Increasing IoT Investment for Supply Chain

At the beginning of 2017, IDC published its forecast for worldwide spending on the Internet of Things (IoT). It came up with the figure of $737 billion for spending on IoT in 2016 to cover organizational investments “in the hardware, software, services, and connectivity” it requires. That amount would continue to grow based at “a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15.6% over the 2015-2020 forecast period, reaching $1.29 trillion in 2020,” the firm projected.

A huge chunk of that is to come from industry. In fact, IDC’s estimates allocate the lion’s share of IoT investments in 2016 to that sector and found that it involved several large investment amounts. For the 2016, investment in IoT for manufacturing operations would have amounted to $102.5 billion. It also involved a chunk of investment in logistics, specifically freight monitoring  to the tune of $55.9 billion.

The motivation for such hefty investment at this time, according to IoT World’s report Manufacturing IoT & Supply Chain Transformation in 2017 (registration required) “is simple: a compelling ROI through increased efficiency, productivity, reliability and safety.”

Indeed, that fits “the formula for the Industrial Internet” that GE set forth in its 2015 Industrial Internet Report. It described the IoT for industry “as a source of both operational efficiency and innovation that is the outcome of a compelling recipe of technology developments,” which are composed of the following parts.

• Data: both from the standard forms of Big Data and the additional streams coming through the sensors that track “equipment, products, factories, supply chains.”
• Analytics that can assess the status of the connected things.
• The definitive core of the business that defines the desired outcomes

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Investment in Supply Chain IoT Grows

AI for Customized Consumer Communication

As AI advances, it's reshaping marketing with new ways of pulling in data and insights to reshape and customize consumer communication. Its impact on marketing was explored in a recent NYC Media Lab white paper, "How AI Is Changing Media Economics."

 Now it's possible to apply real time analytics to a campaign that is tested, tweaked, and tailored to an audience. 
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AI: The Ultimate Game-Changer for Media

Google Glass Comeback

Success is not just a matter of timing but if also finding the right context. That’s the story behind Google Glass reception. Its first foray ended in failure, but it has found a new context in which it could thrive.

I remember when Google Glass was launched in 2013 as the ultimate wearable with a sticker price of $1,500. I recall reading one review that conceded that it had some problems but still thought that it was to be embraced as “the future” of tech. Just about every other reviewer rejected them, among them one who went on to list the reasons why people hate it. 

As it turns out, both sides were right. People did have major issues with Google Glass as a personal device. However, the hands-free convenience combined with smartphone capability proved very valuable in an industrial setting.

That’s why Alphabet X stopped trying to sell Google Glass directly as a consumer item and it up into the Enterprise Edition of the wearable.  Its current tagline is: “Glass is a hands-free device, for hands-on workers.” The product is no longer sold by Google directly but through partners who have customized the device for industrial purposes.

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Raise Your (Google) Glass to the Enterprise Edition

Getting kids back to school with clean clothes

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Back-to-school season is upon us. Many students will resume their studies in
August, and some may need extra help of one form or another to make the academic year a success.

School success begins with student attendance. Absent students can't learn that day's lesson, and those students are most likely fall behind in their work. While some absences are unavoidable, there are times when what holds students back is just not having clean clothes to wear, according to appliance maker Whirlpool. The company has created a program called Whirlpool Care Counts to put washers and dryers in schools to help address the issue of absenteeism due to lack of clean clothes and is now collecting data on how these in-school appliances impact student attendance.

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Analytics and School Attendance: A Laundry Story

Google Feed = Massive Marketing Opportunities

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Google has always dominated search, but it has not done so well with social as evidenced by the perceived failure of Google+. So, capitalizing on its strengths, it set up a feed for users that uploads items of interest based on their own signals, rather than on what their friends shared or Twitter connections posted online.

Back in December, Google introduced an app update that promised “load your life's interests and updates” with just “a single tap” that can bring up “useful cards.”  Seven months later, Google proclaimed “Feed Your Need to Know,” announcing that — thanks to machine learning advances — the algorithms that direct the feed can “better anticipate” the type of content that an individual would want to see.

Read more in Google Feed is a Tempting Feast for Marketers

A sea change for shipping with automation

Automation and transportation have come together in the air in the form of drones.  On land, many tech companies and automakers are working on self-driving cars.  Although we don’t hear quite as much about is the application of the technology to transport over water, we may see it become a reality within just a few years. Back in 2014, Rolls Royce presented its concept for an autonomous ship. The BBC report quoted Oskar Levander, Rolls-Royce's vice president of innovation, engineering and technology, "Now it is time to consider a road map to unmanned vessels of various types. Sometimes what was unthinkable yesterday is tomorrow's reality.” However, the law had not yet caught up to that reality. Simon Bennett, a representative of the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS), ascertained that international law still did not allow for crewless ships. He told the BBC that a legal change "would require a complete overhaul of the regulatory regime.” There are those working on achieving that change. The BBC report referred to an EU-funded project working toward ships that could function without crews. Called Maritime Unmanned Navigation through Intelligence (MUNIN). In addition to making it technically feasible, MUNIN aims to work out the necessary changes in legislation to allow autonomous ships to function. It envisions “highly advanced navigation systems” that would analyze conditions toavert accidents. As in the case of some of these sensor systems engineered to enable autonomous functions in cars, the plan is to apply the technology even for ships that are driven by people, as they could “support the officer of the watch.” That in itself could prove very valuable in light of the “human error” blamed for the recent collision of the USS Fitzgerald and a container ship. Read more in Automation to Deliver Sea Change in Cargo Transport

AI: a fundamental risk to the existence of human civilization according to Elon Musk

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No longer a sci-fi novelty, artificial intelligence is a reality with great potential. While most of the news has

focused on AI’s potential for good, some pundits are now pointing out its potential for harm. They include none other than Elon Musk.

As the founder, CEO, and CTO of SpaceX and the CEO of Tesla, a key player in the emergence of the self-driving car, Musk is certainly no Luddite. When he talks about AI, he is talking about technology that is absolutely integral to his business model. Nonetheless, Musk believes it is imperative that society regulate the advance of AI, as he noted in an interview before an audience at the National Governors Association Summer Meeting this month.

In the course of the interview, Musk referred to his “exposure to the most cutting-edge AI” and warned, “I think people should be really concerned.” The point is not to live in dread of the potential repercussions of AI and respond reactively to them, he said, but to plan proactively for them.

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Elon Musk Sounds Alarm on AI

Canada welcomes AI

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There's no question that AI is redefining processes across a whole spectrum of businesses. There is, however, a question of what that means for the overall economy. Canada is now investing in AI
research with the expectation that it will benefit the country in general.

DeepMind, the London-based leader in artificial intelligence owned by Google’s parent-company Alphabet, is now reaching across the pond to Canada. On July 5, Demis Hassabis, co-founder and CEO, DeepMind announced “the opening of DeepMind’s first ever international AI research office in Edmonton, Canada, in close collaboration with the University of Alberta.”

Though it was announced as a “first” in terms of leaving the UK home base, in reality, as Bloomberg reported in December, the company started building up “a small team” of researchers at a Google office in Mountain View, Calif. Certainly, there is a lot more fanfare for its move to Canada.

In addition to contributing on the research and education end DeepMind plans to invest in programs to promote “Edmonton’s growth as a technology and research hub.” The funding for such programs are also coming from within Canada, as the University of Alberta reveals in its take on the news. It welcomes the DeepMind move as yet another advance toward AI research in the country, which is the goal set by “the federal government’s Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy.”

That federal program, which is to be run by CIFAR, the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, is expected to invest $125 million (Canadian dollars) in trying to establish an AI foothold in Canada. Dr. Alan Bernstein, President and CEO of CIFAR was quoted in StartUpHereToronto saying he anticipates “enormous potential for innovation” resulting from the initiative:

“Deep AI is a platform technology that cuts across virtually all sectors of the economy, with the potential to improve people’s lives. It will help build a stronger and more innovative economy, create high value jobs, improve transportation and lead to better and more efficient health care and social services.”

That makes AI sound like is capable not only of boosting productivity but of improving things all around. In reality, though, it depends where you stand.

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AI Arrives in Canada: Will Prosperity Follow?