Month: September 2018

Beacon Technology

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Beacon is the fast-growing technology in today’s digitized world. This brings the enterprise nearer to the consumers. This helps the organizations improve their business and services. Beacon technology is applied to a wide variety of industries both retail and service. Beacon platform will improve the customer relationship management since it is directly in touch with the consumer.

Beacons are lighthouse: Yes, a lighthouse acts as a navigator to the sailor. A beacon does the same, with the new technology for various purposes. We will also look in too few examples where Beacons come in to picture, at the end of this article. That might help to understand the clear usage of this Technology. It is a small device that connects with consumers via Bluetooth technology.

Today digital shopping has become a preferred one for many. But still, many shoppers do believe in visiting outlets. Beacons bring in good deals for these set of people.so this way the consumer is happy and retailer increases his business. Thanks to modern technology which makes our life simpler and easier.

Also Read: AI/ML in Healthcare – How it is Turning Out to be the Great Savior?

How Beacon works

Beacons are a tiny device which is almost the size of a router. It is used to transmit small data within indoors and outdoors as well. But it is widely used in indoor location technology. Data is transmitted via Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) up to 50 meters. Hence it is mainly applied to indoor locations.

Beacons are fixed in the shopping mall or any retail outlet, which emits data via BLE. Beacon devices are powered by batteries and can be plugged into the USB port. The constant power supply is not consumed by this device. Apart from these standalone Beacon, other devices such as a smartphone, personal computers and tablets can be a Beacon. Provided that these devices should support BLE in order to send and receive Beacon signals.

When a consumer pass by the outlet where a Beacon device is installed, he or she gets a signal or data regarding the outlet. These signals could be like any promotional data of its product in order to attract the consumer’s attention.so this Beacon acts a digital marketing strategy for his business. All the Beacon will have a unique ID which is registered in the dedicated application. When this ID is sent from the Beacon, a smartphone recognizes the ID. Then the information is communicated.

A Beacon mobile application is known as

  • iBeacon App (Apple) – Announced by Apple in December 2013,a mobile application that supports Beacon technology and supported by Apple’s ios.
  • Eddystone (Google) – Announced by Google in July 2015, whichsupports the Beacon standard on the Android mobile phones.

What is Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE)

Beacon depends on this Bluetooth Low energy technology. Unlike the regular Bluetooth technology which is used in many devices, this Low Energy Bluetooth consumes less power within a limited range and transfer a small amount of data. Data are transmitted at regular intervals. Amount of data transferred are limited.

Other Technologies

Apart from Bluetooth technology, there are other technologies which are used for wireless communication.

  • Combined Technologies : Many Beacon makers use multiple protocols for communication rather than applying a single protocol.
  • Wi-fi Aware : Wi-fi Aware is an upcoming wireless communication Protocol.Wi-fi enabled devices can send and receive data using wireless connections.The communication is done through internal Wi-fi networks.No mobile data or the Internet will be used in this communication.It is very easy to send and receive data.
  • Ultrasound : Ultrasound signal wavelengthhas a short reach.It is basically an indoor positioning system. Compared to wireless communication ultrasound have limited distance.It is best suited for closed environments.Ultrasound signals use microphone sensors for transmission.

User Privacy

Beacon is completely safe and secure.BLE technology in Beacon signals only the users within the store or range and delivers the data to the smartphone of the users. Beacons are authenticated and users have the leverage to change the permissions whereas not in RFID(radio-frequency identification) technology. Beacons are not tracking a user. It just broadcasts the signal in a predefined area of operation.

A Real Life example of Beacon

To use Beacon a Retailer needs:

  • Beacon device installed in the store
  • Mobile application
  • Consumer authentication
  • Information to be signaled

Shopping with benefits

When a user steps into a mall or an outlet, the Beacon detects the user smartphone via BLE technology. Next step, if the user is authenticated it sends the information regarding the retail store, which could be anything like offers, freebies, sale or any promotional activity. This information is received by the user via an app of the retail store or any other third party app.

How is retailer benefited

Consumers get tempted or attracted by these messages and check in to the store. This, in turn, increases the business of the retailer and eases out the shopping of the user with the benefits offered by the store. This also helps the retailer in saving the extra cost of an advertisement in print media. The present retail industry is highly benefited by this technology.

Application of Bluetooth Beacon Technology

Bluetooth Beacon technology is applied in various industries and not confined to only retail. Many industries are being benefitted by Beacon. Beacon plays the main role in the service-based organization. Technology has taken the next level in the business. This is really a boon to improve their turnover and customer relation. Here we look into some example where the Beacon Technology is applied

  • Hospitality :
    Gone are the days we used the keys to unlock the hotel room. Today with Beacon in place the keys are replaced by the smartphone app. With Beacon technology, one can enter and exit the room using a smartphone. Apart from this it can also act as a navigator inside the premises and get the user to the desired location. This will help the hotel to maintain a good customer relationship and gain their hotel ratings.
  • Hospitals :
    Safety of patients is one of the key responsibility of Hospitals. Beacon used here is for tracking the patients. Here smartphones are replaced by a tracking device. This tracking device needs to be worn by the in-patients all the time so their movement is always under supervision. This will also enhance the security of the Hospital. Beacon technology here will not only track patients but can also track the movements of the equipment. Hospitals can save a lot of money and manpower and in turn save cost to the management.
  • Banks :
    We do visit banks and stand in queue for our turn. That’s a time-consuming task. So herewith Beacon, this can be very easily handled. With Beacon in the bank and smartphone in our hand queue could be avoided with simple a signal which carries information of our queue status. So that’s it no more waiting for your turn in the queue. This will help the bank to work more smartly and effectively increase the customer service quotient.
  • Train Stations :
    When we land up in a huge station in an unknown place we are likely to lose the way.so the Train station app and the Beacon will help us to find a solution. The Beacon will detect the smartphone and the desired signal sent will navigate us in the right direction. This will give us a stress-free travel.
  • Theme Parks :
    Beacon technology can be also used in Theme parks. This will make way for ticketless rides with just a swipe of the Beacon device. It reduces the human intervention in many locations which results in the reduction of manpower cost. This will also ease the mobility & will make the park more technology savvy and less human-dependent.
  • Airports :
    This technology in the airports is helping to reshape passenger experiences. Leading airports across the globe have already used this Beacon technology for various purposes. This will improvise the airport operations. The Beacons in the airport sends retail and promotional in formations to the passengers. Beacon also facilitates fast access to the security at the airport for gold member. some of the airports where Beacon in place are Miami International Airport, Hong Kong International Airport, Hamad International Airport, GVK Airport Mumbai and Tokyo Airport.

Other spaces where Beacon technology can be used are Offices and Events. Beacon technology is used in various ways to ease out the difficult process or increase the business. Today Beacon comes in various types like

  • Small Beacons
  • USB Beacons
  • Standard Beacons
  • Parent Beacons
  • Special Beacons

Beacon will be the future technology connecting consumers with products and service providers in a seamless way in a more effective way. This technology will find its presence in more and more industries in the coming era.

Industry 4.0 and Internet of Things

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Technology is never limited nor is it going to end up someday. I remember the birth of steam and how that was a revolution of time, the machines when just started to work for the first time which was a noteworthy contribution by our ancestors. Electricity was just to born and the second revolution was in line, the birth took place which was more than a contribution to our industrial era. Still, this wasn’t the limitation something was yet to get introduced and the third era blown up with Computers and beginning of automation.

As mentioned above it was not the limitation, something still was to get introduced and we came up with industry 4.0. This is the time where computer and automation are going to meet up in a different way. With a very less human input, we are going to connect robotics with the advancement of machine learning algorithms.

Also Read: From SAGE to SAP Business One: Why and how to Migrate?

Industry 4.0 is really smart, where the virtual and physical world is going to meet. The Internet of things is going to communicate with humans and the wireless web. Industries will become increasingly automated and self-monitoring as the machines within are given the ability to analyze and communicate with each other and the human, allowing companies much easier processes that would let them focus on other work.

Industry 4.0 isn’t just a technology but an advancement to achieve the accuracy in results which weren’t possible an ago decade. This really smart would take information and communication technology for an evolution in the supply chain and production that brings a much higher level of both automation and digitization.

Industry 4.0 isn’t just for the results but it can also handle various working environments which concern about human safety and health. Supply chains could be more effectively controlled when there is data at every level of the manufacturing and delivery process. Manufacturing industries are equally interested in investing here in terms of every aspect which is going to take the business discipline to the next level.

Manufacturing industries of all sizes to gain easy and affordable access to modeling and analytical technologies that can be customized to meet their needs. This is also something for higher productivity and cost reductions from using real-time data. This can also be another area where technologies of the future will have an effect and make sure that things are at optimum efficiency.

Now as industry 4.0 is been introduced how faster industries are going to adapt it. It is the best technical representation of big data, IoT and Machine learning. The physical to a digital intersection, so embracing the 4.0 shouldn’t be a problem. According to reports, the USA has already started itself for 4.0 revolutions. Many manufacturing industries are into the adaptation of 4.0 so hoping very soon it is going to cover the industry.

Azure Migration Strategy

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Many Organizations are moving to the cloud for the development of their infrastructure. Yeah, cloud as cost-effective means to develop, deploy and manage their infrastructure. A Cloud platform provides many advantages such as higher efficiency, greater flexibility, lower costs and superior performance of applications. Yeah, I’m talking about Microsoft Azure it is the one such Cloud platform that offers security, reliability & scalability to an Organization.

Microsoft Azure provides a range of cloud services, including those for computing, analytics, storage and networking. We can pick and choose from these services to develop and scale new applications, or run existing applications, in the public cloud. It is best for hosting collaboration systems, running big data applications, and migrating on-premise infrastructure.

Also read: Simplifying IoT Solutions for Enterprises: The Stupendous Power of Azure IoT Central

Microsoft Azure also offers to use the latest technologies that add the greatest value to a business. Are you planning to push an existing infrastructure to the cloud, migrating legacy applications, or deploying business-critical applications on Azure, if yes then one needs to carefully plan a migration strategy that best fits their specific requirements.

Let’s see to quick steps,

Ascertain

For Azure Migration, you need to catalog your software and workloads as the first step, documentation of all inventory, assessment of applications and workflow related to each data entity should be done. If it is just about the infrastructure that needs to be done, then catalog the workloads.

Assess

The next step is to start with a custom, simple assessment to categorize the applications and workloads and you will get to know the exact amount of work required. There are few tools like Microsoft’s Virtual Machine Readiness Assessment Tool and Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) toolkit that can help in the assessment. This will lead to effort and time savings, thus it needle also helps in avoiding frustration and costly resource consumption.

Also Read: Planning Hybrid, Multicloud, and Edge Cloud Strategy With Azure: Why and How?

Target

Classifying the destination of workloads will make it easy and decrease efforts and in this step speed, ease of migration, cost and desired functionality, virtual machines and operating system are considered.

Migrate

So this is an important step to make the actual move after following all the steps. Microsoft Azure handles infrastructure such as servers, storage, networking, and virtual machines and managing their operations after migrating as well. An Organization can start with a simple application which can be divided into components to migrate to the Azure environment. After testing a single component thoroughly, we can move. This is done until all the components or workloads are migrated to Azure. This helps in ensuring minimal to zero application/user disturbance and 100% availability of the migrated application.

These are important highlights that simplify the complexity involved in an Azure migration. There are many companies adopting the highly secure, reliable and cost-effective Azure platform to manage their solutions effectively. Hence it also adds benefits to infra by cost-cutting and gaining a great profit.

Also read: Microsoft Azure Logic Apps: Everything a Business Needs to Know

Technology has the solution

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I won’t be very much surprised when I would say this but are we really devoting much of our time, money or energy on our vehicles.

After our houses, a car is the costliest thing where we like to invest our money in and that to which idly decreases as soon as we get them off road from the showroom. No, not just the money but these motors also don’t allow us to breathe fresh air. Yes, I mean by polluting them and at the end of the journey they are with nothing but space we call parking. Let me tell you I’m not forgetting about the benefits too that is transportation but aren’t these problems really a dilemma.

I’m not forgetting the brighter sides of vehicles but still, we can’t even ignore the darker ones which are slowly turning into the darkest. The darkest part holds accidents, traffic, pollution, etc and the list goes on. If I’m not mistaken I had heard from the very known source Internet that almost 3000 to 3500 of us are been killed by every single day of the year.

Future has a solution

I think as we are working for everything around us together we can sort this out. Talking about global challenges like Traffic and pollution, Smart future societies will exploit data and technologies to mitigate the negative impacts of our need for mobility while also making personal transport more convenient and reliable.

We can easily get the indication from the giant ventures like Uber, lyft, and more such mode of transportation on how are they working. The traditional automotive industry, as well as technology companies, are working in a different pattern for transport.

The future is going to be about electric vehicles which mean a lot of data will be rolling out for the communication. Artificial Intelligence will be ready to use data and make them much smarter on how to use. There would be a drastic change in congestion which may take us towards more safety, yes computers don’t get distracted as humans do at least up to a certainty they don’t.

Steps we can take

We really need to understand the current situation, forecasting on what may happen next, contemplating the safety measures for drivers as well as passengers. The key to all is data. We have to embrace the digital technology and the data with that. Understanding not just about the drones and uber but the data system and digital transformation to support more effective traffic management, transport sharing, maintenance, and safety.

When I got to know about the Nanjing City, I mean how beautifully they are managing to cope up with traffic management by Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) worked with SAP on an IoT and Big Data program, developing a next-generation smart traffic system that includes the use of sensors, cameras and radio-frequency identification (RFID) chips to generate continuous data streams about the status of transportation systems across the city.

Real-time data access will actually help the cities to work more on traffic congestion and human mobility. I’m sure we are going to move ahead with flying cars as well, still, we have a much to do with the data and powerful technology tools available to us to improve the experience for commuters and citizens too.