Technology firms of India and
South Korea, as part of a newly inked agreement to join hands in the cyber
world, could collaborate on the emerging domain of "Internet of Things", or IoT,
projected to be a $19 trillion market over the next several years.
South Korean President Park Geun-hye, during her visit to India last week,
pitched for IoT as one area where the two countries should work jointly and
address other markets.
"Korea and India will be able to produce a global win-win model through a
creative economy from the former's strength in hardware and the latter's
competitiveness in software," Park said, addressing an information and
communications technology forum. IoT, next-generation smartphones and big data,
she said, will be the core engines to achieve a "creative economy" for
sustainable growth.
Communications & IT Minister Kapil Sibal and South Korean Science, ICT
and Future Planning Minister Choi Mun-Kee signed a "Joint Declaration Of Intent"
between the two ministries to "promote, facilitate and support joint ventures,
joint initiatives and markets in the ICT sector".
The two sides also agreed to establish the ICT Policy Forum and hold its
first meeting this year to discuss cooperation on software and information
security.
NASSCOM President R Chandrashekhar says there are many things in South Korea
that are domain-specific and a partnership would provide an opportunity for
Indian firms venturing into newer products and services. The aim would be to
"promote the partnership and scale this up."
IoT is a term for connected sensors, devices and objects. It refers to new
technologies that will put everything from your home appliances to the most
insignificant object on the Internet for remote monitoring and automatic
communication.
Market research firm IDC predicts that more than 200 billion items will be
connected to the Internet by 2020. Cisco Chief Executive John Chambers says IoT
will change the way people live, work and play. "It will be bigger than anything
that's ever been done in high tech."
A 2013 McKinsey report estimated various IoT applications could have an
economic impact of between $14 trillion and $33 trillion a year by 2025. IDC in
a report ranked South Korea second after the US among 20 major countries in
terms of preparedness for IoT.
"The opportunity for vendors from India to seize opportunities in the top
tier G20 countries with services, analytics and applications specific to IoT is
the real story for the country, in addition to the evolving efforts it can place
on becoming prepared for the IoT world," Denise Lund, research director, Mobile
Enterprise Services and M2M, at IDC, told TelecomLead.com.
British technology guru Kevin Ashton, while working for Procter & Gamble
in 1999, supposedly first came up with the term. According to Ashton, efficiency
can be increased and waste can be minimised by computer-tagging all objects and
people, and dovetailing their needs with production.
At the
Consumer Electronics
Show in Las Vegas last week, companies like Cisco, GE and Verizon, unveiled
their IoT capabilities.
Korean chaebols LG and Samsung revealed entire systems and expensive home
appliances for the IoT.
LG's smart fridge, for example, will text you if you're out of milk.
Samsung's Shape speaker system can stream audio wirelessly from the cloud --
no phone or computer needed.
French company
Kolibree
displayed a connected toothbrush that keeps a tab on what's happening in
your mouth.
Earlier this month,
Google
bought Nest, a smart thermostat and smoke alarm maker. It also displayed a
smart contact lens, which monitors diabetics' glucose levels.
Global research institutes expect that the number of identifying devices
that are machine-readable in the IoT will amount to as many as 50 billion by
2020 to enable the advent of the new era.
source:NDTV gadgets.
