An average American spends just over an hour and forty minutes (Tempo Blog, 2013) a day driving which doesn’t seem so bad when you think of it like that. However, when you do the calculations, that equates to 4 years and 3 months of your life spent behind the wheel… What a monumental waste of time!

The Internet of Things (IoT) has already proven itself in numerous industries as a way of making our lives far more efficient. When you look at the value-add of smart cars, smart roads and smart transport systems, you start to see some extraordinary opportunities for innovation.

What if, instead of staring blankly at the car in front of you for 45 minutes, you held a meeting with your fellow business partners? Mercedes imagines a car that is more like a living room or boardroom on wheels.

What if your business meeting didn’t go so well and you realise your company is falling apart? No worries! While you are in the office all day, your car can be out providing a taxi service for people across the city earning you some disposable income.

Google’s initial idea for their smart car was that it would do 90% of the driving and then in emergency situations (Tech Insider, 2016), control would be handed over to the user. However, they quickly realised that the users didn’t stay alert when the car was in command. This caused problems in cases where the car had to hand control back to the users. It was this realisation that changed the idea to being a fully automated vehicle that brought you from A to B at the touch of a button.

“It has shaped everything we’ve done since then. Now our cars have self-driven more than 1.4 million miles” (Tech Insider, 2016)

The question is, are we really supposed to believe that a car can drive itself with no help? The answer is yes. The driverless car is based on the utilization of a large number of sensors, lasers and radars to construct a 3-D image of its environment. This allows the car to sense oncoming obstacles and, with split-second decision making, avoid the vast majority of accidents. Deaths from traffic accidents—over 1.2 million worldwide every year—could be reduced dramatically, especially since 94% of accidents in the U.S. involve human error (Google,2016).

It’s not as if smart cars have absolutely no help finding their way from A to B though. As the use of smart cars increases, so does their efficiency. While they are still amongst manually driven cars, they have to account for human error and avoid accidents. However, once smart cars take over our roads, they will be able to communicate with each other and our road systems. This ensures every journey is as fast and as safe as possible. On the off-chance that a crash does occur, the car will not only alert the emergency services but will also send a signal to every other car in its vicinity to avoid that particular road. Ultimately, keeping congestion levels to an absolute minimum.

Unfortunately, there are some limitations to these cars. Some of the scenarios smart vehicles have the most trouble with are the scenarios human beings have the most trouble with, such as handling a yellow light (do you brake suddenly, or floor it and run the light?). For example, on a test run, a Google car was waiting to make a right turn. When the turn became safe to make, however, the car didn’t move. The reason was, there was a pedestrian standing on the footpath who was planning on jaywalking across the street. Normally a simple wave would solve the situation but in this instance, the car had to wait until the pedestrian stopped moving, before it could make the turn.

 

 

Like most new IoT related ideas, there are issues that need to be ironed out with the smart car. It may not be road-ready next week but the future certainly holds a lot of room for innovation and excitement around the smart car. So the next time you drive to work or go on a road trip, just take a second to imagine what your vehicle could do with even more IoT connections.

Bibliography:

Bjarki, 2013. Tempo Blog. Available at: http://blog.tempo.io/2013/7-time-consuming-things-an-average-joe-spends-in-a-lifetime/ [Accessed 18 February 2016]

Schwartz, 2013. Tech Insider. Available at: http://www.techinsider.io/flaw-in-googles-driverless-car-prototype-2016-2 [Accessed 18 February 2016]

Google, 2013. Google. Available at: https://www.google.com/selfdrivingcar/ [Accessed 18 February 2016]

The Internet of Things (IoT) consists of many products that are changing the way business works in numerous industries. Healthcare is no exception. According to a report from MarketResearch.com (2015), the healthcare IoT market is expected to reach $117 billion by 2020.  Patients and employees both stand to benefit. So how might these developments affect you and your family?

At home
There are already many mobile medical apps or wearable devices that allow patients to capture their health data such as fitbit and the Apple Watch. This data can then be relayed to a medical professional for remote health monitoring and emergency notification. Think about if your Dad has high blood pressure. He can wear a monitoring device which allows his doctor to keep an eye on his condition from afar without any intrusion. Monitoring devices can range from blood pressure and heart rate monitors to advanced devices capable of monitoring specialized implants (Sehgal, 2015).

Or maybe you’re concerned about your weight. Now you can get a weighing scales which is connected to an app on your phone. This allows you to track your weight, your BMI and your body fat.

In hospitals
If you’ve ever spent time in hospital with a serious injury or illness, you’ll know that you need to call a nurse every time you want to take a wander. Now, thanks to IoT, some hospitals have introduced “smart beds” that can detect when they are occupied and when a patient is attempting to get up. The bed can also adjust itself to ensure appropriate pressure and support is applied to the patient without the manual interaction of nurses (Chouffani, 2015).

Ageing
As well as IoT being helpful for the general population and in hospitals, it can also lead to a much more comfortable living experience for the ageing population. There are so many devices currently in the market, as well as in the pipeline, that enable the elderly to continue living in their own home for much longer than previously possible.
This market includes everything from medication reminders to heart rate monitors to safety alert bracelets. Specialized sensors can be equipped within living spaces to monitor the health and general well-being of the elderly, while also ensuring that proper treatment is being administered.

Think about your granny being at home on her own. You don’t want to be annoying her and you also want her to have independence. However, it would still be great to be able to keep an eye on her from afar to make sure she gets help if she falls or is in any trouble. You could log on to your own computer and, using sensors and cameras in her home, see what she’s been up to for the day and if she’s been going about her normal business. Her smartwatch can be connected to sensors around her house. This can show you that she has been completing her regular activities like eating breakfast and going to bed and could inform you of any unusual activity in her home. She could have a sensor connected to her pillbox which would send a reminder to her watch if she forgets to take her pills. In case of an emergency, her phone or smartwatch could immediately notify your parents and emergency services.  Some of the companies already providing these devices are MyLively and Sensara.

The use of IoT in ageing is becoming a huge industry which will no doubt be of use to all of us someday.
Connected medical devices and applications are already part of the Internet of Medical Things. How much they will integrate into patient care and other aspects of healthcare remains to be seen. The progression of healthcare IoT is not without its challenges. There are some worrying security issues relating to IoT in healthcare which I’ll tell you all about over the next few weeks.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/tjmccue/2015/04/22/117-billion-market-for-internet-of-things-in-healthcare-by-2020/#db73b2724711

http://searchhealthit.techtarget.com/essentialguide/A-guide-to-healthcare-IoT-possibilities-and-obstacles

http://internetofthingsagenda.techtarget.com/feature/Can-we-expect-the-Internet-of-Things-in-healthcare

http://www.semico.com/content/aging-place-internet-things-golden-years

http://www.mylively.com/

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sensara/id882751478?mt=8

By 2050 there will be 9 billion people in the world. We will need a 60% increase in food production to adequately nourish this increased population. Milk is a key ingredient in our diet both in developing and developed countries. But how can we produce more milk globally? It isn’t more cows, that’s not sustainable. The answer is that you need more milk from fewer cows, but this has long been a challenge. However, the Internet of Things has given rise to some exciting new technologies that address this issue head on.

The number one driver for increased milk production is animal health. Farmers say that, in order to improve animal health, they need to closely monitor every cow. Here is a prime example of where an IoT implementation solves a real world problem. Connecterra, a Dutch start-up, really caught my attention at last year’s Web Summit. Since then, they have launched what can be best described as a “fit-bit for cows”. It is a collar which provides accurate estrus detection, health analysis and location services for dairy cattle. This allows dairy farmers to optimise their breeding cycles, improve milk production per animal and save a significant amount of money by freeing up labour. (Connecterra, 2015)

One of the world’s leading investment firms – Kleiner Perkins – the company which backed Google and most other major firms in Silicon Valley, has said farming is the future. Google Ventures has invested $15 billion in Farmers Business Network. Agriculture is Ireland’s biggest indigenous sector, accounting for roughly 10% of exports and 7.7% of employment. This, combined with the rise of technology companies and start-ups in Ireland, is why Ireland should be the hub for “agri-tech” start-ups. (Irish Times, 2016)

One of Ireland’s most well known agri-tech products is the Moocall sensor. The sensor attaches to a pregnant cow’s tail and sends a text to your phone when it senses the tail moving into its horizontal calving position. Before this was released a farmer needed to monitor the pregnant cow via CCTV overnight during the period the cow was expected to calf. This product saves many sleepless nights at minimal cost for the farmer and discomfort for the cow.  If you want to learn more about the Moocall, click here (Moocall, 2015).
An example of how this product works is shown in figure 1 below. Drones spraying crops, monitors in soil and sensors on our livestock are just a few of the IoT devices we can expect to see on all farms across the globe over the next decade.

 

The increasing population, reduction in arable land and increased labor costs are all factors driving the agri-tech industry. “Once upon a time it was all about social media, now big firms are looking at agri-tech. Some of the world’s leading investment firms have said farming is the future, where the money will be.” says John Hartnett of the Irish Technology Leadership Group. He says Ireland is sitting on the cusp of a huge opportunity in agri-tech. We have the potential to become the global hub for agritech and now is the time for us to stop talking about it and actually do it. (Irish Times, 2016)

http://www.connecterra.io/#section-connecterra-dairy-activity-monitor
http://www.irishtimes.com/business/agribusiness-and-food/new-dawn-for-farm-tech-sowing-the-internet-of-things-into-agriculture-1.2222532
http://moocall.com/?gclid=CN2-zoLL28oCFWig2wod7X4E5g