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Internet of Things (IoT) Use Cases for Sustainability

Written by Brooks Canavesi on June 12, 2019. Posted in Blog, IoT

The Internet of Things, commonly referred to simply as the IoT, is growing faster than most people expected just a few years ago. IHS estimates that there will be 75.4 billion connected devices by 2025, up from 15.4 billion in 2015. In addition to automating homes and offices, connected devices are also powering the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) and fundamentally altering the way organizations are moving toward achieving their sustainability goals.

Growing Need for Sustainability

Since the dawn of civilization, humankind has been inventing new technologies to overcome difficult obstacles and prosper. Unfortunately, the very same technologies that have allowed many people on this planet to live lives of luxury have created problems so serious that the only way to solve them is with immediate action.

Recently, scientists have recorded the highest level of CO2 emissions on earth since records began, detecting 415.26 parts per million. “The number keeps rising, and it’s getting higher year after year,” said Wolfgang Lucht, from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

According to the Paris Agreement, a landmark agreement within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change signed by 186 parties, CO2 emissions would need to decline by 50 percent by 2030 and reach net zero by around 2050 to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

“Despite the Paris climate agreement, despite all the speeches and the protests—we are not seeing that we are bending the curve yet,” added Lucht. To change this, public and private organizations alike need to set clear sustainability goals and take all the steps necessary to meet them.

In 2018, the World Economic Forum (WEF), a not-for-profit organization for public-private cooperation, investigated 643 applications of IoT technology before publishing its Internet of Things Guidelines for Sustainability. The research revealed that 84% of IoT use cases were addressed, or could potentially address, the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

The goals include not just climate action but also no poverty, zero hunger, good health and well-being, quality education, gender equality, clean water and sanitation, affordable and clean energy, decent work and economic growth, industry, innovation, and infrastructure, reduced inequalities, sustainable cities and communities, responsible production and consumption, life below water, life on land, peace and justice and strong institutions, and global partnerships for sustainable development.

Even though the IoT is not immediately associated with CleanTech, the possibilities various IoT solutions offer industry when it comes to driving improvements to organizations’ sustainability across all kinds of processes and developments are huge. To better understand how connected devices could help create a better world, let’s take a closer look at some of the most promising IoT use cases for sustainability.

Smart Agriculture

Water scarcity is listed by the World Economic Forum as one of the largest global risks in terms of potential impact over the next decade. Today, approximately 70% of the world’s fresh water goes toward agriculture, twice as much as is used for municipal purposes and in industry. IoT devices can help farmers detect water leakages, which are estimated to result in a 26% loss of stock drinking water.  

The IoT also helps farmers collect a wealth of useful information, such as soil quality, weather conditions, and equipment efficiency. This information can then be analyzed to achieve greater crop yields, lower production risk, and higher production efficiency. Devices like Arable and Semios make it very easy for farmers around the world to extract real-time, actionable insights from their fields and access their data from anywhere and in real-time.

By 2025, the smart agriculture market is expected to triple in size and reach $15.3 billion. This figure clearly illustrates that farmers are already aware that small, technology-driven tweaks to their farming methods can have a big knock-on effect, which is exactly what the humankind needs to feed the 9 billion people the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) expects to live on Earth by 2050.

Smart Waste

Waste management is a critical component of sustainability, and there are many opportunities to improve it with smart technology. Garbage collectors today waste a lot of time and spend a lot of fuel traveling to trash cans that are only half full because they have no way of knowing which trash cans need to be emptied before they physically inspect them.

Sensoneo estimates that smart waste collection can reduce collection costs by nearly 30% and lowers carbon emissions up to 60% by decreasing the number of collection instances by up to 80%. Connected trash cans would additionally make it considerably easier for consumers to locate the nearest trash opportunities, and they could even intelligently identify recyclable materials.

Beyond waste collection, the IoT has the potential to play an integral role in reducing food wastage and preventing food recalls. In industrialized countries, food losses and waste amount to roughly $680 billion in industrialized countries and $310 billion in developing countries, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, and all the food that gets buried in landfills is a major contributor to methane emissions.

By implementing smart temperature monitoring and alert systems to protect food during transport and storage, much of our waste can be avoided, and food producers would further benefit from access to rich data that could be used, for example, to automatically optimize delivery times in order to avoid extreme temperatures.

Smart Grids

According to EnergySavvy, a software company that enables utilities to transform their utility customer experience through modern personalization, automation, and engagement, a typical house wastes 30% more energy than an efficient one does.

The problem is that consumers often have no idea what their current and average energy consumption are, which makes it difficult for them to make well-informed decisions about their energy, water, and gas consumption. Smart meters make it possible to monitor usage remotely and make the gathered data available in real-time directly to consumers.

Utilities benefit because they no longer have to send someone to collect meter readings, and consumers benefit because they get access to the information they need to modify their habits and reduce their carbon footprint. In one of its reports, British Gas estimates that residential customers using smart meters save nearly $42 a year on their energy bill, which may not seem like much until you multiply the number by the number of households and office buildings.

Smart meters enable utility providers to effortlessly incorporate renewable power sources, which is why the Environmental Defense Fund estimates smart grids to cut air pollution from the energy industry by up to 30% and prevent around 34,000 deaths a year.

SmartLighting

Romanian company Flashnet calculated that 40% of the public budget’s energy bill is spent on street lights. The company has developed a smart street lighting control system that’s designed to automatically provide the right amount of light where and when needed. Called, inteliLIGHT, the system can use any open protocol communication technology and has been demonstrated to lead to significant cost savings.

Navigant Research, a market research and advisory firm, believes that smart LEDs that automatically adjust to natural conditions can generate 10-20% savings, while smart lighting company enModus is even more optimistic: estimating that smart LEDs can achieve up to 99% energy cost savings compared with traditional incandescent light bulbs.

Already, consumers can choose from a broad range of smart lighting products compatible with standard lighting fixtures and available at increasingly more affordable prices. Apart from automatically adjusting to natural conditions, smart lighting products also take advantage of motion detectors, optical cameras, door contact sensors, micro radars, and other components.

Smart Water Monitoring

It takes just one day for a single showerhead or faucet that drips at the rate of 60 drips per minute to waste 21 liters of water. According to the World Bank, the total global cost of non-revenue water, which is water produced and lost by utilities, nears $14 billion, and the number is expected to keep increasing sharply in the future as more and more countries become industrialized. In the United States, the average city loses around 30% of its total water supply through leaks or unbilled usage, and some places, such as Delhi in India, lose over 50%, which is especially alarming considering that India is fighting a massive water crisis.

To reduce water leakage, Huawei has developed a smart water monitoring solution that adopts a grid-based water meter system, monitors the pipeline network in real time, and rapidly locates pipeline failures to enable leakage analysis. The solution was first deployed in Shenzhen, where it significantly improved the experience for Shenzhen Water Group customers and made water usage and water flow analysis now much easier to undertake.

“The commercial NB-IoT-based Smart Water project jointly conducted by Shenzhen Water, China Telecom, and Huawei will play an exemplary role in the development of the IoT industry and Smart City worldwide. I hope that the three parties can duplicate the cooperative achievements seen in Shenzhen and apply these principles across China, and eventually extend them to overseas markets,” said Edward Deng, President of Huawei Wireless Solution.

Smart Air Quality Tracking

Especially in large cities, air pollution is a serious problem that poses a major threat to health and climate alike. Using IoT sensors, cities and private organizations can gather extensive information to localize the biggest polluters and warn residents when pollution exceeds permittable levels.

Wanting to better understand roadside air quality, the Royal Borough of Greenwich, London, teamed up with the Global Systems for Mobile Communications Association (GSMA) to mount sensors on an electric vehicle and use them to measure air quality as part of the Smart London initiative, whose goal is to transform London into the smartest city in the world.

In South Korea, KT Corporation, the country’s largest telephone company, launched an air quality monitoring app called Air Map Korea. The app collects and analyzes air quality data from 1,500 spots nationwide in a bid to help the government draw up a better policy for reducing fine dust levels.

“We have begun the Air Map Korea project, based on our innovative technologies such as IoT and big data analytics, to help the government resolve fine dust issues. KT will actively cooperate with central and regional governments as well as research centers to reduce the public health risk of fine dust,” said Kim Hyoung-wook, head of KT’s platform business planning office.

Smart Buildings

Siemens’ Crystal building is a perfect example of how various IoT technologies can be combined to meet challenging sustainability goals. Thanks to its connected systems for lighting, air-conditioning, heating, and more, the offices in the building produce about 70% less CO2 compared with typical office buildings, which is why the building has become the first to achieve the highest sustainable building awards from LEED and BREEAM, the world’s two leading accreditation bodies.

Since commercial buildings account for nearly 20% of US energy consumption and 12% of the greenhouse gas emissions, according to the US Energy Information Administration, more efficient building designs and technologies are essential for minimizing the impact humans have on the environment.

In the future, smart buildings could even be an important part of the global ecosystem, filtering the air and water, producing clean energy, and providing shelter not just to humans but also plants and animals. It’s difficult to estimate how long it will take to get there, but it’s certain that it won’t be possible without the IoT.

Conclusion

There are many ways how the IoT can help organizations achieve their sustainability goals, and we’ve identified and described several of them in this article. With the demand for connected devices from private and public sectors alike increasing, it’s guaranteed that their manufacturers will find ways how to make them even more useful, secure, and accessible than they are now. Indeed, the future is a promising one, and it’s nice to see modern technology being used to solve many of the problems it has created. 

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The State of Smart Home Technology in 2019

Written by Brooks Canavesi on May 10, 2019. Posted in Blog, IoT

With the number of smart home devices available to consumers increasing at a rapid pace, now is a good time to take a closer look at the state of smart home technology to see whether it delivers the convenience, cost savings, and comfort we’ve been promised.

1.  The Global Smart Home Market Continues to Grow

According to a recent report published by Research and Markets, the overall smart home market is expected to grow from $76.6 billion in 2018 to $151.4 billion by 2024, at a CAGR of 12.02 percent. At seven billion devices in 2018, the connected home is the largest IoT segment, followed by industrial and connected health. The factors driving the growth of the smart home market include the need for energy-saving and low carbon emission solutions, the increasing awareness of the benefits of smart home technology, or the demand for home monitoring from remote locations, just give a few examples. While North America currently accounts for the largest share of the global smart home market, the demand for smart home devices is expected to grow at the highest rate in the Asia-Pacific region during the forecast period, thanks to its booming middle class. The State of the Connected Home report by techUK, which surveyed 1,000 UK customers, states that smart TVs are the most popular smart home products, followed by smart lighting and thermostats, smart health devices, smart security systems, and smart domestic appliances. Even though 74 percent of consumers are already familiar with smart home technology, only 37 percent find it appealing, which confirms that there’s still a lot of room for the smart home market to grow. Smart appliances are the least appealing category of smart home products, likely due to their high prices and limited usefulness.

2. Robots Are Not Just for Industrial Application

We’ve become used to seeing industrial robots assemble cars, weld unwieldy chunks of metal, and solder circuit boards with the precision and dexterity of a master craftsman and the speed of Dash from The Incredibles. In 2019, we’re starting to see robots leave the cold, metal walls of warehouses and factories and venture into our homes. Not many families are ready to spend $3,000 on the Sony Aibo, a robotic pet dog with lifelike expressions and a dynamic array of movements, or $5,500 on the Groove X companion robot pet, but the demand for sociable robots that could give comfort to the elderly is much greater. “With more and more people forced to look after loved ones, the internet of things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI) can help alleviate the social care issues raised by an aging population,” argues Emanuele Angelidis, chief executive of IoT investor Breed Reply. “IoT also enables real-time remote monitoring so caregivers can keep a close and careful eye on their loved ones, while they complete other tasks like shopping, or simply go about their day-to-day lives.” Mobile robot solutions like Temi, a self-navigating personal robot with a large built-in touchscreen, makes it possible for caregivers and family members to give comfort and assistance in a way that’s not possible with a fixed camera. It’s only a matter of time before similar robots become so affordable that social care providers will be able to buy them in bulk and use them to enhance the quality of their service.

3. Emotional AI Is Getting Better

Gartner believes that by 2020 personal devices will know more about an individual’s emotional state than his or her own family. Emotion AI systems and affective computing are allowing everyday objects to detect, analyze, process and respond to people’s emotional states and moods to provide better context and a more personalized experience,” says Roberta Cozza, research director at Gartner. The aim of emotional AI is to automate objective measurement of opinions, feelings, and behaviors, and it relies on natural language processing (NLP), natural language understanding (NLU) and the detection of facial expressions of emotion to achieve its goal. Smart home devices equipped with emotional AI could prove indispensable in patient care, interacting with patients on an emotional level just like humans do and providing companionship and times of stress. At the same time, emotional AI has the potential to make smart home devices more approachable, easier to use, and, above all, more personal. Smart home assistants, such as the Amazon Echo devices and Google Home, have become very popular in recent years, and the ability to recognize the mood of the person the speaker is interacting with and respond accordingly would create many new possible use cases.

4. 802.11ax Is Coming

Labeled Wi-Fi 6 by Wi-Fi Alliance, 802.11ax is the next-generation Wi-Fi standard, and it’s expected to be the next big thing in the connected home. In 2019, there are already several 802.11ax-compatible routers to choose from, and many more will be released by the end of the year. What makes 802.11ax such a game changer is the fact that it solves the problem of Wi-Fi congestion, which plagues most households with multiple internet-connected devices trying to send and receive data at the same time, by introducing something called orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA). OFDMA is a technique for transmitting large amounts of digital data over a noisy channel, and it works by splitting the signal into multiple smaller sub-signals which are then transmitted at a lower data rate simultaneously at different frequencies. 802.11ax additionally adds uplink direction for MIMO and MU-MIMO to increase throughput, and it increases how many MU-MIMO transmissions can happen at the same time to eight, from four with 802.11ac. Although mass adoption of 802.11ax probably won’t happen until 2020, what’s important is that all major Wi-Fi chip vendors have already either announced or released 802.11ax chips. Because 802.11ax is backward compatible with previous Wi-Fi specifications, its adoption can happen gradually over time and with no negative impact on consumers.

5. True Wireless Charging Is Almost Ready for Prime Time

At the end of 2018, the Federal Communications Commission certified Energous’s WattUp technology, which can convert electricity into radio frequencies and then send the resulting energy to devices up to three feet away. “Older wireless charging technologies have received limited adoption over the past 15 years and are confined to contact-based charging only. The FCC certification of Energous’ power-at-a-distance wireless charging transmitter is a major market milestone,” says Stephen R. Rizzone, Energous president and CEO. True wireless charging is exactly what consumers have been waiting for, and it’s exactly what can make smart home devices more usable. Currently, consumers who decide to fit their homes with smart sensors, such as door and window sensors, motion sensors, water leak detectors, or smart locks, are forced to deal with the fact that such sensor can rarely last more than a year or two without a new battery. That may not be such a big deal when dealing with just a few sensors, but it’s likely that the homes of the future will be fitted with hundreds of wireless sensors and actuators, monitoring and controlling everything from temperature, proximity, water and air quality, and so much more. True wireless charging technology like Energous’s WattUp has the potential to make manual battery replacements a thing of the past, and it will likely be one of the big smart home technology stories in 2019.
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Ransomware: The Main Enemy of the Connected Era

Written by Brooks Canavesi on April 10, 2017. Posted in Blog, IoT

Three years from now, the number of Internet-connected things will reach 50 billion. According to an IDC forecast, the worldwide market for IoT solutions will grow from $1.9 trillion in 2013 to $7.1 trillion in 2020. More consumers than ever will purchase internet-connected clothing, smart home appliances, fitness trackers, healthcare monitors, and smart cars. These devices could become the target of the next generation of ransomware, a type of malware designed to block access to an electronic device until a sum of money is paid.

Ransomware Works

Recently, a server of a police department in Cockrell Hill, Texas, was encrypted by a group of hackers who used an email with a spoofed address to infect the system and demanded $4,000 to unlock the files, reports Dark Reading. The police ignored the demand of the hackers and lost eight years of documents, photos, and videos.

The police department in Texas wasn’t the only victim of cyber-attacks. According to the 2016/2017 Kroll Annual Global Fraud and Risk Report, 85% of executives say they were hit with a cyber incident in the past year. A survey by Risk Based Security revealed that, in 2016, over 4.2 billion records were exposed in 4,149 cyber incidents.

As illustrated by the rise in ransomware distribution, hackers have apparently finally found an effective way how to make a good living. “2016, also designated as ‘year of ransomware’ has seen enormous growth in Ransomware diffusion, transmission and ransom thieving. So much so, that criminals have made cyberware models and invite amateur crooks to host the Ransomware flag to newer heights. The wreak havoc is seeing no stoppage anytime soon. Until now, Ransomware flow has seen an increase of 500% from the previous year,” writes Minal Khatri.

IoT Under Attack

As the market for IoT devices grows, it will become an increasingly more viable target for a new generation of ransomware attacks. Right now, manufacturers and security researchers spend around $350 million on IoT security. This number is expected to reach $547 million in 2018. An infographic published by GSMA shows that 47% of IoT developers consider security as their top concern. What’s more, 60% of consumers worry about a world of connected things, naming privacy as their main concern and security as their number one worry.

There are two things we can take away from this. First, cyber-attacks, and ransomware, in particular, are real threats that could catastrophically disrupt entire states, let alone the lives of individuals. Second, both manufacturers and consumers are aware of these threats and do their best to fight them. There are now several authoritative IoT security and privacy guidelines, and more will surely appear in the future.

Only time will tell who will gain the upper end in the upcoming cyber-war, but it’s clear that more effective mitigation and prevention methods are needed.

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Top 10 Most Important Wearable Trends in 2017

Written by Brooks Canavesi on January 25, 2017. Posted in Blog, Mobile App Development, Technology trends

2016 was a good year for wearables.  According to data from the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Wearable Device Tracker, total shipment volumes reached 19.7 million units in 1Q16, an increase of 67.2% from the 11.8 million units shipped in 1Q15. Ramon Llamas, research manager for IDC’s Wearables team, said that “the wearables market continues to mature and expand.”

Wearable devices still have a long way to go, but the technology has found its way into the hearts of consumers from around the world, who now eagerly await a new generation of products; one that will be sleeker, tighter, and more affordable than the current generation. These two meta-trends—maturation and expansion—will continue to play an important role even in 2017, as we’ll see when we go through our list of top 10 most important wearable trends in 2017.

10. Moving Beyond Smartwatches

For a long time, wearable devices were synonymous with smartwatches. Perhaps it was the influence of decades’ worth of sci-fi movies that caused the wrist to feel like the most sensible place where to put a small, sensor-equipped computer. Maybe it was our deep-rooted love for wristwatches combined with a desire to improve upon the timeless concept.

What matters now is that engineers and designers of wearables realize that our bodies offer plenty more convenient places for wearable devices, such as our fingers and feet. Nimb is a ring with an integrated panic button that can send an alert to friends and family, community members, people nearby, or emergency services. It looks like a beautiful fashion accessory, rather than a state-of-the-art piece of wearable technology, and works in a very discreet manner.

The word discreet has played an equally important role in the design of Ringly, a line of bracelets and rings that connect to smartphones via Bluetooth, effortlessly keeping track of steps, distance, and calories burned—metrics that previously required a person to wear a bulky smartwatch.

Under Armour has shown other footwear manufacturers how to design a good smart shoe capable of tracking time, cadence, duration, distance, splits, and other things in the natural way possible. Others, such as Xiaomi, followed Under Armour’s lead soon after, and we expect to see this trend continue even in 2017.

9. New Metrics

Walking a few hundred extra steps every day is a good way how to lose a few pounds of fat, but it takes much more than that to achieve happiness and balance in life. The upcoming generation of wearable devices is aware of this, and it leverages some of the scientifically proven effects of mindfulness practice on the brain to affect the structure and neural patterns in the brain.

One such device is called Feel. This smart bracelet recognized and tracks your emotions throughout the day and provides you with personalized coaching to help you achieve your emotional well-being goals. It does this by measuring responses from a variety of physiological signals sent by a person’s Autonomic Nervous System (ANS). Vinaya has similar goals, only with a greater emphasis on fashion and style, instead of science and data.

8. Project Soli

According to Google, “Project Soli is developing a new interaction sensor using radar technology. The sensor can track sub-millimeter motions at high speed and accuracy. It fits onto a chip, can be produced at scale and built into small devices and everyday objects.”

Compared to cameras, radar technology has several key advantages. It has a very high positional accuracy, allowing developers to sense the tiniest motions with utmost precision. It can also work through materials, and, above all, the whole technology fits on a single chip with no moving parts, which could break. “It’s a tiny sliver you could balance on your pinky toenail, with four antennas that provide full duplex communication for sending and receiving radar pings,” commented Hakim Raja, Soli’s lead hardware and production engineer.

With Soli, developers can borrow a language based on the metaphors we are already familiar with from physical controls and use it as a way how to interact with virtual objects and user interfaces.

7. The Ability to Power Wearables Through Motion or Body Heat

The limitations imposed by our current battery technology are at the very top of what customers complain about when it comes to modern electronic devices. Most smartphones are happy to work for two consecutive days on a single charge, and smartwatches are nothing to write home about either.

Fortunately, new ways how to generate electricity are just around the corner. “Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a new design for harvesting body heat and converting it into electricity for use in wearable electronics,” states the university in a blog post. “Wearable thermoelectric generators (TEGs) generate electricity by making use of the temperature differential between your body and the ambient air,” the university further explains.

Chinese researchers have taken the concept of TEGs and turned it into a flexible, wearable thermocell capable of producing about 0.3 µW of power at 0.7V, which is enough power for a simple e-ink display, for example. Others, such as a lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), create devices that can harvests mechanical energy from bending movements and convert it into electrical energy. As demonstrated during a fashion show in Bangkok, these technologies can be used together to develop smart fabrics that can harvest electricity from both the sunshine and the human body. Undoubtedly, they will play a central role in the design of many upcoming wearable devices.

6. Untethered Virtual Reality Experiences

Despite a substantial amount of skepticism, virtual reality headsets have become the coolest tech gift for Christmas 2016, proving to everyone that it’s here to stay and improve. One particular way how all VR experiences can instantly become more immersive is the attainment of what Jim Merrick, Qualcomm’s IoT director, calls “six degrees of freedom.” “We need to get to the couch, where people can consume content, where they already consume content, in the living room,” he argues against VR headsets that tether users to PCs. The ultimate goal is to allow users to move in a 3D space naturally. “If you step forward in the real world, you do [the same] in the virtual one.” Qualcomm’s solution is a reference headset called Qualcomm Snapdragon VR820, which relies on the incredible processing power of their Snapdragon 820 processor and a clarity of a pair of 1440 x 1440 resolution AMOLED panels that support up to 70Hz 4K video playback and a low latency of 18ms. Intel has also revealed their untethered VR and AR platform, Project Alloy. Alloy uses dual RealSense cameras to monitor location and position of objects around the user, promoting the concept of mixed reality. Other big names in the VR game are expected to demonstrate their upcoming untethered VR systems in the near future.

5. A Spiritual Successor to Pebble

One of the hottest tech news stories of the Q4 of 2016 was the acquisition of Pebble by Fitbit, an American manufacturer of fitness products designed to help users stay motivated and improve their health by tracking activity, exercise, food, weight, and sleep. Pebble’s talent and their homegrown smartwatch platform could help Fitbit better compete with Android Wear devices and high-end smartwatches from Apple. Unlike the products carrying the logo of either Google or Apple, both Pebble and Fitbit share data freely with other third-party apps and take a utilitarian approach to aesthetics. The upcoming successor to Pebble smartwatches is likely going to focus on health and fitness tracking while staying faithful to the original design philosophy, which helped Pebble rack up over $10 million in Kickstarter backings, becoming one of the biggest projects to date.

4. The Comeback of Smartglasses

In the world where the hype surrounding the initial release of Google Glass have fizzled out and morphed into skepticism about the entire concept, Snap Inc. have released an instant cult classic and single-handedly resurrected smartglasses from the ashes. Spectacles, a pair of funky video-recording sunglasses that take pictures and record video from the perspective of their wearer, removed everything that was nerdy and unappealing about Google Glass and replaced it with sheer, even if flawed, fun. After seeing the incredible success of Snap Inc’s Spectacles, other tech and sunglasses manufacturers, such as RaptorAR and Vuzix, have decided to join the party with sharply focused products. Apple is rumored to be working on a pair of smartglasses as well, so we have a lot we can look forward to in 2017.

3. Project Jacquard

“Project Jacquard makes it possible to weave touch and gesture interactivity into any textile using standard, industrial looms. Everyday objects such as clothes and furniture can be transformed into interactive surfaces,” states the team behind this amazing technology on the official website. In collaboration with their industrial partners, the creators of Project Jacquard have developed new conductive yarns that combine thin, metallic alloys with natural and synthetic yarns like cotton, polyester, or silk. These yarns are supposed to be indistinguishable from the traditional yarns that are used to produce fabrics today. When woven throughout the textile or at precise locations, Jacquard would provide manufacturers of wearable devices with a very discreet way how to capture touch and gesture data and wirelessly transmit them to mobile phones or other devices. One of the first articles of clothing that uses the technology is The Levi’s Commuter Trucker Jacket. “Jacquard allows wearers to control their mobile experience and connect to a variety of services, such as music or maps, directly from the jacket. This is especially useful when it might be difficult to use the smartphone, like when you are riding on your bike.”

2. Daydream VR

Mobile VR is seen by many as the perfect way how to experience the wonders of virtual reality, but the current technology is severely limited. On the one hand, there is Samsung Gear VR, which works only with a small number of flagship smartphones from the South Korean manufacturer. On the other hand, there is a large sea of Cardboard-compatible headsets that work with just about any Android smartphone but are limited in terms of graphical fidelity and the sense of presence they provide. Google wants to bridge this gap with Daydream, a virtual reality platform developed by Google for Android Nougat consisting of Daydream-compatible headsets, Daydream-ready smartphones, a wireless controller, and a special VR software mode that lets users use virtual reality apps, such as YouTube, Google Maps Street View, Google Play Movies & TV, and Google Photos in an immersive view. The first phone by Google, Pixel, is also the first Daydream-ready smartphone. Just like all upcoming Daydream-ready smartphones, Pixel has a crisp, low-persistence screen, ample processing power, and runs on the latest version of Google’s mobile operating system. Many manufacturers, including Samsung, LG, HTC, Asus, Xiaomi, ZTE, and Huawei, have already stated they will be making Daydream-ready phones, headsets,t and controllers. In 2017, a compatibility with Google Daydream could be a major deciding factor when buying a new smartphone; even mid-range devices are now powerful enough to satisfy most users, so extra features such as smooth, high-fidelity virtual reality, will likely play a vital role.

1.   The Rise of Hearables

We have yet to witness the first big hearable release, but the steady rise of this niche type of werable devices represents the noticeable shift toward persistent ambient computing. The same shift is represented by AI-enabled assistants like Siri, Alexa, Cortana, or the Google Assistant. Persistent ambient computing is possible, to a great extent, thanks to the recent advancements in artificial intelligence and speech recognition. The main idea behind hearables is to shrink the technology inside Amazon Echo or Google Home and fit it inside a small in-ear headphone. Some of the first hearables on the market will focus on music control and phone calls, but others have higher aspirations. For example, The Pilot is an earpiece which translates between languages “using the latest technologies in speech recognition, machine translation, and the advances of wearable technology,” as explained on the project’s Indiegogo page. The possibilities of what could be achieved in another few years with this technology are mind-bending. The rise of hearables could lead to the same fundamental shift in communication, our access to information, and our ability to cross borders and cultures as the internet did.
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