect your home? Here are 3 devices that will give you the most bang for your buck. Since I’ve taken on the internet of things beat here at GigaOM I’m trying to test, buy and learn about as many connected projects as possible. GE Thinks It's Time to Put Industrial Data in the Cloud.
IDG News Service (San Francisco Bureau) — Internet tools are just starting to be applied to industrial tasks such as maintaining equipment and optimizing operations, but the wealth of data being produced by industrial systems could make this a major focus of development in the coming years. On Tuesday, General Electric increased its bet on this proposition by introducing a cloud platform for data management and recruiting partners to help it serve industrial customers.
SmartThings opens up its home automation platform to developers. To say SmartThings ' Kickstarter campaign was a success is an understatement: the Internet of Things outfit, which offers a clever array of home automation sensors, routers and smartphone apps, raised more than $1.2 million (over four times the company's original goal), nabbed over 6,000 backers and quickly sold out of its first batch of kits. Naturally, the company isn't stopping there -- it's making good on its goal of providing an open-source platform for developers, as it announced the availability of its Developer and Inventor Toolkit. Now, interested parties can create and develop their own SmartThings, and can collaborate with like-minded folks to come up with even more ways to take advantage of the platform. Launching the Internet of Everything One Startup at a Time. AT&T launches its internet of things effort and it’s pretty big.
AT&T is finally ready to unveil its home automation and security product, and it’s a pretty big deal. The product is built on AT&T’s acquisition of Xamboo in 2010, and it will put AT&t in competition with security giants such as ADT as well as a variety of startups building out routers, hubs and software for the connected home. Smart Marketing In A Sensor-Laden World. The internet of things gets industrial strength collaboration with GE, Electric Imp & Quirky. Weightless finalizes its white spaces networking standard for the internet of things.
Controlling Physical Devices via Approval Processes in Force.com. The Industrial Internet: Even Bigger Than Big Data. G.E. Looks to Industry for the Next Digital Disruption. Salesforce Pledges to Giving Machines Social Profiles. Getting Real About The Internet of Things. Plugging Into ‘The Internet of Things’ at This Year’s LeWeb.
Toyota Friend Demo. Connected Things. The Social Web of Things. The Networked Society, On the Brink. UX Lab & BERG explores the Internetworks of Things - UX Blog. Machine-network-machine. Cross collaboration and the connected home. AT&T to begin trials of iOS-device-connected ‘Digital Life’ home-automation service this summer. China Pushes Development of Internet of Things. MQTT: MQ Telemetry Transport. Mobile Internet of Things Blog: MoMo #28 Mobile Internet of Things. Greater connectivity to define tomorrow. The Internet of Things and Change - Will You Be Ready For The M2M World?
The Sentient World – SIIA Content VIA Platforms Speech. New Job Profiles for the Internet of Things? IPV6: Internet has 340 trillion trillion trillion addresses - Jun. 6. World IPv6 Launch Day Is Key for the Internet of Things. Weightless technology - small is dutiful. Tracking Tire Pressure and Tread for London Bus Company. As cheap as chips: turning the 'internet of things' into business benefits. Project Glass: One day... Project Glass: Skydiving Demo at Google I/O 2012. The Adidas miCoach Elite System. Paralysed patients use thoughts to control robotic arm. Facebook’s Updated iPhone App Aids Internet of Things. Zuckerberg mobilizes Facebook for 5 billion users and the Internet of things. What startups are focused on the Internet of Things (IoT) Electric imp. Hands-on with the Electric Imp at Maker Faire (video)
Building blocks for the Internet of Things. Ninja Blocks vs Raspberry Pi vs Arduino - Spannerman's Edublog. Arduino. Nimbits.com. Connected Things / SmartMeter: Founded in 2009, Smart Grid Billing is testing its combination of energy-monitoring wireless-connected plugs and software that collect and crunch energy consumption data. The service stores the data in a central server and c. Connected Things / Spark is a simple product [with a RESTful API] that connects your lights to the internet so you can control them from a smartphone, tablet, or computer. The Nest Thermostat Is Now for Sale at Apple Stores. Botanicalls Fig (botanicalls_fig) Tempo wants to be the database at the center of the Internet of things — Cloud Computing News. Tetherboard - A whole new way to connect to the physical world from your smart device.
Manybots. Axeda M2M Cloud Service. Springwise: Open Source Box Connects Household Objects To The Cloud. AT&T, Verizon, Salesforce.com taking M2M mainstream. Three UK launches wholesale M2M platform for MVNOs. Does the internet of things need its own internet? — Mobile Technology News.