Behind every sensor, piece of code, data point or connected device is a compelling story. Understanding that story and the ideal use case of groundbreaking technology is key to understanding … Continue reading Dell and Richard Childress Racing: Harness The Power of the Internet of Things
HOMEKIT DEVICES HIGHLIGHT MAJOR PROBLEMS HOLDING BACK SMART HOME ADOPTION: The HomeKit ecosystem is suffering from two major problems that have held back growth in the overall smart home market, as evidenced by a comprehensive review of nine HomeKit-compatible smart home devices by CNET.
Smart home device costs need to come down. Several of the HomeKit-compatible devices simply cost too much for the average consumer. The only smart lock that currently works with HomeKit is the Schlage Sense Bluetooth Deadbolt, which costs $230. Regular front door deadbolt locks can cost less than $15. The only smart thermostat that works with HomeKit right now is the $250 Ecobee3 smart thermostat. The Nest smart thermostat, which competes with Ecobee, also costs $250, but a regular home thermostat can cost as little as $20. The wide price gap between connected home devices and non-connected ones is probably the biggest barrier to smart home adoption right now.
Fragmentation can confuse customers who are new to the smart home market. There are two versions of the Ecobee3 smart thermostat – one that works with HomeKit, and one that doesn’t. So customers have to be careful which one they buy if they want to use HomeKit, which is difficult as the two versions of the thermostat look identical. HomeKit also works with the Insteon smart home hub, which can control a full range of Insteon smart home devices including lights, locks, and switches. However, only some of those Insteon products can work with HomeKit, while others don’t. Again, this could confuse customers into buying devices that don’t actually work with HomeKit. This is a problem with other platforms for controlling smart home devices like the Amazon Echo and Nest’s Weave that only work with a limited number of devices right now.
2015 Advertised Prices Of Connected Vs. Nonconnected Home Products
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
IRVINE, CALIFORNIA – October 13, 2015
The Buddy Group, Inc. and Project Hope Alliance, a 501(c)(3) non-profit charity dedicated to ending the cycle of homelessness for kids in Orange County, announced the details today for the Third Annual Buddy Group Invitational to be held on Monday, November 9th, 2015 at the Aliso Viejo Country Club in Aliso Viejo, California.
“Our events in previous years have raised awareness for those in our community who, beyond all odds, seek to Be The Exception(™),” said Pete Deutschman, CEO of The Buddy Group. He added, “By uniting our employees, clients and partners we will once again come together to raise awareness and funds to help Project Hope Alliance end the cycle of homelessness in Orange County.” He continues, “Project Hope Alliance is an amazing non-profit organization with an entrepreneurial spirit like no other. “There are more than 32,000 homeless kids in Orange County,” said Jennifer Friend, CEO of Project Hope Alliance. She continued with, “It is inspiring to see leaders of business, marketing and technology come together on behalf of such an important cause.”
From wacky argyle socks to rock music blasting the greens, The Buddy Group Invitational is one of the most unique and fastest growing un-golf, golf events in Orange County. It is also The Buddy Group’s largest fundraiser, with proceeds raised benefiting the charity and its’ mission.
The format for the Invitational is a 4-player best-ball with unique activities and challenges peppered across the 18-hole course. Raffle tickets will be sold prior to and during the event with proceeds benefiting the charity. Lunch will be generously provided by Wahoos! fish tacos.
Following the tournament, players, sponsors and guests will partake in a special Be The Exception(™) themed Happy Hour hosted by The Buddy Group and the generous sponsors (see below) and silent auction donors. Darren Herman, VP Content Services of Mozilla and Jennifer Friend, CEO of Project Hope Alliance will be this year’s keynote. While the golf event is by invite only, interested parties can purchase tickets to the Happy Hour online. But just like past years, this event will sell-out.
More information about the tournament, including online registration and donations can be found on the event’s website: http://invitational.thebuddygroup.com .
Thank you to our The Buddy Group Invitational 2015 Partners:
Auction.com, Mozilla, Google, BigRentz.com, NBC Sports, OC Register, Signature Control Systems, Top-End Motorwerks, Adorn Premiums, KODAK PIXPRO Digital Camera, MacKenzie Corporation and David August
ABOUT THE BUDDY GROUP
The Buddy Group is celebrating 10 years of evolving what it means to be an agency. By leveraging its vertically integrated creative team, in-house sound stages, proprietary process and technology, The Buddy Group is able to support, identify and create unique experiences with customers. Having expertise in B2B, B2C, the Internet of things, technology (hardware and software), financial services, and CPG verticals has provided unique opportunities for The Buddy Group to collaborate with notable brands such as YouTube, Wells Fargo, Mozilla, Dell, Western Digital, King’s Hawaiian Bread and TP-Link. For more information please visit, www.thebuddygroup.com.
ABOUT PROJECT HOPE ALLIANCE
Project Hope Alliance was formed in 1989 and seeks to end the cycle of homelessness in Orange County, one child at a time. The organization supports homeless students and their families, meeting the unique academic and psychosocial needs of these children. Project Hope Alliance take a two-generational approach to ending homelessness: The organization ends homelessness today through innovative rapid rehousing programs — providing stable housing and financial independence to homeless families; while their team is ending homelessness tomorrow with one-of-a-kind academic empowerment programs uniquely tailored to the needs (and strengths) of homeless children.
Since 2012, Project Hope Alliance’s Family Stability Program has worked with over 120 families to prevent or end homelessness by moving the families into permanent housing with financial independence. These families, representing over 300 children, have moved from motels and shelters into homes where the children can study, play and grow in a safe environment. For more information please visit www.projecthopealliance.org.
In case you missed it, we’re closing out a milestone week here. Not specifically for SundaySky, but for the overall personalized video engagement (PVE) category.
On Tuesday, Conversant launched its own personalized video solution to the market, made possible by its 2014 acquisition of SET Media. The next day, Vidyard announced its acquisition of Switch Merge, adding a personalized solution to its existing video content marketing platform. (This is not the first market purchase we’ve seen; over the summer, Pitney Bowes acquired Real-Time Content.) And while the PVE market got a little deeper in North America, it also got a bit wider across the globe as one of our insurance customers overseas in Japan introduced personalized video experiences to its customer base to support and improve the automobile policy renewal process. (OK, so there was a small SundaySky promotional nod.)
What does all this personalized video market news means?It is interesting to see this PVE market news coming from both sides. On one hand, we have a personalization technology company adding video to its digital marketing suite, and on the other, a video platform adding personalization to its offering. Additionally, one solution lives in the adtech space, focused on targeting anonymous consumers, further building out a consumer’s profile via additional Epsilon data sets and serving personalized videos via paid media across devices. The other, more a CRM and automation play, merging data from third-party integrations such as Salesforce.
But what does this news all mean? No doubt, one constant between the two announcements is to more effectively engage audiences on an individual, 1-to-1 level. We continue to see the varied definitions of what personalization means to marketers and technology providers, and its execution in video. For some, an overlay text of the consumer’s first name in the first frame is enough personalization. For others, a message personalized to a segment of customers, such as their geo-location, is relevance. For us, telling stories and delivering messages that are completely unique to one individual is where we set our bar of personalization.
As our space matures even further, it will be very telling to see just how deep personalization in video can go, and what are the optimal levels of personalization consumers want and brands can deliver on. Welcome to the emerging category of PVE, more solid than ever!
Release the Hound! Voice Search is Coming Fast. – https://lnkd.in/bgf6KUT
Awareness of the Internet of Things is gaining a bit of traction, at least in some quarters.
There is now high IoT awareness in more than half (56%) of those in the retail industry, according to a new survey.
Overall, a majority (73%) of companies have deployed, or plan to deploy over the next 12 months, some types of IoT solutions, according to the 2,500-person, 15-country survey by IDC.
More than half (58%) say they consider IoT to be a strategic initiative.
The survey of companies with more than 500 employees found that IoT spending is currently more focused in the enterprise.
But it’s not just the enterprise where IoT action is happening.
Retailers this year will spend $670 million in hardware and installation costs related to the IoT, growing to $2.5 billion within five years, according to Juniper Research.
Combining IoT revenue and cost savings, Juniper pegs the IoT opportunity at $300 billion in five years. That would comprise 39 billion connected devices, up from 13 billion this year.
Much of that activity will involve in-store beacon deployments.
Almost half (46%) of retailers either have or plan to have beacons in stores, according to a survey of 100 retail executives by Retail ToughPoints. Of course, that also means the other half don’t have any plans, but the sheer number of retail stores with beacons is huge.
Smaller stores are another matter, at least when it comes to allocating their technology budget in the Internet of Things.
With less resource than major chains, about a third (35%) of independent small and mid-sized retailers globally plan to invest in data-supported marketing by the next year, according to Lightspeed. Only a third (34%) have some likelihood of introducing beacons at some point.
This is the time that businesses are investing in the Internet of Things. During and after that, the presumed payback phase arrives.
That’s also where IoT marketing kicks into high gear. At least for those who have been preparing.
If Google has its way, our future will be nothing less than a sci-fi movie. After creeping us out with a robotic cheetah and the Google ‘Glass’, Google is all set to bring forth something really amazing. Google’s Project Soli has invented a new interaction sensor using radar technology that can capture motions of your fingers at up to 10,000 frames per second. And that is something that has never ever been done before. Simply put, this technology is so bafflingly accurate that you could operate any device (fitted with this) without having to even touch it.
Approximately the size of a small computer chip, this technology can transform your hand into a virtual dial machine to control something as mundane as volume on a speaker, or into a virtual touchpad to a smartwatch or a smartphone screen. Check out the GIF below to get a better idea of how this works.
This chip is actually a miniature gesture radar that captures even the most complex hand movements at close range, at unbelievably hyper speeds and replicates hand gestures. Given the micro size of the chip, it can almost be fitted into literally anything. This technology, if the project is successful, can make the need to touch a device to operate it redundant.
Here, the introductory video.
My good friend, @dherman76, tackles the elephant in the room and opens the door to let it out.
Let’s respect the user and innovate with sustainable reason.
http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/250092
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INTERNET OF THINGS
4 min read
The Future of the Internet of Things Will Be ‘Notification Hell’ Before It Gets Better
The Future of the Internet of Things Will Be ‘Notification Hell’ Before It Gets Better
Image credit: Shutterstock
Catherine Clifford
CATHERINE CLIFFORD
ENTREPRENEUR STAFF
Frequently covers crowdfunding, the sharing economy and social entrepreneurship.
AUGUST 31, 2015
Right now, the Internet of Things (IoT) is primarily the realm of futuristic-minded early tech adopters. Think of the pioneers who use Google Glass to snap pictures, Nest to control their home temperature or turn to their smartphone to dim the light bulbs in their bedroom. In a decade, things will look much different. By 2025, the Internet of Things will become more mainstream, having an economic impact between $3.9 trillion and $11.1 trillion per year, according to a recent economic forecast released by consulting firm McKinsey & Company. The upper figure (including the consumer surplus) could account for as much as 11 percent of the world economy, the report states.
This post was done in partnership with The Wirecutter, a list of the best technology to buy.
Read the original full article below at TheWirecutter.com
After spending a total of 200 hours researching and testing over 20 WiFi routers, plus analyzing reader comments and feedback, the $100 TP-Link Archer C7 (v2) is the router we recommend for most people right now. This dual-band, three-stream wireless-ac router usually costs between $80 and $100 — the same price as many older, slower routers. But unlike those slower routers, the C7 supports the fastest connections of every major device you can buy today.
We compared the Archer C7 against 21 different routers over a 10-month testing period. On most of our tests, the Archer C7 was the fastest — outperforming routers that cost twice as much. You won’t find a better-performing router than the Archer C7 for less, and you’ll have to spend a lot more money to get a better one.
http://www.engadget.com/2015/08/28/the-best-wifi-router-for-most-people/
Pete Deutschman 