Posts

Showing posts with the label connected devices

Mobile Apps, Blind Spots, Tomatoes and IoT Sensors

Image
Master Tomato Gardener A lot is written on mobile technologies, the Internet of Things, social media and analytics, but little is written on how all these might work together in a retail environment.  I think best by writing, so let's think this through together. Blind spots are defined as, “Areas where a person's view is obstructed.” Many business decisions today are still made based on conjecture (unsubstantiated assumptions), because the data needed to make a data-driven decision lies in an operational “blind spot.” Smart companies when designing mobile applications consider how they can personalize the user experience.  They ask themselves how they can utilize all the accumulated data they have collected on their customers or prospects, plus third-party data sources, to make the experience as beautiful and pleasurable as possible.  To start, they can often access the following kinds of data from their own and/or purchased databases to personalize the experience: N

Sensors - Sensing and Sharing the Physical World

Image
Global Sensor Data We spend a lot of time talking and writing about the IoT (Internet of Things) in the macro, as a giant worldwide network of objects and things, communicating with themselves and others.  That is indeed interesting, but the most interesting components of the IoT, in my opinion, are the sensors.  Sensors are defined as, "Devices that detect or measure a physical property and record, indicate, or otherwise responds to it."  In the context of IoT, sensors detect or measure a physical property and then communicate the findings wirelessly to a server for analysis. Sensors are our digital fingers that touch and feel the earth and environment! Just last week I read  this about a new iPhone patent, "The patent is titled “Digital camera with light splitter.” The camera described in the patent has three sensors for splitting color. The camera would split colors into three different rays . These would be red, green and blue. The splitting of colors is desig

Kevin Benedict's Mobile World Congress 2013 Interviews: Fred Yentz, Part 2

Image
M2M and the Internet of Things were central topics at the Mobile World Congress 2013.  SAP was showing off several demonstrations on how machine data, wirelessly sent to SAP, could be analyzed in real-time using SAP Hana.  In this interview, M2M expert and ILS Technology CEO Fred Yentz discusses the concept of "Sensor-to-CIO."  Grab some popcorn! Video Link: http://youtu.be/cZOCxiUkViQ ************************************************************* Kevin Benedict , Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant View Linkedin Profile Read the whitepaper on mobile, social, analytics and cloud strategies Don't Get SMACked Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and SMAC analyst, consultant and writer. I wo

Kevin Benedict's Mobile World Congress 2013 Interviews: Charlie McNiff

Image
It was interesting how much of the Mobile World Congress this year was about M2M and the Internet of Things.  I guess it makes sense from a teleco perspective, mobile data is mobile data, whether it comes from a mobile app on a smartphone or a piece of heavy equipment wirelessly reporting its maintenance needs. I have often written over the years that M2M and enterprise mobility would eventually converge.  This year they certainly did at the MWC 2013 event.  Mobile data coming in from remote workers and assets is all valuable to the enterprise.  With the right business analytics solution your managers can use this real-time data to make good data driven decisions. At the show, SAP connected their M2M initiative with their Hana platform to deliver real-time analytics to the Port of Hamburg in Germany.  The demonstration was in the Connected City at the show. The solution was used to track incoming cargo containers, truck parking spaces and truck locations.  The M2M data coming in wi

Notes and Videos from the Mobile World Congress 2013, Part 1

Image
Yesterday was the first day of the Mobile World Congress 2013 in Barcelona.  It is reported there are 70,000 people here.  I counted 69,901.  I explored miles of aisles filled with mobile and wireless software vendors, equipment, accessories and devices manufacturers over 8 massive halls. I have been tracking down mobility experts to interview.  I tried to upload some of the interviews yesterday, but my hotel wireless appeared just enough to tease me before disappearing again. Today I will be speaking at the Power of Enterprise Mobility session in Hall 8.  There are seats for 250, but over 2,000 registered for it.  Yikes! Here is the first of many interviews I recorded with experts in mobility and M2M.  This interview is with M2M / Internet of Things guru and Fred Yentz, CEO of ILS Technology . ************************************************************* Kevin Benedict , Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant View Linkedin Profile

SAP and the Internet of Things (M2M)

Image
I had an interesting discussion with SAP's new VP of the Internet of Things, Suhas Uliyar recently.    He was still in the process of deciding whether VP of the Internet of Things was the appropriate title, or if it should be VP of the Connected World or something more representative of how the technology was evolving.  He did not like the traditional M2M (machine to machine) reference as that reflected too much of the old model.  He wanted to reflect the future direction of this technology. Suhas is an industry veteran and mobility expert.  We have spoken numerous times over the past decade as he was leading efforts at a number of MDM (mobile device management) and enterprise mobility companies.  He is very knowledgeable about the needs of large enterprises. Now back to the topic of M2M.  The traditional use of M2M technology was a sensor would capture data in the field and feed it to an embedded wireless chip that would send it to a server.  As long as the data was communicat