You can’t escape the Internet of Things (IoT). In fact, the International Data Corporation (IDC) predicts there will be 200 billion connected devices by 2021, with more than 30 billion being autonomous devices. Simply put, the IoT is a network of Internet-enabled devices that communicate with one another to understand what we’re doing and operate automatically based on that information. The first mention of the IoT came from Kevin Ashton, a British technology pioneer, during a presentation he made to Procter & Gamble in 1999. Here’s how Ashton first explained the IoT: “If…

This is a great use case that describes the benefits of building a Big Data Repository and then applying the right set of predictive analytics and filtering models against 80 years of historical data. The Los Angeles Police Department Predicts and Fights Crime with Big Data When the movie Minority Report was released in 2002, the predicting and consequently preventing of crime was still science fiction. It was far away and criminals-to-be had not to fear about predictive analytics being used by the police. Fast-forward to 2014 and things have…

The more revolutionary a technology, the more ridiculous it seems at the start. Looking at the history of technology adoption, there is usually a period of a few years from a new technology’s introduction before it really takes off. Over time, we have become more enamored with technology, adopting each new invention faster than the last , and while virtual reality (VR) will likely continue this pattern and reach 25% of the American population within five years, VR presents an adoption issue that many other technologies did not have to face – it…

I only smoked for a short period in my life – somewhere between the ages of 15 and 23. And really, I don’t think I could ever call myself a proper smoker. Even at my most nicotine infused I probably smoked no more than 5 cigarettes a day. Back then you could smoke everywhere of course. Not just in bars, but on tops of busses, in cinemas, even in airplanes. I always thought it was faintly ridiculous to have a smoking section on planes but hey… The thing is though,…

Touch version of Word, Excel and PowerPoint coming in late-2015 Microsoft plans to launch two versions of Office during 2015. Office for Windows 10 will finally bring touch-optimised versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook to smartphones, tablets and PCs. Meanwhile, Office 2016 will bring a refreshed version of the traditional desktop suite, which will be designed for use with a keyboard and mouse. Office for Windows 10 features Key features of Word include the ability to reformat documents so they are viewable on mobile screens, and you’ll have all the…

Davey Winder looks at the key areas developers need to be mindful of when it comes to cloud security… Nobody really needs reminding that data security is a priority when it comes to the cloud, do they? Sure, end users remain in the shadows a little as far as security awareness is concerned but recent reports suggest that board level executives are now sitting up and taking note of security concerns. This is, without doubt, a good thing. Unfortunately, it’s not quite good enough. While secure-thinking across the organisation is a goal…

As we ring in a new year, enterprises are reaching a technology tipping point. According to our Digital IQ survey, almost 50% of technology spending is outside of the CIO’s budget. This data begs the question: is it possible for CIOs to continue to influence how the enterprise is leveraging technology? The short answer is yes, but CIOs need to transform their approach to leadership. The New Year calls for a new CIO. Image shared by Prachanart Viriyaraks The top-down days of leadership are over. Budgets, standards, procurement and governance…these…