2018 brings a series of politic and macroeconomic situations to have in mind, according to International Data Corporation -IDC- information “…starting 2018, one out of nine small/large business in the region will consider or start a Digital Transformation strategy” stated by Group Vice-presidentRicardo Villate during the 10 predictions in LA for IDC TIC market presentation.

Meanwhile Gartner Consulting determined that 40% of the companies are running pilot programs to integrate Artificial Intelligence in their business trending to vertical markets.

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Nowadays, Artificial Intelligence is even more common than we believe. We can find it in our mobile devices assistants, Internet search, system optimization as traffic lights on cities. Everyday more and more IA applications get to the users bringing developments which will evolve during this day.

  • Machine Learning: focused on techniques development that allow software learning experience-based for decision making. This means, machines can self-learn due this algorithms and are capable of storing high data amount for error prevention. Some applications we can observe are:

    • Search engine improvements to provide better results in different platforms as Google.

    • Malicious software detection for antivirus development.

    • Failure prediction and error detection to avoid service downtime on machinery.

    • Driver-free vehicles and Smart robot development.

    • Faster an more flexible optimization methods creation.

    • Productivity and consumption behavior analysis.

  • Biometrics: This is one of the most tangible technologies in Artificial Intelligence world. It is used to identify, measure and analyze physical body aspects. While more specialized, it allows more natural interactions between humans and machines. Depending on the biometric technique used, different parameters can be considered: Fingerprint lines, hand geometry, voice, facial recognition, etc. From this parameters can be obtained a single patter for every person that will be used for future comparisons. Biometric technologies are applied in two phases: registry and authentication.

Augmented and Virtual Reality

The bridge hysical and digital reality is getting shorter everyday thanks to two realities: augmented and virtual. Today is posible to merge physical enviroments with virtual elements which provide adittional information and alow to build totally digital realities and to interact with them in real time. Even Augmented reality and Virtual reality seems to be similar, they represent totally differen things. When we talk about augmented reality the goal is to improve reality adding things to it through our senses.

This technology allow us to overpose information “layers” to the real world. It doesn’t isolate the person but integrates those elements to the real world. The objective is to show the real world with some added information.

On the other hand, the goal for Virtual Reality is to replace reality by means of devices that allow us to “feel” that we are in somewhere else, take us into a reality that doesn’t exist, teleport us into a built reality, a virtual reality. It is a tehcnology which replace the enviroment for one digitally generated, isolates the sight and hearing of the user taking him deep into a virtual world. It’s mission is to take the user into a different enviroment and virutal experience.

According to BBC mixed reality offers a more complex process than augmented reality: it doesnt overpose information on the real world, instead merges physical world with virtual. “Due this, the experience will be even more immersive”, everything will be changing to the point that we can have a world where we won’t be able to distinguish a wolrd that mixes physical and digital”.

Companies are looking towards automated systems that can help them to simplify processes and not only companies, from home is also possible to automate or to have intelligent assistants to do several functions. Noticed or not, Artificial Intellingencd is everywhere now more than ever. This is the reason why is important to review and analyze costs and benefits of the technology investments you plan to do.

Smart apps

In the next few years, technically all mobile apps and sevices will have IA features. Many of these smart apps could not exist without the development of this technology and automatic learning. Thanks to the Smart Apps a new intermediate layer between the user and the system will be created making easier interaction between them.

This year, the Clouding will be present as a development tool. These apps have many advantages but we would remark:

  • Cost reduction for storage and hardware
  • Improve storage capacity for the apps.
  • Better productivity and collaboration

 The concept is to activate “buttons” to make our life easier. For instance, is possible to configure the cell phone to send a message to turn off the Wi-Fi each time we go out from home, to send us a notification when a non-autorized person is accessing to our building and schedule automatically a series of events we want in our personal as in our professional life.

Numbers show internet pressence in every place since there are more devices connected to it than persons. This trend means to eliminate uncertainty in business decicion making, to improve customer satisfactions as provide an optimal control for all machine kind to facilitate day by day tasks.

Blockchain

Blockchain is also a concept conducting a huge revolution not only in our economy but in all different matters, it stands as a new focal point not only for development but also for security. Potencial has been observed in the amount of applications that allows in other fields than financial transactions as public administration or Internet of Things. It is a technology capable of a very secure data transfer with sophisticated coding which also contributes with a new concept: this kind of data transfer doesn’t require a centralized intermediary which identifies and certifies the information but it it is distributed in multiple independent nodes, they registry and validate without need of trust between them.

Today there are many projects where is investigated the deployment of the blockchain s the main structure to back them up, so we will observe soon if the become new future’s technology.

Automation or Smart thing’s Internet

Few years ago we didn’t think in what has become in reality for many people around the globe. Those companies implementing IoT solutions in 2018 will have a clear advantage over their competitors in developing their digital capabilities. Who will think that the amount of IoT devices estimated for 2020 would be 200 million? – according to Gartner and Intel predictions.

When we talk about Internet of Things we mean the millions of all kind devices, multiple electronic devices connected to the internet and generating a high data volume that can turn in information to b applied in all ways of our life.

In the future will be included any kind of small devices to control lights or small buttons or sensors in machines to control cars, production plant machines, motors, oil drillers, mobile devices and more.

Nevertheless, the more they materialize they will generate many technological challenges and because of this, is necessary to have a plan to backup al the information, hence Cyber Security concept.

FOTO DE ZITA JÖRG

The fast growing of data gathered from IoT devices in the network, multiple technologies converging, disrupting standards and edge processing are between the key trends for 2018 according to EY IoT. However, this will come with its own challenges since it may demand a new business and operative models design with requires solutions interoperability in all the stack of IoT and the need for adding new sensors in existing products as well as the performance and power consumption.

The main issues blocking IoT acceptance are security and privacy, we can observe the lack of security mainly in consumer products but, does it mean that security business is safe? – Unfortunately no.

Why IoT devices? Well, beside the fact that they are switched on most of the time and we have many devices connected to the internet simultaneously, we found a fast manufacturing of many consuming devices are found in the field not focused on security but on generating profit as fast as possible.

Nowadays protecting people, realties and other goods has become very important. This fact can result in a conservative position from the industry to adopt physical security. In most cases security market will follow the same path as IT industry only after a product or technology shows to be capable and trusty. This can cause frustration in security companies with desires of raising in the market but it can also suggest when other markets start to consolidate, security is also ready for growing.

Data are generated from the usage of different devices, as they connect to the cloud those are processed and the new trend of Smart Things is developed. Tools we need must anticipate to our needs, reveal and observe the results in such way that they allow our capacity for reaction.

Why security business must be so worried about this? The answer is simple: it is just about trust and confidence. They are dealing with highly confidential information as video recordings. What happens if this data is vulnerable?.

  • Video data from private houses may be exposed
  • Video surveillance in the production line could show technical and network sensible information.
  • Access Control systems may be compromised by unauthorized access.
  • An attacker could listen to confidential meetings without awareness and so on, and we all know this is a fact and not a fantasy

There is a series of things you can do to increase the level of security, for this you must think and move in an environment where security is more important than income. Bringing new IoT devices is a challenge if security is not taken seriously, is important to invest to make face to technology trends in an easy and safe way, having in mind:

  • To make safety the main objective for product development
  • To consider what kind of data you are storing and how important is to keep it safe no matter if it is based on devices or cloud services.
  • Help your clients to use your products without risking them, and most important:
  • To be an excellent guidance

All security devices depend on the software they are connected to in any way, and the software is managed by humans whose unfortunately may make mistakes. Then, you must do whatever you have at hand to verify security in the products. You can hire external experts for penetration testing or code revision, this is because in most cases internal personnel may be blinded by routine and motivated to ignore security measures.

KeyBPS in conjunction with this new trends, we are focused on 2018 to support our business partners in logical and physical security systems integration to operate more effectively, keeping access controls up, notifying people inside buildings when an emergency rises, in other words, to facilitate you to achieve the main goal: to reduce cost and improve management of all systems.

We are well aware of “Cyber” is a word very popular lately and IoT has many questions regarding cybernetic security. We care not only of providing our customers protected products but also we make sure of not making them a pass-door for future and sophisticated attacks by paying attention to all vulnerable points.

We have a product portfolio focused to satisfy the most demanding needs in security fields and automation from the home up to different aplicaciones as Transport, Retail, Industry, Education, Hospitals, Safe Cities and others, thus our goal is to address our focus towards a change in security that combines redundancy in system and organizational architecture.

We as Aggregated Value Distributors and our own system development team taking care of security, will aim in this 2018 to reinforce all security matters even when business structure could get complex. We have the capability to provide guidance to develop any size projects in conjunction with our integrates, taking transcendent devotions for business future.

Editorial Keybps by LC