What’s going on with the Internet of Things?
The Internet of Things (IoT) has been on the world’s lips ever since fridges started to be more ‘intelligent’. As every emerging technology, it had its ups and downs, however it now seems to have become more settled. Will it develop even more? And if so, how?
So, what new can we expect in the IoT area, how can we be surprised?
1. Shopping revolution
With virtual assistants keeping track of our shopping history and push notifications constantly alerting us on the go, we thought that we were at the top of the modern shopping game.
However, as usual we weren’t.
Amazon has just proved to us that our shopping experience can be even more stress-free. Since they decided on opening brick-and-mortar stores, they couldn’t just let them be. So, they came up with the ‘Amazon Go’ idea. It operates on the ‘just walk out technology’ – customers identify themselves while entering the store by swiping their phones, take whatever they need and leave the store. The smart technology deducts money spent from their accounts.
How does it work? Each item customers take and each move they make is tracked using deep learning and computer vision. Quite nifty, isn’t it?
2. Virtual assistants
Most of us claim to be scared of or apprehensive around virtual presence, however, it’s high time we got accustomed, since its popularity is growing.
We all know Siri and Cortana, but what else is emerging on the market? Let’s dig deeper into the subject and see what these bots can offer us.
Not only do they work as your own home monitoring system, they can also play games or read to your kids (Bosch’s Kuri). However, this is not all, they can also plan and order your dinner, choose suitable music for the occasion or generally talk to you and respond to your demands (Amazon’s Alexa).
What does it mean for us?
We can expect the virtual assistant market to flourish even more and brands trying to outshine each other.
What this brings us is comfort and a completely new reality. Are we on the verge of a breakthrough? We’ll see.
3. Easier travelling
With every aspect of our lives taking advantage of technology, travel industry couldn’t be left behind.
Most of us, to some extent predicted the possible changes that may be in stock. How? Simply by saying ‘It would be amazing if…’. Well, right now the ‘if’ is becoming a reality.
Airports claim readiness for the IoT technologies, however the first airport to actually implement it is the London City Airport.
It is about to offer a new level of communication with passengers – finding missing or late passengers and luggage, reminders and flight details sent directly to their phones and many more options. Additionally, other airports decided to invest in beacons which are basically communication devices interacting with your phone as you get close to them. Not only do they work as access points, they also send important information to your smartphone, like showing you to your gate and helping you with typical airport problems, e.g. tracking lost luggage.
