The Internet of Things (IoT) is a fast-emerging ecosystem of IP-connected devices with the potential to deliver significant business benefits valued at trillions of dollars in the coming decade across industries. Organizations can use IoT to drive considerable cost savings by improving asset utilization, enhancing process efficiency and boosting productivity. More importantly, IoT-driven innovations are expected to increase return on R&D investments, reduce time to market, and open up additional sources of revenue from new business models and opportunities. IoT is driven by a combination of forces, including the exponential growth of smart devices, a confluence of low-cost technologies (sensors, wireless networks, big data and computing power), pervasive connectivity and massive volumes of data. Even though IoT offers huge value potential, organisations must overcome key challenges, such as lack of interoperable technologies and standards, data and information management issues, privacy and security concerns, and the skills to manage IoT's growing complexity.The Internet of Things is all about connected life. We are witnessing that new age gadgets have integrated internet accessing capabilities by hooking them into wired or wireless internet connection. These gadgets are designed for machine 2 machine communication, and simultaneously also utilize the connectivity with Smartphone's, tablets and other devices for additional functionality. The data from such devices is shared over the telephonic network and accessed by Smartphone and tablet apps.Countries such as China, US, Germany, and European Union have the highest penetration in the IoT space with Malaysia, Korea, and Japan falling in the mid range. In India, the Prime Ministers vision of smart cities and digital India will leverage IoT to bring about the changes in addressing and solving problems that large cities are facing in becoming smart. Issues such as transportation system, parking, lighting, waste management, water management, women safety etc are areas which are of top priority. We will need sensors at strategic points to collect data, application to analyze data and analytics to ensure quick decision making. Digital infrastructure is expected to create huge opportunities for technological companies across the verticals and in key applications within smart cities, smart health systems, and smart transportation. In India, technology visionaries and several startups are flooding the market with smart devices with the intent of taking this to the next level. It is not only government but more so businesses which can reap many benefits by using the IoT ecosystem. For example manufacturers can remotely monitor the condition of equipment and look for indicators of imminent failures like vibration, temperature, or pressure outside normal limits. This means that the manufacturer has to make fewer site visits, employees can devote time on other critical issues thereby reducing fixed and variable costs. For the customer it means less disruption, increased uptime, and ultimately higher satisfaction. Taking this IoT to the next level, manufacturers can offer price-per-use, inclusive of all hardware, installation, and servicing.IoT is already heralding transformation across industries and it will bring about significant changes in the coming years. IoT can help organizations utilize their business infrastructure and assets in innovative ways to offer new services and deliver additional revenue. Moreover, deriving meaningful information from the huge volumes of data that IoT produces can improve decision-making and enable proactive, predictive insights. While the scope and potential of IoT is vast, four industries are best poised to reap the benefits. There are many advantages of incorporating IoT into our lives, which can help individuals, businesses, and society on a daily basis. For individuals this new concept can come in many forms including health, safety, financial and every day planning. The integration of IoT into the health care system could prove to be incredibly beneficial for both the individual and the society. A chip could be implanted into each individual, allowing for hospitals to monitor the vital signs of the patient. IoT can also function as a tool that can help people save money by making home appliances communicate in an energy efficient way.IoT has innumerable opportunities and provides innovative services that can be offered using smart devices, machines and products. Organizations can benefit from new revenue streams generated by new business models and services, as well as reduced time to market and increased returns from their R&D investments. Today's manufacturers face extraordinary challenges in the form of rigid specifications, tight timelines and even tighter budgets. This sector also includes asset tracking of large industrial equipment and the monitoring and control of factory assets. Analog sensors, for instance, are used to measure real-world conditions and process control systems measure performance analysis and control of manufacturingIndia has its own cultural, market and structural challenges those that need to be overcome for successful implementation of an IoT ecosystem. Policy guidelines need to be amended for the IoT eco system to be implemented. The IoT value chain in India is disconnected and fragmented which needs to be amended. There is also a shortage of component players which is a key hindrance for design, testing and development of IoT products in India. All these challenges are now being taken up by the government and new guidelines are being implemented to take IoT to the next level. For governments vision of "Smart Cities and Digital India" to be successful, it has no choice but to overcome the challenges of setting up an IoT eco system in a huge continent called India.The author, Ashish Gulati, is country head India at Telit
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The festive season has begun and all of the major e-commerce portals have been busy offering customers a variety of deals through their festive sales. The most popular category, just like last year, is said to be smartphones as Flipkart disclosed that their recent Big Billion Day saw 600,000 Lenovo and Motorola phones being sold during the three day sale.
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Arshad KhanShopo, a zero-commission, mobile app-based marketplace, launched by Snapdeal in July this year has achieved 1 million active product listings in just three months, the company said in a press release. "Our vision is to create life changing experiences for 1 million small businesses by 2017. Shopo is a key pillar of the digital commerce ecosystem that we are building to achieve this vision,” said Kunal Bahl, co-founder and CEO of online retailer Snapdeal. Sandeep Komaravelly, senior vice president at Shopo said, "The rapid scale-up in listings, significant increase in app downloads, page views and robust chat interactions on the platform, are an endorsement of the value Shopo is creating for buyers and sellers." According to the Snapdeal-KPMG report on Impact of E-commerce on SMEs in India, 43 per cent SMEs in India participate in online sales, out of which only 27 per cent engage in e-commerce. However, 69 per cent of SMEs reported an increase in consumers due to the internet. Launched by snapdeal in July 2015, Shopo enables small sellers create their online identity at the click of a button with its single step easy listing. Since its launch, more than 20,000 shops have been listed on Shopo, offering more than a million products in total.
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By Simar SinghTech giant Apple will finally launch its smartwatch 'Apple Watch' in India on November 6. In April this year, the smartwatch was launched in few countries including the US, France, Japan, and the UK and has been rolled out to other geographies in a phased manner. Although Apple's official India website mentions this date, it drops no hint of its price. However, as far as educated guesses go, we can speculate that the base Sport model will be priced anything between Rs 30,000 to 40,000. The smartwatch comes in two sizes-38 and 42 mm and three variants- Apple Watch, Apple Watch Edition and Apple Watch Sport. Also, potential buyers are quite spoilt for choice with different colours and materials of straps available to pick from. It will run Apple's in-house Watch OS 2. What will be interesting to see is how well the debutante smartwatch will do in the Indian market. Over the world, there have been mixed analytics of the Apple Watch's retail performance with some reports claiming that it has outdone expectations while others saying that it has fallen short.
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Enterprise communication and collaboration app Flock has received a lot of attention for some of its powerful features at the Nasscom Product Conclve held in Bengaluru.Flock managed to create a massive buzz with its slick, clutter-free interface across platforms, rich, intuitive user experience and newer features such as Video Calling, Shared Group To-Do’s, Reminders, and Integrations with other apps. Flock's tagline of 'Get Work Done. Faster.' and promise of increasing employee efficiency by a significant amount resonated with members of startups and big businesses alike, and made for a convincing proposition.NPC 2015 was attended by over 2000 people that comprised a large portion of the startup community, as well as leaders and executives from some of the most reputable firms in the market today.Bhavin Turakhia, CEO, Flock said, “When we attend events like the Nasscom Product Conclave, our main focus is to let people know how Flock is changing the way teams communicate and collaborate. Because organisations are so set in their business ways, they do not understand the potential that an application like Flock has in revolutionizing their communication experience, until we show them. Flock literally makes people and teams more efficient, by helping them get work done faster. This is a space that is ripe for disruption, and Flock is quickly breaking new ground in the market. I am very happy with what we have achieved here at the Nasscom Product Conclave today.”(BW Online Bureau)
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Simar SinghWhen Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the Digital India Mission, there was an outpour of support, particularly, to no surprise, from the IT industry. And Intel too wanted to jump in and help to see this programme materialise. “We have been trying to help digitalize India for a long time now. We understand that there is a gap in terms of knowledge and innovation that needs to be filled,” says Sandeep Aurora, Intel South Asia’s director of marketing and market development. Taking the same forward, Intel announced its ‘Innovate for Digital India Challenge’ in collaboration with MyGov, Department of Science and Technology(DST), Department of Electronics and Information Technology(DEitY) as well as IIM Ahmadabad which is running the programme. “What we realised was that a lot of times there were attempts to solve problems organic and unique to the Indian experience by deploying solutions that have been created abroad. These are often a poor fit because there is actually no understanding of the issue itself,” says Aurora, explaining the thought behind the programme, “This is why we decided to start from the ground-up and let people come up with the solutions itself.” Of course, it is important to understand that the success of programmes like Digital India are essential to the very business of a company like Intel. In the United States and the West, Intel’s revenues have seen a stagnation as PC have declined, directly hitting its main microchip business. India, however, with a progressive increase of digital permeation, has been witnessing an increase in PC sales. The sheer scope of this creates a huge opportunity for Intel. After receiving an overwhelming 1900 responses, the programme narrowed down the selection to 20 teams which are undergoing a “very intensive” accelerator programme in Pune where Intel is helping them connect with mentors, advisors, academicians and people from the industry. “People who are helping them fine-tune their concepts,” says Aurora. The ideas that are being developed span solutions pertaining to everything from agriculture and education to women’s safety and citizens connect. Intel plans to showcase the top 10 of this in Delhi next month. Aurora believes that the programme has been a great success not just in terms of the products coming out but also interns of creating a culture of innovation. This is something that he believes is essential to the success of Digital India. “The idea that innovation is possible is starting to get settled in people’s minds. Innovation can happen here and now and we can do it,” he quips. “India has been innovating for a long time, it’s just that the innovations do not see scale. We have not been very good at making these innovations available for mass use. We need to ensure that a culture of innovation is sustained and the scalability happens,” he explains. Aurora says that the biggest thing for Intel right now is Digital India and making this mission see the light of the day. “This is something that we are very bullish on and very busy in.”
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Sony updated its flagship smartphone lineup earlier this year at the IFA tech show in Berlin, Germany. The new flagships included three new smartphones, the Xperia Z5, Xperia Z5 Compact and the world's first smartphone with a 4K display, the Xperia Z5 Premium. Today the smartphones have officially landed in India however the company has skipped the Compact.
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Samsung’s Note sees another evolutionary upgrade, losing a few features but gaining so much more, writes Mala Bhargava For the past five years I’ve reviewed Samsung’s Galaxy Note, from its birth to its recently launched fifth avatar. And I begin with the disclosure that I’m a Note user, upgrading each time to the new version. This time as well, I would like to, were it not for the fact that my Note 4 is working just fine. But here’s why I’m tempted… The Note 5 has completely left behind the design of previous versions. It’s most compelling in its silver and gold models and made of glass, front and back, with metal framing to hold its thin body together. From being soundly criticized for its designs, Samsung has moved to bringing out a phone that you’ll hate to put into a case, hiding the smart and attractive looks. The Samsung logo is etched into the back, which this time, isn’t removable. You can’t swap the battery – and I have three batteries for my Note 4, just because I like it that way. You also don’t get a memory card slot. There’s been some disappointment over that but having lived with both Notes for some weeks, I don’t find I miss either the battery or the memory card on the Note 5. This is because the battery lasts nice and long, through the whole day even with heavy use, though you’ll have to use it very lightly to go through a significant part of the next day. As for the memory card, I realised that the storage on my Note 4 stilll had about 11GB free for use despite my using about 300 apps. But if you plan to carry a big chunk of your music or photos and videos around, you’ll need to resort to online storage and use precious bandwidth to upload these. The Note 5 takes 4K video that can take up a lot of space as can images from its excellent camera, specially if they are saved in RAW format. You also lose the infrared, but I doubt anyone is going to miss that very much. The Note is of course the smartphone that brought the stylus back and in the Note 5, the S-Pen is really smooth and even more precise. This time, you can pull out the S-Pen and write something, such as a phone number, on the darkened sleeping screen and the note will save itself. You probably won’t need that all the time, but it’s still a great convenience. The pen now comes out with a little push and a click which is very natural though I miss the shhikkk sound it makes on the Note 4 when it’s tucked back. Talking about tucking the stylus back, you can’t afford to put it in the wrong way round because it candamage the device and get stuck though I have already seen solutions to this problem online. Over several weeks however, I never once found myself being about to put the pen in the wrong way – it becomes second nature not to. Note Facts• Stylus “S-Pen” with new sleeping screen writing• 5.7 1440x2560 (~518ppi density) SAMOLED display• 1.5GHz octa core Exynos 7420 processorwith 4GB RAM• 16MP and 5MP cameras with f1.9 aperture, 4K video and YouTube direct broadcast• 32GB internal storage; no external memory card• 3,000mAh battery with quick charging and optional wireless charging• Price Rs 53,900The Note 5 has so many features that it would take far more than the space available to go through these – it always has. One of its standout features is a fabulous crisp screen, possibly the best around in fact. Brightness even in sunlight, vivid colours and viewing angles are not to be faulted. The screen more than does justice to the best-in-class camera which is the same one as on the Galaxy S6, S6 Edge, and S6 Edge+. The camera is a deal breaker on the Note 5, when combined with all its other functionality, specially the stylus. Two quick presses of the home button bring the camera up so that you can actually take a shot pretty quickly. The shutter speed is also great and the burst mode is a marvel. Just long press to take a machine-gun volley of shots and when you look through them, you’ll find the ones you want to keep. I have had occasional trouble with that burst mode though, when I found it went into an angry non-stop shooting mode and crashed the camera. But apart from that, the camera takes fabulously detailed shots. In low light, images are not bad either and the noise has bee kept down significantly. There are several shooting modes with Selective Focus, which results in nice depth of field and bokeh, and the Pro mode being the most useful for those who love photography. The Note 5, like its cousins, shoots excellent stablised video, including 4K. I gave in a video to my video department surprising them greatly with the quality.The Note 5 is one of the most powerful smartphones around runs Samsung’s famous TouchWiz on top of Android Lollipop, upgradeable to Marshmallow soon. The software has been improved over its previous versions and is “lighter” and easier to use instead of being clunky and intimidatingly feature-filed. Note fans will find that their Note 4s are still powerful devices with an upgrade to Note 5 not being imperative but may be tempted by the improvement in the camera, writing experience, and the beautiful looks of the device. There’s also the quick charging that works really well, and optional wireless charging. Anyone using earlier versions or thinking of buying a top-end Android phone shouldn’t gloss past what is Samsung’s best phone so far.
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