Internet of things (IOT) – are we ready for this?
The Internet revolution continued to be on the rise. In it is estimated that over 5 billion people will use the Internet in the next decade according to Eric Schmidt in his book " The Digital Age."
Stories like a billboard being able to track the demographics of the people who stop and take a look at it, intelligent shopping systems which can monitor specific customers shopping habits by tracking their specific mobile phones and providing them information on special offers on specific products and home automation where you can manage certain gadgets to make control of household easier and by monitoring customer behaviors in the store a retailer can based its future offerings on the results and a lot more.
It is expected that IOT will change the way businesses will reach their customers and a lot of potentials can be gleaned from this advancement. In fact more than 50 percent have already piloted on this and according to an article in Everest Research Institute by Alisha Mittal "Seize the IOT Opportunity," majority are highly optimistic about its returns. They categorize adopters into four: Optimizers, Engagers, Integrators, and Innovators. Majority are classified as Optimizers which focus on solving their operational issues and on infusing efficiency with IOT. The rest which comprised less than 20% are Integrators and Innovators – are more for business opportunities by investing in IOT and for the growth of their enterprise.
The IOT touches all aspects of people's lives from the home to the government, media, companies and businesses opening up a revolution of economic growth and competitiveness. It is mind-boggling at the same time exciting. Outsourcing providers can reap the benefits from these by offering support and third party services to enterprises which cannot afford to invest heavily on these. But it also involved a heavy investment on their part in research and infrastructures. Aside from these, the necessary security features goes hand-in-hand in providing for these services.
In every technology advancement there are also downsides – aside from financial investments and the complexity in setting up the infrastructures, there is the issue of security. There is a big threat to privacy and the issue of social control and political manipulation. They say it can be an invasion of public space and to track normative behavior as in the case of billboards tracking people who take a look at it. In the simple case of setting up of a CCTV in our homes by a third party, one can make the privacy of their homes vulnerable to people who set up the CCTVs because they can also view us wherever we set up the devices. It is important that we change the passwords to make sure these people will no longer have access to these devices. This is also important in the CCTVs we set up in our offices that only those authorized have access to these. A simple case as CCTVs viewed through the internet can have privacy repercussions, how much more for the more complex set up such management of the environment and monitor tracking of social behavior.
However, there are modern ways to insure privacy and security for instance for homes with smart network where a synthetic packet injection scheme can be used to safely prevent invasion of privacy. The concern is also that patches to bugs found in the core operating system cannot reach users of older and lower-price devices leaving more than 87% of device vulnerable (source: Wikipedia).
With the downsides, however is the fact that we cannot completely ignore the development of internet and its uses. We cannot simply maintain the status quo because of the issue on privacy. In order to move on we just have to acknowledge that as the future unwraps with new technologies we cannot afford to lag behind. Technology is here and with the advent of technology goes side by side the need to protect our space – private or public. As we invest on technology we also have to invest in improving the technology to protect our privacy.
(Inventor, Miranda & Associates is sponsoring a Seminar on Outsourcing Trends and Opportunities on October 17, 2017 at Business Inn Hotel Bacolod City, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m... for more info please visit our Facebook page or call us at 09175000517)
wilma_517@yahoo.com