Shopping has changed a lot over the years from shopping online to wireless debit machines to credit card readers for smartphones and almost any kind of delivery that can be tracked. Did you ever wonder what would be next? Amazon designed and built a supermarket style store called Amazon Go that was created through advanced technology. The purpose of this store is to provide people a shopping experience without having to wait in check-out lines or be served by cashiers. Amazon Go was first launched for employees in December 2017 and opened up to the public in January 2018. If someone wants to shop at Amazon Go they first must have an Amazon account and the IPhone or Android app downloaded on their smartphones. This app is required to be downloaded for the customer to enter the store, as the customer enters the store they have to scan their smart phones to begin their shopping experience. Customers are provided with reusable shopping bags to use and leave with, there are no shopping carts or baskets for customers to use. The store is filled with many cameras along the ceilings that watch every move a customer makes. In addition to cameras, the shelves are equipped with weight sensors that sensor if an item has been removed from the shelf or put back. Every time a customer takes something off the shelf the item is charged to the customer’s account. The customer can always put something back on the shelf and it will be taken off their account. A customer can even return items after leaving the store. The store isn’t completely “staffless”, there are employees in the kitchen prepping fresh food, there are also employees around the store that restock and organize shelves to maintain the store. Another position that is still filled by humans in the store is checking IDs in the alcohol section. Once the customer is ready to leave all they have to do is walk out of the store. A few minutes after walking out of the store, the customer receives a digital receipt that shows the total of their bill. The Amazon Go app will also inform the customer with data on how much time they spent shopping.

With over 3000 Americans dying each year from food borne diseases and 128, 000 being hospitalized,  keeping the fresh food supply safe is an enormous challenge. Verizon Enterprise has taken the initiative to bring light to the issue of food safety, as well as the current technical and process challenges that continue to impact humans and our fresh food supply. The issue is so large, that to put it in pure economic terms, the USDA estimates the amount of food loss in the U.S. alone each year totals more than $161B.  And the industry simply accepts these losses as the cost of doing business. Verizon became involved in sensor and tracking technology a couple of years ago when they sat down with healthcare customer and asked them how they could help them be more efficient and effective with their business. They started to hear recurring themes in the pharmaceutical space about needing to be able to track in real time shipments of medicines that are compliant with the federal government regulations. They wanted to know the progress, the location, the temperature and a variety of other information that is required as they ship product around the US. They realized they were uniquely positioned to get involved with asset tracking in a bigger way. The soon translated these learnings from Pharma to food by talking to fisherman who were losing money because so many different people were involved with the farm-to-fork delivery of their product. Food quality is important, but if something happens to the fish during transit, the fishermen get blamed. Fishermen were looking for ways to protect the quality of what they deliver. Verizon understands the importance of tracking the temperature of fish from its catch to either the restaurant or retailer. Temperature control of fresh seafood (or any other perishable) is critically important for food safety. In fact, researchers have found that one of the largest challenges associated with food safety and food waste is related to controlling and monitoring the consistency of food temperatures throughout the cold chain.

Weather is one of the biggest influences in our lives. In the last few years, social media tools have become increasingly important in the communication of weather related warnings and forecasts.  Businesses with heightened access to detailed, relevant, real-time weather information are able to make more informed decisions which can significantly impact their bottom line and save lives. As the trend towards data analytics continues, the role of social media in the future of weather tracking will be notable.  In fact, many weather services claim that social media will be a key tool in helping track severe weather in the future.  Recent research completed by Warwick University in Britain found that certain words and photos on social media can act to predict extreme weather conditions before they actually occur.  According to Warwick, certain words on social media platforms like Flickr can signal weather risks developing in specific locations at specific times.  “Our analysis demonstrates that metadata in social media image postings enables them to be used as social sensors, which can serve as a valuable supplement to instrument-based systems for predicting and monitoring floods, and other kinds of natural hazards” said researcher, Nataliya Tkachenko of the Warwick Institute for the Science of Cities. The growth of the Internet of Things will have a positive impact on social media’s use with weather. For example, several U.S. States use a variety of sensors to provide real-time data on pavement conditions.  The sensors can determine “grip factor” which is a measurement of how slippery the road is.  The lower the grip factor, the more adverse the road conditions.  The conditions read by the sensors are monitored by the Transportation Management Center which is the nerve center for hundreds of plows and road crews around the state. Sensor data is tracked and used to communicate road conditions to drivers on the message boards along the highways.  In the future, such data from weather information systems could potentially be used  by self-driving vehicles to make navigation decisions. The Weather Company, an IBM Business, is the world’s largest private weather enterprise, helping people make informed decisions  and take action in the face of weather. The company offers the most accurate, personalized and actionable weather data and insights to millions of consumers, as well as thousands of marketers and businesses. In 2015, IBM announced the purchase of The Weather Company which included a large number of weather data collection points and consumer and business applications…. Read more »

Social media continues to change the way we experience the world, especially the way we shop and interact with brands. What does the future hold for the world of social media shopping? Behold, The Internet of Things. The future of everything is directly tied to the Internet and how fast it connects to people, places, and things. What is the IoT? Well, put simply, it’s the ability of anything to be connected to the Internet such as coffee makers, fridges, a FitBit or products in a store. All you have to do is use your imagination to see what possibilities lay before us. The Internet is completely unfettered now. In the past, you had to be physically wired to a screen in a fixed location to access the net. The advent of mobile technology changed all that, and you can access the internet anywhere, anytime, with an array of devices large and small.