Last week here in Backspin I discussed how real-world "things" that aren't easily augmented with digital instrumentation, such as bicycles, cars and even dogs, can be indirectly connected to the Internet of Things (IoT) using physical ID tags and online proxies. This is, as I pointed out, a powerful concept.
Some time ago I had a call with a company that ran data centers they claimed were "green." Their argument for their greenness was they purchased power with green credits, which meant they paid a premium for electricity to fund alternative energy programs. Along with that they had a car park full of solar cells.
Everywhere you go these days -- every store, every urban street, every car park, every ATM -- there are video cameras watching where you go and what you do. Just what are "they" (whoever "they" are) doing with all of that video surveillance?
In his 1990 book "The New Realities," Peter Drucker noted: "Knowledge is information that changes something or somebody - either by becoming grounds for action, or by making an individual (or an institution) capable of different and more effective action." And that is what Big Data is delivering ... new knowledge, new insights and new actions, all of which will give us new problems to deal with.
For my recent column of predictions for 2013 I polled a huge number of IT people to see what they are expecting, and ended up getting more than 400 responses.
Over the last couple of years a huge buzz has been building around the consumerization of IT, workers using their own PCs, smartphones, tablets and phablets at work, a movement that also goes by the name Bring Your Own Device (BYOD).
I recently decided, somewhat randomly, to experiment a bit more with social networking. I was on LinkedIn and at some point the service asked me if it could access my Gmail contact list.
If there's one thing there's an inexhaustible supply of it's negligence. The Big N appears everywhere and it's indefatigable. As soon as you let your guard down for a second, it jumps up, slaps you upside the head, and runs around causing chaos.
Last week Gen. David Petraeus, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, resigned in response to what has turned out to be a much bigger scandal than it first appeared.
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