Lantronix has announced new zero-touch automation capabilities for its cloud-based software as a service (SaaS) platform, ConsoleFlow.

ConsoleFlow by Lantronix helps businesses monitor, manage, and troubleshoot their internet of things (IoT) and REM assets remotely, boosting operational efficiency. Through a new ConsoleFlow feature called True Zero-Touch, organizations can streamline onboarding processes for Lantronix’s IoT and out-of-band (OOB) devices at scale — without user intervention.

“We at Lantronix continue in our vision of driving customer value by eliminating friction associated with device provisioning and deployment with our enhanced True Zero-Touch automation feature now available in our ConsoleFlow cloud-based management platform,” said Jonathan Shipman, VP of strategy at Lantronix.

Shipman continued, “True Zero-Touch automation facilitates quick and easy remote deployment by enabling device provisioning as soon as it ships. We are excited to be bringing this much anticipated feature to our SaaS platform, further increasing operational efficiency for our customers.”

Devices configured with True Zero-Touch automatically connect to ConsoleFlow when powered on. Businesses can also import newly purchased devices into their ConsoleFlow accounts. This eliminates the need to add individual devices later.

ConsoleFlow can also send updates to individual devices or multiple devices across a wide geographical area, and devices can automatically check for firmware updates and initiate setup file downloads.

As for security, Lantronix stated its cloud updates are encrypted and accessible without a VPN or security software.

Furthermore, Lantronix's cellular devices will include pre-activated SIM cards for use with ConsoleFlow, speeding deployments and improving operational efficiency.

“Lantronix’s cloud-based management platform, ConsoleFlow, enables users to view and manage globally distributed assets through a single pane of glass from virtually anywhere. Delivering centralized asset management, ConsoleFlow enables automated monitoring with real-time notifications and mobile access from any iOS or Android platform. Providing a secure path to Lantronix IoT devices and network assets, ConsoleFlow provides insight and control that empower users to focus on business logic and operational efficiency to drive successful outcomes,” added Lantronix.

Intel is reportedly in talks to sell its home connectivity division to MaxLinear, a firm that manufactures semiconductors for home internet access hardware.

The chipmaking giant is apparently mulling over the decision to sell its unit for an undisclosed fee, according to Bloomberg, although no final decision has been made, and any prospective deal may yet fizzle out.

California-based MaxLinear manufactures chips for connected home appliances and network modems, as well as networking infrastructure ranging from data centre components to storage application products.

Founded in 2003, the company specialises in in-home connectivity products and has a reported approximately market value of $1.3 billion.

The two companies have actually collaborated in the past, according to Light Reading, including in January 2019 where Intel and MaxLinear announced they were partnering on high-speed networking technology.

Intel, according to sources speaking with Bloomberg, is looking to reduce its activity in areas in which it’s not as competitive as its main business.

The company, for example, sold the majority of its 5G modem business to Apple for $1 billion last year, including 2,200 Intel employees along with intellectual property, equipment and leases.

The company’s connected home business makes chips that allow for Wi-Fi connections and data traffic management. These chips provide wireless connections in home routers and gateways, with competitors in this space including Broadcom and Qualcomm.

The division’s purpose has been to ensure that Intel’s chips are included in the vastly increasing quantity of Internet of Things (IoT) devices throughout home networks.

Creating units such as the connected home division is a tactic the company has deployed over the years to ensure emerging technologies serve as a platform for the company to push its core processing business.

Intel was previously looking for buyers for its connected home unit as far back as November last year, according to multiple reports, signalling the company has been keen to distance itself from this business for some time.

Smart speakers are rapidly becoming as common in the household as TVs and sofas, with Amazon Echo's, Google Home speakers and Apple HomePod's popping up in living rooms around the world.

Pushing buttons and remote controls are almost defunct now that we can control everything from our lighting to our TVs with voice assistants. Even browsing the web for information has taken a back seat to the effortless capability of a smart speaker. The phrase 'Google it' has serious competition from 'Alexa...'

Latest News

14/11/2018: Alexa skills blueprints now available to UK users

Amazon has unveiled a blueprint for it's Alexa voice assistant. Alexa, which is used in its Echo range of smart speakers, comes with 'skills' that enable its users to play games, learn, listen to music or interact with the device with novelty applications.

Now, thanks to the blueprints made available on Alexa's website, UK users can create their own skills. This has been available in the US for the best part of 2018 but has now been rolled out to the wider world.

Skill Blueprints let the user create a skill for their home with the help of 22 pre-set templates that can be customised, so no coding required.

10/08/2018: Samsung enters Bixby into the smart speaker market

Samsung has announced its entry into the smart speaker market with the Galaxy Home, a rival to Apple's HomePod and the Amazon Echo that has Bixby voice assistant built-in.

The speaker is said to deliver surround sound-style audio by using six built-in speakers and a subwoofer. It's also stocked with eight far-reaching microphones to detect your voice from as wide a range as possible.

The device will house Bixby and, like the Echo with "Alexa", you activate it by saying "Hi Bixby". Samsung has indicated that it will have many of the same capabilities as Bixby does on its phones.

More details of the device will be revealed at the developer conference in November, but an update to Bixby was revealed along with the Galaxy Note 9. Bixby 2.0 is said to have better natural language processing and will be quicker in response times.

If Samsung is to compete with the other smart speakers in the market, it will need to get more from its voice assistant, so far it hasn't proven to be too popular, but the second version has added capabilities like follow up questions and quicker response times, but it still seems a little off the pace of Alexa.

As for the hardware, the device is shaped like a black wine glass with three legs, or a witches cauldron and a BBQ as some have pointed out on Twitter.

05/07/2018: If you haven't heard, the England National team won on penalties in a World Cup match for the first time ever. You'll have no trouble finding someone to discuss the news with, especially if you have an Amazon Echo.

Alexa, Echo's voice assistant is very clued up on the current happenings of the nation's football team and it's got a dose of World Cup fever. By that, we mean the developers have programmed in new responses following the dramatic win over Colombia on Tuesday.

Currently, the phrase "it's coming home", from the famous song by Frank Skinner, David Baddiel and the Lightning Seeds is trending and saying it to Alexa will receive the reply: "52 years of hurt hasn't stopped me dreaming! I hope it doesn't go to penalties again in the quarter-final though. My circuits can't take the stress."

Throughout the tournament, the smart assistant is offering up a range of knowledge and football jargon to help even the most casual football fan join in the debate.

The answers are being regularly updated and if you ask Alexa: "help me bluff my way through the World Cup" it will respond: "England found themselves in a World Cup penalty shootout and for once they won. England had lost their three previous World Cup shootouts, but against Colombia, they broke their hoodoo."

For those that want football terms explained, Alexa can answer a range of questions such as "what is a false nine?" and "what is 'parking the bus' in football?".

If you did miss England's big game, Alexa can fill you in:

"Eric Dier scored the decisive penalty after Jordan Pickford saved from Carlos Bacca. England will now face Sweden, who beat Switzerland to reach their first World Cup quarter-final since 1994."

25/05/2018: Google shifted more of its Home and Home Mini devices than Amazon sold its Echo smart home speaker in the first quarter of 2018, according to Canalys.

The research firm revealed Google shipped 3.2 million Google Home and Google Home Minis, while Amazon sold 2.5 million of its Amazon Echo collection, comprising the Echo, the Echo Dot, and the Echo Plus.

Canalys' study covered the entire smart speaker market. Amazon and Google were the frontrunners in terms of market share, although 9 million total units were sold in the first three months altogether.

Google's late success isn't really surprising though. It only launched its Home speaker in 2016, a year after Amazon's speaker made its debut. This latency has continued throughout Google's smart speaker lifecycle, with Google launching its Home Mini almost 18 months after Amazon unveiled the Echo Dot pint-sized device.

"Google has several advantages over Amazon that have helped it move ahead," said Canalys Analyst Ben Stanton. "But its biggest advantage is in the channel. Operators and retailers tend to prioritize Google's speakers over those from Amazon, as Amazon is in the tricky position of being a direct competitor. But Amazon is fighting back hard, and the sheer quantity of Alexa Skills and smart home integrations will be tough for any competitor to match."

21/05/2018: A parrot has fooled an Amazon Echo by putting through an order for decorative boxes by mimicking its owner's voice.

The pesky pet overheard a conversation that owner Corienne Pretorius was having and then copied it to order the boxes. A few days later, the boxes were delivered, much to Pretorius' dismay.

"We've had the device for four months and I use it to play music or make to do' lists but I've never ordered anything online," she said. "When I came home on Sunday, I could hear Buddy talking but couldn't quite make out what he was saying. Then I heard Alexa say, Sorry I didn't quite get that.' Buddy said Alexa' and some gibberish, and the machine replied, What is it you want to order?"

"I didn't hear what happened after that and didn't think anything of it until I got a notification that my Amazon order had been placed."

Pretorius thought her husband or son had ordered them at first, but it turns out it was Buddy the African Grey Parrot.

Although it is possible to set Amazon Alexa up with a password to stop it accidentally ordering items, the owners obviously didn't do this when they hooked the assistant up to their Wi-Fi and so Buddy was given free reign to order anything he liked. Good job it was just cheap boxes rather than a car or something.

08/03/2018: It will soon be possible to make free voice calls using Google's Home smart speaker, the company announced on Wednesday, without it needing to be tethered to a smartphone.

An update scheduled to arrive this week will bring features offered by Google Home in the UK in line with the US, which already allows users to make hands-free calls across a WiFi network to any number in their Google Contacts list, as reported by the Guardian.

The feature will also let owners of the Home or Home Mini smart assistant make calls directly to millions of businesses that have registered numbers with Google.

Until now, the Google Home has acted like a hands-free speaker for a smartphone much in the same way as Amazon's Echo and Apple's HomePod, with calls connecting over the internet to an app and making use of the user's phone contract allowance. However, Google's smart assistant will be the first to support calls on its own using the company's free call service.

The commands for making a call will stay the same, and users need only to say "Hey Google, call..." and then state the name of a person or business. The Home's profiling feature, which is able to differentiate between six different voices, also means individual users can access their own contacts list.

It's a major win for Google in the battle for the smart assistant market, particularly as Amazon's Alexa smart assistant started offering its own feature this week in the form of random creepy laughter.

Thankfully, Amazon has said it's aware of the issue and is working on a fix.

05/02/2018: Apple HomePod won't support streaming via Bluetooth

Apple has confirmed that its HomePod speaker will not support music streaming via Bluetooth if you're using a tablet or phone, despite listing Bluetooth 5.0 as one of its features.

Although it will support a range of streaming services including Apple Music, iTunes, Beats 1 Live Radio and podcasts, anyone wanting to send music to the speaker via third-party services will only be able to do so through its own AirPlay technology - which is only available on Apple-branded devices such as the iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Apple TV and Mac.

What Apple isn't particularly open about is which services can be streamed to its speaker system, although we expect many of the services already available to stream via AirPlay will be supported (including Spotify). It also didn't reveal whether you'll be able to use Siri to control third-party streaming service, but we'd assume not.

Of course, it doesn't really come as much of a surprise, as the HomePod needs an iOS-powered device to set it up and act as the controller. Nevertheless, it's a little disappointing, especially for Android users that may want to test out Apple's speaker, or if the iPhone user in the house is out with their iPhone and you fancy listening to music.

Operating system

The Amazon Echo family is powered by Alexa, an AI core built on AWS' cloud infrastructure. It's essentially a voice-operated digital assistant, but thanks to machine learning algorithms, it's designed to get smarter the more you use it, adapting to your vocabulary, speech patterns, and usage habits.

Google Now has been part of the company's ecosystem for a while now, but it's now been upgraded to become the Google assistant. Like Google Now, it works across the whole Google portfolio, including Android, ChromeOS and the new Google Home. It's designed to respond in a natural, conversational manner to voice queries, and is also powered by cloud-based AI technology.

Apple was the first major company to introduce a digital assistant into its devices, with the launch of Siri. iPhone users can interact with their apps through Siri, and as of recent software upgrades, can also use Siri voice commands to control their Apple TV. This is what underpins Apple's HomePod, allowing users to ask questions, control music playback and interact with HomeKit devices.

At the moment, the Google Assistant is the most useful of the current crop. Not only does it feature a wide range of commands, tasks and integrations with various services, it also understands context, meaning you can string consecutive requests together. On top of that, it's synced across Android, ChromeOS and Google Home devices. However, it loses points for its speech engine, which doesn't sound quite as smooth and fluid as Alexa.

Design

The Amazon Echo family features a number of different Alexa-powered devices. There's the flagship Echo Plus, identical in design to the original Echo, the redesigned Echo, which is smaller than the original with a fabric or wood-effect covering, and the Echo Dot. The company also produces the Echo Show and the Echo Spot, which have displays for tasks like making video calls or displaying news headlines.

The Echo Plus is designed primarily as a connected speaker, and that's what it looks like a smooth cylinder, with a speaker grille around the lower half. Accented by a snazzy ring of blue light around the top, the Echo looks sleek and professional and would be at home in either an office or a bedroom.

The basic Echo looks to have taken some design cues from Google Home, with a more aesthetically-pleasing exterior and a smaller, more compact footprint. The Echo Dot is a smaller and more affordable version, lacking the proper inbuilt speaker seen in the full-size Echo. This is similarly small and unobtrusive and looks like what you'd get if somebody pulled off the top two inches of the Echo.

Google Home, as the name would suggest, appears much more domestic in its appeal. It's shorter and fatter, with a rounded base and a slanted top. The base is also available in different colours and materials, so you'll be able to customise it depending on your interior decorating tastes.

Google also has a couple of variants of its smart speaker - the smaller Google Home Mini, and the beefy Google Home Max, touted as offering superior audio quality.

Physically, Apple's HomePod is the largest of the three products. It's squat and cylindrical, with a fine mesh covering. In fact, it's been described as 'a Mac Pro with a sock on it', and the two products are eerily similar in size and shape. It's somewhat surprising, considering Apple's design pedigree, that the HomePod is perhaps the least visually arresting of the three devices, and while it's unlikely to look out of place in your boardroom or living room it's not particularly inspiring either.

App integrations

As you'd expect from connected speakers, the Echo devices have great integrations with various music services. Spotify, TuneIn, Pandora and iHeartRadio are all supported, as are both Amazon Music and Amazon Prime Music. They also work with Amazon's shopping platform, allowing users to order products with voice commands or check on the status of an order.

However, Alexa also connects to a host of other third-party applications. The most frequently-cited ones are the ability to order a pizza via Dominos or call an Uber, but you can also use the Echo to check the weather, get the latest headlines, or check what time the big game starts.

Smart home technology is supported too, and the Echo can talk to Internet of Things appliances from the likes of Wemo, Samsung, Nest, Hue and others to perform tasks like turning off the TV or dimming the lights. It's also got the advantage of being an open ecosystem, meaning any developer can create 'skills' for Alexa.

Google Home offers similar integrations, which is no surprise, as Google's ecosystem is one of the strongest around. It features integrations with a range of smart home products and music streaming services like Spotify and Google Play Music, with support for Deezer, Soundcloud and Spotify's free tier coming in a future update.

Its most interesting feature, however, is that it integrates directly with Google's Chromecast devices. This means you can ask it to play videos from Netflix and YouTube on your TV, or have it show details about your calendar schedule on the big screen.

The main service that HomePod is built to connect with is Apple Music, and the company claims that Siri will act as a 'musicologist', intelligently helping you to discover new songs based on your listening habits. However, HomePod will also interact with every HomeKit-enabled device, as well as every app and service that features integrations with Siri.

In practice, all three products work in much the same way to each other. The only real differences are that the Echo connects to Amazon's shopping services, HomePod connects to Apple Music and Google Home can control your TV. Aside from these elements, there's not a great deal to differentiate the three.

Price and release date

Both the Amazon Echo and Google Home are currently available in the UK. The top-end Echo Plus retails for a total of 140 including VAT, while Google Home is slightly cheaper at 129. If you're slightly more budget-conscious, you can also get the smaller Echo for 90 or the slightly less capable Echo Dot for the very reasonable sum of 50. Similarly, you can pick up the Google Home Mini for just 49, although the Max is yet to make it to the UK. Apple's HomePod is, unsurprisingly, the most expensive of the three devices. Retailing on 9 February for the princely sum of 349, it's more than double the price of its two main competitors.

Previous news

24/01/2018: Apple has officially announced a release date for the HomePod, its answer to smart speakers like the Amazon Echo and Google Home.

The gadget will hit stores on 9 February next month, with pre-orders opening this Friday. The device is priced at 349 - significantly more than similar rivals like the Amazon Echo and Google Home.

Many have criticised the HomePod for being overpriced and lacking in features; Amazon's most expensive Echo speaker, the Echo Plus, tops out at 140 and includes a built-in smart home hub. HomePod, by contrast, lacks key features such as multi-room audio and stereo output.

Apple appears to be banking on the audio quality of its device, however, rather than its technological capabilities. The company will be hoping to use the HomePod as a means to drive Apple Music subscriptions, which is part of one of the company's primary revenue streams.

Apple is also approaching the market significantly later than its competition; the Amazon Echo has been out for over three years, while Google Home has been offering stiff competition for over six months. Critics argue that at this point, Apple will struggle to find a gap in the market.

11/01/2018: Transport technology company the Voyage Team has collaborated with Heathrow Airport on a new skill for Amazon Alexa that provides flight information.

Heathrow has become the UK's first airport to get the feature, which allows travellers to ask Amazon's virtual assistant about flight status information, gate updates and details about arrivals and departures.

The two organisations put together a joint project team to explore ways artificial intelligence could be used to improve efficiencies in Europe's largest airport, which resulted in the development of the new Alexa skill.

The skill, which users can access through the Echo speakers, takes information from an estimated 1,300 aircraft movements that happen daily at the airport.

Currently, Heathrow works with more than 84 airlines, so it's constantly inundated with flight data. The Alexa skill aims to sort this information, and it can, the organisations claim, "understand queries related to multiple carriers and interpret alphanumeric codes".

The skill taps into information taken from Heathrow's internal data hub, which is responsible for managing flight schedule information. Customers can access the Alexa skill alongside the official Heathrow website and mobile app.

Stephen Glenfield, senior digital manager at Heathrow, said the airport is constantly looking at ways it can improve customer information services through technology.

"Delivering detailed flight information directly to customers within their homes is another fantastic milestone in improving our digital experience," he said.

"Launching the first airport-specific Alexa Skill in the UK ensures easy access to the latest flight information, helping passengers to plan their journey more effectively and improve their experience from start to finish."

Dave Wood, client Director at the Voyage Team, praised the partnership. "We have worked with Heathrow since 2005 and have a shared focus on providing the best experience for Heathrow customers," he said.

"Alexa is an exciting new frontier in customer service, and by adding an Alexa Skill, Heathrow is ensuring that it is serving technology-savvy customers and is ready for the growing trend in voice-based services."

Graham Fletcher, head of research and development at Cubic Transportation systems, told IT Pro AI initiatives like this could revolutionise the transport sector.

"As AI continues to evolve, we'll see digital assistants make their way into new into the transport sector such as in train stations and airports, where high volumes of commuters can benefit from automated, real-time assistance," he said.

"Virtual ticketing machines with human guides are already being trialled in stations across the globe, and it's easy to see how this technology can be enhanced with AI, especially for routine queries, frequently asked questions and directing travellers to local points of interest around cities.

"AI will certainly make these experiences more conversational and reduce the strain on staff, but the key to a successful customer experience will be ensuring a seamless escalation from a virtual bot to a human agent, should a traveller require more personalised guidance."

20/11/2017: The launch of Apple's eagerly awaited HomePod smart speaker has been pushed back from December to early 2018, as it "needs a little more time" to be developed.

The HomePod, which initially appeared at Apple's WWDC event in June, was slated for release in time for the Christmas shopping surge, placing it in a great position to take on the likes of Amazon's Echo and Google's Home smart speakers. However, that has now changed, with the device perhaps proving more complex to produce than initially thought, though Apple hasn't given a specific reason.

"We can't wait for people to experience HomePod, Apple's breakthrough wireless speaker for the home, but we need a little more time before it's ready for our customers," an Apple spokesperson said, speaking to CNET. "We'll start shipping in the US, UK and Australia in early 2018."

At 349, the HomePod promises to be able to deliver Siri-enabled features using some groundbreaking audio hardware, although the specific IoT functions have been kept hidden so far.

Apple needs to have something compelling to show when it releases the device early next year, as its steep asking price risks pushing customers towards the more attractive price points of its rivals, which offer similar features at almost half the cost.

What we do know is that one of its biggest selling points will come from the HomePod's 'Spatial Awareness' feature, a technology that allows the device to automatically detect the space around it, adjusting the audio to best match its surroundings. It also supports Apple Music and will be able to access your library and recommend content based on your history.

06/11/2017: The BBC has announced an interactive audio drama pilot set to be released on voice devices.

Henry Cooke, a producer part of the BBC's R&D team, wrote that the company has teamed up with Rosina Sound to create audio for the story.

Cooke wrote: "The project took shape collaboratively between R&D and Rosina Sound - together, we listened to existing interactive audio stories and, taking inspiration from computer games like The Stanley Parable and Papa Sangre and authors like Franz Kafka and Douglas Adams, the piece evolved into a comedy science fiction audio drama."

He also added that in the pilot users will be able to play an active part in the story with their voice, to make it feel like they are having a direct interaction with the characters.

Cooke said: "We haven't come across any other interactive stories like this on voice devices, and we're excited to see how people respond to it."

The BBC has built a "story engine" which allows them to release the same story across different voice devices. For now, it will be released on the Amazon Alexa and Google Home but Cooke wrote it may make its way across to Microsoft & Harman/Kardon's Invoke speaker, or Apple's HomePod and other devices as they come along.

The pilot is scheduled to be released on BBC Taster before the end of the year.

The BBC trialled AI voice capabilities on iPlayer with Microsoft back in August. Users could issue voice commands to login to the service by saying their name and a phrase.

12/10/2017: Google disables snooping feature in Home Mini

The Google Home Mini's top touch function is now disabled as it was found listening and recording users unknowingly.

The "top touch" tool lets users interact with Google Assistant by pressing on the top of the Home Mini, rather than using voice controls. The Home Mini hasn't yet been released but is already in the hands of reviewers and Google's own employee testers.

While testing the device, Android Police reviewer Artem Russakovskii discovered that his held thousands of unintended recordings. Russakovskii reported that his Home Mini would repeatedly light up and Google Assistant would speak without any activation or instruction.

Within 24 hours of the issue being brought to Google's attention, a software update had been issued. Google also created a support page and removed any top touch initiated interactions with the device between October 4 and October 7.

Google also deleted any activities initiated through the top touch feature in My Activity, where all Google Assistant interactions are stored.

A Google spokesperson, as reported by VentureBeat, stated that: "Although we only received a few reports of this issue, we want people to have complete peace of mind while using the Google Home Mini. We have made the decision to permanently remove all top touch functionality on the Google Home Mini. As before, the best way to control and activate the Google Home Mini is through voice, by saying Ok Google' or Hey Google,' which is already how most people engage with our Google Home products."

The device, which made its first appearance at the Google event earlier this month, will go on sale October 18 for $49.

12/10/2017: Alexa updated to recognise the voices of individual users

Amazon's Alexa voice assistant can now recognise individual users, thanks to an update. This brings it in line with Google Home, which has had the same feature since April this year.

This means that Alexa can personalise its response, giving other members within a home access to their own playlists, calendars, shopping lists, among other things. Voice profiles currently support the following Alexa features: calling/messaging, flash briefing, shopping, and the Amazon Music Unlimited Family Plan.

This feature will be handy for anyone using Amazon Echo's new calling facility as this will help Alexa phone only a particular user's contacts when that person uses the feature.

In order to use the new feature, a user has to create a voice profile, either on the Echo, Echo Dot, or Echo Show. Setting up a profile invoices a user reading out ten sample phrases, after which, the training is complete. Voice Profiles can also be set up via the Alexa app on a smartphone.

Voice Profiles will roll out to other features in Alexa soon. The feature is available on any Echo product from now and should get smarter over time as it is used more. However, Amazon said that touch-to-talk devices, such as Amazon Tap and the Fire TV remote, will not support voice profiles.

03/10/2017: Home Mini appears on California resident's Google app

Google's alleged Amazon Echo Dot rival has appeared on a Google Home app belonging to someone living nearby the Google campus in California.

New evidence of Google's new Home smart speaker, the Google Home Mini, has emerged just days before the Google event where it's likely to be announced. According to Android Police, a device named "GoogleHome2787" appeared on the Google Home app of Raymond Durk, who lives mere blocks away from the Mountain View Google campus.

The name was accompanied by a picture of a pebble-shaped device, that is identical to the early images leaked by Droid Life in August. Because any new Home or Chromecast device appears on the Google Home app until it is connected to WiFi, it seems that an employee of Google who lives near Durk has received the device but has yet to set it up completely.

Alongside the Home Mini, it's rumoured that Google will announce another addition to the Google Home family, the Home Max. This larger device, supposedly having a more premium design and better hardware, will compete with Apple's Homepod, although no specific details of it have been revealed.

The Google Home Mini, aimed at those who want the access to Google's assistant without the giant speaker, is rumoured to cost $49 when it goes on sale.

29/09/2017: Google could be creating a smart screen device to compete with the Amazon Echo Show.

The device can be used for video calling and help bolster Google's presence in the AI smart home market, as reported by TechCrunch.

Sources have told the publication that the device has been codenamed "Manhattan" and will possess a similar screen to the Echo Show. It will offer Google Assistant, Google Photos, YouTube and video calling and can act as a smart hub to control smart home devices.

TechCrunch was told that the device launch was set for mid-2018 but thanks to the Echo Show there is pressure on Google to get it launched by 2017. It may still launch in 2018 as the tech giant seeks to establish smart hub partnerships and service partnerships too.

The device is set to run Android, opening it up to developers who want to build apps. There's currently no price for the device or images of what it will look like.

IT Pro has contacted Google for comment.

Google pulled YouTube from the Echo Show this week which means users can no longer access it on their devices to watch cooking shows or music videos. Google said Amazon's use of YouTube on the Echo Show violated its terms of service which is why it was pulled.

Amazon introduced its brand-new Echo, Echo Plus and Echo Spot devices at an event in Seattle this week. It also made the Echo Show available in the UK for the first time priced at 199.99.

27/09/2017: Google removes YouTube from Amazon Echo Show

Google has pulled YouTube from the Echo Show, meaning that users can no longer access the service.

If a user asks the device to play a video on Youtube, Alexa replies: "Currently, Google is not supporting Youtube on Echo Show", according to The Verge.

An Amazon spokesperson told the publication: "Google made a change today at around 3pm. YouTube used to be available to our shared customers on Echo Show. As of this afternoon, Google has chosen to no longer make YouTube available on Echo Show, without explanation and without notification to customers. There is no technical reason for that decision, which is disappointing and hurts both of our customers."

Google told IT Pro: "We've been in negotiations with Amazon for a long time, working towards an agreement that provides great experiences for customers on both platforms. Amazon's implementation of YouTube on the Echo Show violates our terms of service, creating a broken user experience. We hope to be able to reach an agreement and resolve these issues soon."

IT Pro has contacted Amazon for comment.

Earlier this month, it emerged that Amazon may be working on its own set of smart glasses. The device would allow users to talk to their Alexa system at any time, wherever they are. The glasses would connect to a user's smartphone and would be designed to be lightweight. Users would be able to listen to Alexa without using headphones through a "bone-conduction audio system" too.

21/09/2017: Amazon working on Alexa-powered smart glasses

Amazon's first wearable powered by Alexa could be smart glasses, the FT has reported. The glasses would apparently allow the user to talk to their home Alexa system at any time, wherever they are.

The glasses would connect to a smartphone and would feature a lightweight design that looks just like standard glasses rather than the bulky smart glasses other manufacturers have previously released.

It would utilise a "bone-conduction audio system" so the user could hear Alexa without the use of earphones, which, although useful, could provide a strange experience.

The FT's source expects Alexa-powered smart glasses to launch before the year is out, although they were very secretive about revealing any further details about the device.

Another new product in Amazon's Alexa portfolio could be a smart security system that would connect to the Echo home speaker and allow users to view footage on Echo Show's screen. It could also let Amazon customers see when their orders have arrived and are waiting on their doorstep.

The FT's source said there are plenty of other Alexa updates coming before the year is out, but they could not go into more details about what those updates may be.

30/08/2017: Amazon has announced new capabilities for its Echo smart speaker system, including a partnership with Ocado allowing customers to order groceries through the power of their voice and a new Sonos-like multi-room music streaming feature.

The first new addition provides the ability for customers to edit existing Ocado orders, including adding new items or removing things you no longer need. You can find out when your order's due to arrive and ask the smart system whether you've already added a particular item to your order.

If you like to cook using seasonal ingredients, you'll be able to find out about the most in-season items and Echo will recommend how you can add them to recipes.

"Grocery shopping should be quick, easy and convenient. Using voice technology, we've made it even easier by developing our new app that will enable our customers to add to their Ocado baskets without lifting a finger," Lawrence Hene, Marketing and Commercial Director at Ocado.

"Consumer demand for increasingly convenient ways to shop is growing rapidly and we're excited to be the first supermarket in the UK to offer this technology, making customers' lives ever easier. Alexa will add any item to your Ocado basket simply by asking her to do so. It's as easy as that."

The other new feature supported on Echo is the ability to sync speakers in different rooms together and play different music in each 'zone', just like connected speaker systems such as Sonos. However, at the moment, this will only work through Amazon Music and TuneIn Radio rather than all third-party integrations currently supported on Amazon Echo.

Amazon has opened up the API for multi-room music to third parties through the Alexa Voice Service (AVS) Multi-Room Music SDK, so expect to see more soon. Amazon also revealed that other speaker systems will also be able to communicate with the Connected Speaker API, including devices from Sonos, Bose, Sound United, and Samsung.

18/08/2017: Following Amazon's drive for third-party development on the Alexa platform, the company has now released a software kit that makes it easier for companies to develop their own devices powered by the smart assistant.

The Alexa Voice Service (AVS), which was released in the UK in February, allowed manufacturers to create products with Alexa voice controls built in. This has now been expanded with the release of the AVS Device SDK, providing a means for companies to create their own software that can process audio inputs and triggers, as well as granting access to the AVS API library.

Third-party devices will now able to handle speech recognition, media streaming, timers and alarms, weather reports and other custom skills, essentially creating a fully-functioning version of Alexa.

This also means that companies will be able to create more bespoke versions of Alexa for products aimed at the business market.

Marc Vontobel, CTO of Swiss-based AI firm Starmind, argued that the release of AVS Device SDK will allow developers to create products that solve many limitations that prevent AI-powered devices from entering the workplace, including the lack of connection between human information sources.

"The typical default skill of Alexa is: 'What is', which commands her to look up information on Wikipedia. There are other skills to access our music or to switch lights on and off-- but anytime the answer is not available in the data set, Alexa will say: 'Sorry I didn't understand'," said Vontobel.

However, by using Amazon's SDK, companies will now be able to develop devices that "connect you to the right human to answer that question - then Alexa would learn from the human conversation and next time Alexa could give the right answer directly".

The AVS Device SDK is now generally available for all Alexa developers and users, and supporting documentation, including tutorials and a sample app, can be found on a dedicated support page.

10/07/2017: Smart home assistant dials 911 to stop alleged assault

A smart home device has intervened in an alleged violent assault, calling 911 in response to what it perceived to be a voice command.

New Mexico resident Eduardo Barros and his girlfriend were house sitting in a town 15 miles outside Albuquerque, with his girlfriend's daughter also being present, according to ABC News.

The two adults got into an argument, which reportedly escalated to a physical fight. According to the report, Barros threatened brandished a gun, asking her: "Did you call the sheriffs?"

A smart speaker in the home apparently heard this threat and took it as a command to call 911, Bernalillo County Sheriff Department spokeswoman Felicia Romero said.

Law enforcement officers responded to the call and were able to rescue the woman and the child who haven't been named. A standoff between Barros, a crisis negotiation team and SWAT then ensued but was ended without injury and the man was taken into custody.

In a statement, Bernalillo County sheriff Manuel Gonzalez said: "The unexpected use of this new technology to contact emergency services has possibly helped save a life. This amazing technology definitely helped save a mother and her child from a very violent situation."

The brand of the smart speaker involved hasn't been revealed.

The story is the latest relating to alleged crimes where a smart home device has been a crucial witness.

In Arkansas, prosecutors were earlier in the year locked in a battle with Amazon over an Amazon Echo belonging to an alleged murderer, as reported by CNN.

Benton County prosecuting attorney Nathan Smith believed the Echo may have picked up the sounds of the final moments of a man who was found dead in a hot tub. Amazon would have potentially been in possession of the audio files on its servers, but pushed back against the request on the grounds of privacy.

Things don't always go as intended when it comes to alerting emergency services via a smart home device. Late last year, a video emerged of a man telling his Amazon Echo he needed urgent medical assistance.

Alexa, the AI that powers the Echo, helpfully added the item to his shopping list.

28/06/2017: Amazon Echo Show offers Drop-In snooping

The Amazon Echo Show could offer friends and family a little more than they bargained for, with the Drop In feature that allows people you know to watch what you're doing as and when they like.

However, Amazon will give you a bit of warning, blurring you out for ten seconds before you must decide whether to ignore the call, disable the camera or accept - if you're not doing anything too dodgy at the time.

Unsurprisingly, this has triggered privacy concerns, although you will have to turn it on from the settings menu of the touchscreen speaker-come-smart home device because it's turned off by default.

You can also pre-approve those who are allowed to just 'drop in', so it could be wise to limit the people who can watch you while you're showering, getting dressed or doing anything else private to those that know you best (and maybe not your mum, either).

"Drop In is an optional feature for Alexa customers to enable and use," an Amazon spokesperson told CNBC. "If customers decide to enable it, they have the option to turn on Do Not Disturb on one, or all, of their devices, which will block calls and messages from coming in. Customers will know when they are in a Drop In call as they will first hear a 'chime' and the green light on their Echo device will rotate throughout the call"

The company added Drop In could be useful to use as an intercom in a household, for example, to check in on an elderly relative, or to monitor a child being babysat if the parents are out for the evening.

26/06/2017: Google beats Amazon in home assistant trivia

Google Home is better at trivia than Amazon's Alexa, according to a competition between the two voice assistants run by marketing firm 360i.

The New York agency developed its own software to pit the two AI-backed helpers against each other in a battle of their wits, asking each 3,000 unique questions. Google Home ran away with the competition, getting the correct answer six times more frequently than Amazon's Alexa, according to a report in AdWeek.

It's unclear whether Alexa was tripped up by its requirement to install "skills" before some questions can be asked, or if Home simply does better with search queries thanks to Google's rather extensive background in the subject.

The results may lead trivia hungry smart assistant shoppers to favour Home, but so far Amazon's Echo leads the real battle: sales. Marketing research suggests 70% of smarGt assistant speakers will use Alexa in 2017, not Google Home or Apple HomePod.

08/06/2017: Get live UK general election results through Alexa

Britain goes to the polls today to choose a new government to navigate the challenges ahead. Rather than staying glued to Jeremy Vine's graphic visualisations on election night, however, Amazon Echo owners can simply ask Alexa for an update.

Amazon's voice assistant will be able to provide a rundown of current polling information, as well as a summary of opinion polls, news and information on the major political parties and their respective leaders.

Users can also ask general questions about the election, such as who is eligible to vote and who can call a general election, as well as asking for the latest news and headlines surrounding the campaign.

When asked by the Independent if the information would come from Amazon internally or from third-party sources, the company said that the polling data "is part of Alexa's knowledge graph".

Once the ballots close, users will be able to receive live information on the results as they come in, including the results in specific regions, current seat totals for each party and the current overall winner.

05/06/2017: Apple has finally revealed its long-awaited Siri-connected speaker at this year's WWDC, a direct rival to the likes of the Amazon Echo and Google Home.

The cylindrical speaker, known as the 'HomePod', resembles the Mac Pro at 7in tall and promises to "reinvent music in the home". From initial images, it appears the HomePod will be available in white or dark grey.

Its biggest selling point comes from its 'Spatial Awareness' feature, technology that allows the device to automatically detect the space around it, adjusting the audio to best match its surroundings. Demoed live on stage at the San Jose event on Monday, the HomePod showed off some pretty impressive auto-adjustment that meant sound was directed into open spaces rather than against nearby walls.

Apple also states that two HomePods will work in tandem to help create richer sounds. Powered by an A8 chip, the device also boasts echo cancellation technology and real-time acoustic and bass modelling.

It is also designed to work with Apple Music subscriptions, able to access your music library and make recommendations based on song history.

Yet Apple wants to directly compete against the likes of Amazon's Echo and the Google Home, and has built its smart assistant Siri into the speaker. Through six microphones fitted around the edges of the device, users are able to not only control music through voice commands, but also use Siri to access services like news, weather, translation apps, and reminders. It is also compatible with Apple's HomeKit, allowing users to control connected home devices with speech.

"HomePod packs powerful speaker technology, Siri intelligence and wireless access to the entire Apple Music library into a beautiful speaker that is less than 7 inches tall, can rock most any room with distortion-free music and be a helpful assistant around your home," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior VP of worldwide marketing.

HomePod will be initially available in the US, UK and Australia this December. It will be priced at $349 in the US, with local pricing announced later in the year.

The internet of things (IoT) is essentially the name given to everything connected to the internet. Anything with a chip that collects and communicates data with other devices over Wi-Fi falls under this term.

It's a technology that is spreading fast in both the consumer and commercial spaces. We're talking to voice assistants' like Alexa, streaming online shows over our smart TVs and even the humble kettle is a connected device.

In industry, sensors and endpoints are being widely used to gather technical information to perform automated tasks and streamline services, while healthcare is seeing vast amounts of patient data generated from wearable tech.

Alarmingly, while this has already made a big impact in our lives, it's still somewhat in its infancy, with a great big future ahead of it. From driverless cars to smart buildings and potentially smart cities, IoT is going to change the world fast than anything before it.

Smart Homes

On the consumer side, the IoT has slowly worked its way into our personal lives. There has been a surge in the popularity of smart home assistants with the Amazon Echo leading the way, which has already begun to change the way we interact with technology. It is the personification of this technology that has made it so popular, with shopping, listening to music, and checking the weather becoming a conversation.

The purpose of IoT in the home is for technology to work with minimal supervision. Now appliances are helping us to preserve and prepare food through connected fridges and toasters, and monitor for optimal temperatures with smart heating systems. There's even a vacuum cleaner that can distinguish between people and static objects to find the best route through a home.

Notable mentions: Amazon Echo, Sleep Number smart bed, LG's SmartThinQ fridge.

Healthcare

Unlike the arguably superficial consumerisation of the IoT found in the home, connected technology is serving a more practical purpose in the healthcare industry, providing life-changing patient care. IoT sensors are now helping doctors monitor the activity of dementia sufferers in their own home, and connected insulin injectors are helping diabetes sufferers to effectively manage their blood sugar levels.

Google's AI platform DeepMind was recently called upon to develop the Streams app for hospital use, designed to allow hospital staff to monitor patients with kidney disease. Whatever its application, the IoT is providing a valuable service that is capable of reducing the need for admissions and freeing up space in overcrowded hospitals.

Notable mentions: Phillips' medication dispensing service, Johnson & Johnson insulin pump

Manufacturing

Nowhere has the IoT's capacity for data capture been more exploited than in the manufacturing industry. Businesses are now able to gather huge quantities of processing data from connected devices, including the precise voltage used to create a product or testing the performance of replacement parts. From connected robotic arms to employee wearables, data is being generated in places it would otherwise be unobtainable - helping to streamline manufacturing processes and cut down on unnecessary expense.

Notable mentions: Intel IoT solutions

Security

Connected security is a big business, with most modern-day security cameras coming with internet connectivity as standard. Instead of a reliance on CCTV feeds, camera networks are now able to broadcast footage across the internet, allowing users to remotely monitor them. However they are considered one of the most exploited devices in the IoT repertoire, and thanks to the large bandwidths they possess, they're considered to have contributed greatly to the rise of DDoS botnets like Mirai.

Notable mentions: August smart locks

Farming

As the world's population rises, so does the demand for food. Thankfully, the IoT is facilitating a growth in production through connected devices that help shrink the scale that farming demands. Field sensors are being deployed to monitor for changes in soil conditions and give statistics on livestock through smartphone apps. Drones are also serving an industrial purpose, providing the ability for farmers to survey land that would otherwise be impractical to cover.

Notable mentions: John Deere connected tractor, Kaa Project field sensors

Smart Cities

Although a fully connected city may still be some years away, some cities have already begun to take advantage of the IoT. Sensors are being used everywhere, from traffic lights and footpaths that provide congestion data for apps, to bins that notify waste collection services when they are full. Public transport may soon be entirely automated through driverless vehicles connected to a network, and research has already started on self-repairing infrastructure - there are even designs for a light-bulb replacing drone that can perch on top of lampposts.

Notable mentions: Bigbelly IoT waste management, Cisco digital kiosks

Transportation & logistics

If you're excited by the idea of driverless taxis, or 'connected' cars that can be maintained through an app, you have the IoT to thank. It's underpinning a great deal of the research by the likes of Uber, Google, Ford, and even companies traditionally associated with completely different industries, such as Nvidia, helping to bring the idea of smart cars to life.

For example, Ford's SYNC technology allows users to control various aspects of their vehicle using their voice or touch controls, such as controlling music and temperatures, essentially building smartphone-style functions into the vehicle. As the technology develops, customers will soon have greater oversight of their cars, such as the ability to monitor fuel levels and start the car using an app.

Yet IoT is beginning to shift beyond the 'smart' car; almost every aspect of our transportation networks will be affected by IoT in the coming years. In shipping we are seeing the deployment of IoT to maintain trade and transport lanes, including sensors that alert the crew to failing systems, while on land, fleets of HGVs are being connected together into a centralised web, allowing a company to provide highly accurate diagnostics of a trading network.

Notable mentions: Ford SYNC, Marine Transport International (MTI) Solas VGM, IBM Truck-tracking solution

For more on IoT, head over to our news hub.

Hospitals are easy to hack but that does not mean they are being actively targeted.

As more medical devices become connected to the internet, concerns around the consequences if they are hacked increase.

Indeed, the US FDA recently warned against a specific intravenous pump over hacking fears, while UK Chancellor George Osborne spoke last year of an alleged risk of terrorist cyber attacks on UK hospitals.

Sergey Lozhkin, a researcher at Kaspersky Lab, decided to test the theory that medical devices are easy to access from the web, noting how much modern doctors rely on medical technology.

"It's a matter of trust," he said, speaking at his company's annual Security Analyst Summit in Tenerife last week. "If there is a vulnerability in medical equipment, a really good doctor could make the wrong decision, even if he's the best doctor."

He searched online for medical equipment connecting to the internet from each hospital, finding plenty of leaks at a facility a friend of his worked at, including links to a web application from Siemens that let you log in to see data held by various equipment, then configure those devices.

Lozhkin did not need to hack that app, he said, because default passwords available in the manual were still in use, but said that the app itself did not have any vulnerabilities aside from being poorly configured.

The researcher drove over to the hospital, cracked the poorly configured Wi-Fi, and said he could have used the network access to view any machine in the building, from payment systems to MRI devices.

Not only could he see patient information, including image files of scans, but the software for the MRI gave access to a CShell scripting environment with no password or other security, letting him configure the machine something doctors would never need to do, and something that should not be allowed, he said.

In short, it was "scary" how easy it was for Lozhkin to hack his own hospital. But how many hackers are actually targeting such data?

Hospital hack honeypot

Scott Erven, associate director at Protiviti, has been investigating that question for years. His latest research set up honeypots - fake hospitals with spoofed equipment - to see how many people tried to access them.

"It looks exactly like an actual system," he said, noting Lozhkin came across a honeypot in his own research, and Erven could not help wondering if it was one of his own.

His fake equipment saw 55,000 successful logins using default or obvious credentials (think admin/admin), as well as "honey creds" - unique usernames and IDs - that were dropped on hacker forums to see if anyone used them, which happened eight times. There were also 25 intrusions that used vulnerabilities to access the system, and 300 unique malware samples that were dropped on the machines.

However, such activity was, as far as he could tell, bots searching for weak points in the web to scrape up credit card details, he told IT Pro on the sidelines of the conference.

"We didn't see any indication that there were intentional, targeted attacks because it was a medical device," Erven explained. "It's random noise, it's a bot, they're going for credit card data, and they look for a vulnerability scanning the entire internet. It just gets caught up because it's an XP system."

In other words, over six months with ten honeypots, there were no attackers that appeared to be actively targeting his fake hospitals looking for medical data. That may be because such data is not easy to sell it could be used for blackmail, and altering medical equipment could have dangerous effects, but hackers do not seem too keen on such activity yet.

"We didn't see any indication that they had any idea of what kind of system they were on," he said.

Erven said that while this is good news, there are still concerns. To start with, none of those devices have forensic evidence capture they do not have logs so if a targeted attack did happen, it would be difficult to spot. For example, the malware looking for credit card data could have triggered an unexpected response such as shutting off a pump and there would be no way of knowing.

Also, there is wider evidence that leaked medical data is being used to blackmail either patients or manufacturers, he said.

Hackers may be slow to target hospitals, giving them time to improve the situation. That is not easy as medical equipment faces a slow regulatory process and is in use for many years, but Erven said hospitals can start by removing the most dangerous equipment from external networks, telling IT to remove default credentials, improving Wi-Fi security, and only buying more secure equipment going forward.

There's no point putting your head in the sand - the Internet of Things (IoT) is coming, and it's got the potential to completely transform the way you work.

The IoT describes a phenomenon in which everyday devices can send and receive data over the internet, and potentially between one another, too.

Everything from your kettle to aircraft parts could and probably will become connected, with the burgeoning industry set to grow as broadband quality and coverage improves.

In fact, analyst firm Gartner predicts there will be 25 billion connected devices by 2020 more than three for every person on the planet.

In 2015 alone, it puts the number of connected machines at 4.9 billion come the end of the year.

So what does this mean for your business?

Our panel of experts are here to discuss the opportunities and challenges you face in our first IT Pro Panel feature.

It's not (all) about your fridge

Neil Crockett, CEO of Digital Catapult, a government-backed initiative designed to create city-wide IoT testbeds, says the IoT is about a lot more than simply the smart home.

"IoT first of all is giving us data points and insights in every direction," he says. "This is not about you talking to the fridge."

Instead, he points to huge benefits for companies, particularly providing context for things like product design.

"If there's IoT embedded in your product, being able to understand how your users are using that product in real-time allows you to design the next product based on consumer input," Crockett says.

"This will fundamentally change the way products are designed, how we think about roadmaps for products, how the consumer dictates the way things are personalised."

Former BT CTO Peter Cochrane adds that companies will have far better insight into their infrastructure, simply by virtue of the fact that everything will be online and talking to a management console.

"There should be significant gains by just by knowing exactly what we own, where it is, and what it can do," he says.

Supply chain insight

Online grocer Ocado believes it could use the IoT to improve its customer delivery service.

James Donkin, general manager at Ocado Technology, the division that powers Ocado, points to smart home technology as a way to tell if a customer is in or not to receive a delivery.

On industrial applications, he says: "The potential is very high for the use of IoT technology for our own assets and value chains.

"Considering the flow of groceries from suppliers through to our customers, environmental questions could be answered."

These include determining what temperatures and G-forces food has been exposed to in transit, as well as using IoT to act as an early warning system for vehicle breakdowns.

Quocirca analyst Clive Longbottom looks at the other side of the supply chain.

He tells IT Pro: "In logistics, the logging of the position and movement of everything from a single item through to crates, pallets and vehicles has already shown how this sector can be transformed."

With all the myriad companies that help build a product, then ship and store it, it's very hard to get much insight into what happens to the product at each step in the process.

Make that product a connected device, make even the pallets connected, and suddenly its entire journey is completely transparent.

Other IoT use cases already happening include the potential to create devices that monitor patients' health, with there even being an ingestible sensor (developed by Proteus Digital Health) that tracks whether medication is being taken regularly.

Public services

Jos Creese, former Hampshire County Council CIO, and now president of the BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT, says data is key to running "efficient and effective" public services.

"This is particularly true in support for vulnerable people (old and young) not intervening too soon or too late," he explains.

The smart home comes in handy here, with social and healthcare workers potentially able to pull data from a range of medical and home equipment, from heart monitors to the heating.

"[All this] can help ensure the right support from health and social care professionals, at the right time. This is as much about independent living as it is about intervention," Creese says.

Tech industry trade body TechUK's CEO, Julian David, believes a digital revolution could dramatically alter the service the NHS is able to offer.

He says: "It's estimated that the use of telehealth technologies across the NHS could result in 1 billion in annual savings, with hundreds of thousands of patients' lives improved significantly."

Many of these changes are happening now, meaning they're just the very start of how the IoT could shake up various industries.

But Cochrane speculates on a culture shift to come as a result of machine-to-machine communication.

"Personally I see a huge cut back on wastage looming, with far less duplication of hardware and far more sharing of resources across and between companies," he tells us.

This "social network of things", as he puts it, relies on competing firms being happy to give each other access to their pools of resources.

Even if you consider this scenario unlikely, the benefits are hard to argue with.

"Suppose my people need a facility, a piece of equipment or whatever because ours is broken," he posits.

"Could the IoT automatically locate the nearest neighbour so we could negotiate a loan or short term use?"

He points out that militaries do this already, swapping components and subsystems for aircraft and weapons on the hop.

What's stopping us?

However, while the IoT is no longer an idea confined to the pages of science fiction, it's far from having reached its potential.

Numerous barriers exist to being able to implement it successfully, the panel warns.

Security

As Donkin says, "these devices need to be considered both untrusted, and unreliable".

That's because IoT-enabled machines are physical devices that people can tamper with.

While modern datacentres are very well protected with security perimeters and fingerprint scanners, billions of these devices will be in your shops, your vehicles, and in customers' hands, making securing them a real headache.

"Above and beyond authentication of devices, and protection of data in transit, it's important to track provenance of data and have a strategy for dealing with hijacked' devices," Donkin recommends.

On the bright side, IT consultancy Bloor's chief advisor to the CIO, Kevin Borley, points out that embedded security measures are improving all the time.

"[Companies are] now designing chips which will embed sophisticated security," he tells us. "New communications protocols will change how things are secured for the better."

What about the risk of being hacked?

The last three years have seen a huge number of data breaches affecting companies like Sony, Target and TalkTalk, leaving their reputations tarnished and bank balances rather lighter than before, thanks to fines or customer settlements.

TechUK's David points out: "Some of the industries best placed to benefit from IoT have not traditionally been the most tech savvy.

"This will need to change to ensure they understand and are prepared for new threats to their business, such as cyber-attacks and data theft."

So just how big an opportunity does the IoT present to hackers?

A pretty big one, claims Quocirca's Longbottom.

"Very small, very cheap devices will be built to a price, and security will be of a low priority," he says.

"Blackhats will know that these devices offer a new attack vector for them, and they will be trying to crack through via these devices as much as they can."

But there are measures you can take starting with an intelligent IoT architecture.

Longbottom adds: "Although the devices themselves may be relatively insecure, the local hubs can be made far more secure, so that the higher cost of building in security is shared across multiple IoT devices.

"This requires agreement on what security needs to be provided and how via such hubs."

Data in transit

Analyst Mike Davis, of MSMD Advisors, points out that there's no blanket approach to security measures it all depends on the type of data you're trying to protect.

"The important thing to remember is that not all data needs to be secure," he says. "Security needs to be appropriate to the information collected and its importance to the business."

This approach should ensure you don't spend too much on developing a security solution that won't be needed for some types of information, or that won't work with other datasets.

Customer privacy

Securing data will avoid some hefty fines, especially as the EU considers introducing a penalty worth up to 5 per cent of your turnover.

But just as vital a reason to not get hacked is to protect your customers' privacy.

Davis says: "The vast majority of people would not be worried about others seeing how much renewable energy they were producing, but they would be concerned that everyone can see where they have been because of the tracking on their mobile phone."

BCS president Creese concurs, adding: "Connections made across components and other data which compromises privacy [are a real threat]."

This issue is one of customer trust. Social media companies like Facebook, Twitter and even Google will argue they provide good services in exchange for customer information.

But this line of thinking has been tempered somewhat by ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden, whose revelations about the extent of government spying include PRISM, the programme that collected swathes of user data from US web companies.

Creese claims this is one issue technology cannot solve. Instead, it'll be a mix of getting the right laws and good behaviour from companies or public bodies.

"Legislation in favour of the individual, not the corporate' will help," he explains. "But trust will come from personal experience in public and private sectors protecting data, not abusing trust, [promoting] openness."

So how can you harness IoT data?

If you thought the ethical issues were difficult, roll your sleeves up even higher as we explore how you can actually harness the data coming from the IoT.

The scale of the challenge is difficult to grasp. Just consider that famous Big Data stat from IBM, that as of last year 90 per cent of the world's data was created in the preceding two years.

Meanwhile, a report from analyst house IDC suggests we will hit 40,000 exabytes of data come 2020.

It's hard to even picture that, but that's how much data the IoT will be churning out in just five years' time.

You won't be processing all of that, nor relying on an old relational database, but even the tiniest fraction will be difficult to process.

But, as TechUK CEO David says: "How we harness data from devices will prove to be the biggest challenge and opportunity presented by IoT."

He says Big Data analytics will play a key part in helping you do this in fact, he views them as mutually dependent.

"Leaders will need to have awareness and mutual expertise [in both] to understand and implement the potential benefit offered by IoT," David claims.

Network pressure

Current networks aren't likely to withstand the pressure of thousands of "chatty" devices sending even small packets of data, adds Quocirca's Longbottom.

"Without thought and planning, the impact of thousand, tens of thousands or even millions of such devices on the overall network could be crippling," he states.

However, if you're able to build a filtering system for the network, you could reduce the impact on your network without needing to drastically scale its capacity.

"Data from devices needs to talk to a local hub, which can act as a first-line filter, only passing on data down to the main network as required," Longbottom explains.

"This may be based on the hub identifying an issue itself, or the central environment asking for specific data."

Cloud could also help you deal with all the data raining down on you, Ocado's Donkin highlights.

"You need a network, distributed messaging, flexible storage and powerful data processing capabilities," he lists.

Cloud technologies are well suited to these uses, he adds, whether your data comes through a conventional network, or a specialist low bandwidth, lower power network.

Amazon Kinesis and Google Pub/Sub are two scalable messaging platforms that could do the job, while data-processing warehouses like Hadoop are moving into the cloud.

"There is a trend away from proprietary, closed and local solutions for sensing and connected devices, to internet-based, standards based IoT technology," says Donkin.

These are things to bear in mind next time you're refreshing your current systems.

But as robust and prepared as our networks and databases may eventually be for the IoT, how prepared are we?

BCS president Creese isn't optimistic.

"Ultimately this is about people, not IT," he tells us. "It need an understand of the social and ethical implications of technology to create designs which are acceptable and leave the individual in control."

He adds: "I don't think we are anywhere near ready for this yet."

Standards

In the rush to get IoT devices to market, the industry is guilty of creating a multitude of standards.

One provider will build its own devices on its own network standard. It means they can talk to one another, but not to another company's devices.

That raises the real threat of vendor lock-in for customers, says OpenCloud Connect president James Walker.

"Really today you're selecting your vendor in the hope that tomorrow they're going to adhere to an open standard. You are placing a bet," he says. "That makes no sense to me whatsoever."

Proprietary standards come from any company making IoT devices it's a consequence of competition, but it's remarkably shortsighted.

The IoT will be useless if different firms' devices cannot talk to one another.

Competing standards effectively lock data into silos, stopping the spread of information and the pace of innovation, with developers unable to build on top of others' technology.

"The ability to be interoperable with what's there already is a big challenge," says Digital Catapult CEO Crockett.

"We have a world where the IoT tends to be in silos. The ability for those silos to talk to each other is still in very early."

However, he believes common sense will prevail.

Standards bodies IETF and IEEE have done a lot of work to ensure the foundations are in place for an open IoT, with their standards targeted towards various industries but companies must adopt them.

Walker says that a set of open standards would give governments a framework around which they could legislate, beginning to address the cultural and ethical issues of the IoT.

"Governments are making policy into what is largely a vacuum," he claims. "They are having lots of difficult decisions around privacy of data and so on to make, many of which are ending up to be basically mutually incompatible.

"If the industry comes together and says we've put these basic levers and lights together, then it gives a context for legislation to be created."

And if companies decide not to take part?

"Well, the history of technology is filled with graveyards of people who've went down that road," he says, somewhat ominously.

Even if they don't sign up, there's a British consortium of companies working to create a solution.

With backing from firms including ARM, BT and IBM, the HyperCat standard aims to solve that problem by creating a virtual address book for data hubs that contain information from IoT devices.

An app could query a hub about the types of data it holds, and what permissions the app would need to access that data, the idea being to let the development of the IoT run as smoothly as possible without humans needing to build APIs for a growing swathe of closed devices.

If you're a senior IT decision-maker and you'd like to apply to be part of the IT Pro Panel, please email panel@itpro.co.uk.

Data volumes created by the Internet of Things (IoT) means businesses must invest in datacentres as a priority, analyst firm IDC has warned.

The research firm thinks workloads will increase by 750 per cent in the next four years and this will put immense strain on existing infrastructure.

Rick Villars, vice president, datacentre and cloud at IDC, said: "Equal, or even greater, investments in the IoT platform services residing in the datacenter will be instrumental in delivering the IoT promise of anytime, anywhere, anyhow connectivity and context.

"Given the number of devices connected and the amount of data generated, businesses must focus on their IoT service platform requirements at the level of the datacenter itself, not just the individual servers or storage devices."

Additionally, IDC said in its Impact of Internet of Things on Datacentre Demand and Operations study that all this extra data will need to be analysed, placing analytics at the heart of hyperscale datacentres.

As the IoT emerges as the leading driver of new compute/storage deployments, enterprises and service providers are most are likely to feel the burden of establishing new ways of managing devices and the data the IoT will generate.

However, IDC thinks service providers will adopt IoT technologies and services to better monitor and manage their own datacentre assets, providing a great opportunity for the sector.

In January, Ofcom and the government announced they would develop guidelines to regulate the IoT. The two think the number of devices classed as IoT will carry out more than a billion transactions every day by 2022.

Working together, they are attempting to address other concerns caused by this influx of new devices, including freeing up spectrum on which they can operate.

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