How internet changed our life

How Smartphones and Mobile Internet Have Changed Our Lives

Posted Jan 12th, 2016

20 years ago there weren’t any smartphones and since then a lot of things have changed. Now we can’t even remember the last time we actually didn’t use our smartphone for a whole day. Mobile smart devices and mobile internet are changing the way we do things and how we connect with other people. Let’s have a closer look at how smart devices really affect our everyday life.

Internet and mobile internet

3.2 billion people are now using the internet, 2 billion of which are in developing countries. The global mobile broadband market is highly dynamic: market penetration increased 12 times since 2007.

As we see everyday, the world is evolving and changing constantly, especially in the tech department: 8 years ago, there weren’t even smart devices for us to use. Back then we didn’t even imagine using devices like smartphones or tablets. Now we can’t imagine living without them.

The use of mobile data has grown more than exponentially in the last 5 years. By the end of 2010 mobile data was twice as much as voice data. From the beginning of 2014 to the beginning of 2015, mobile data usage has grown 55%, a data report from Ericsson states.

There are now nearly more mobile-cellular telephone subscription (around 7 billion), than people in the world. That tells us that the people who have access to mobile internet do access the internet with more than just one mobile device.

How much time do we spend looking at our smartphones?

The average time we spend on our mobile devices daily is 3 hours and 40 minutes and that amount of time does not include the time we spend doing actual phone calls.

According to a Flurry Analitics research, 90% percent of the time we spend on our mobile devices we spend within apps. Out of 1.8 million apps that can be found in the Google Play Store (November 2015) and 1.5 million on the Apple App Store (June 2015), the average user has just 36 apps istalled, but only 26% of all installed apps are used daily.

25% of installed mobile apps have been used only once by the device owner in the first six month of ownership, as the graphic below shows.

Information we cannot acquire through installed apps, we look up in the mobile web through, guess what? A browser app.

How important is your smartphone?

According to the participants who took part in this survey conducted by the Bank of America, they couldn’t last a day without their smartphones.

91% say that their smartphone is very important and for 60% it is even more important than coffee.

For 96% of Millenials (people aged 18-24) the smartphone is very important and for 93% it is definitely more important than deodorant and for 93% more then the toothbrush.

We check our mobile devices every 6.5 minutes

So what is the best way to reach people? Through their mobile devices.

Does it mean that your company needs to be mobile friendly? Absolutely yes.

Don’t forget to check back for our next blogpost “Mobile App or Mobile-friendly Website?” in which we’ll discuss important choices for your business’ online presence: websites with a responsive design and mobile apps.

10 Ways Internet Has Changed The Way We Live

The Internet has become an integral part of our life, so much so we hardly spend a day without accessing it in some way or the other. In the past 20 odd years, the internet has transformed the world to such an extent that we take so many things, which were virtually impossible, for granted. So how has the internet changed our lives really?

Here is our list of the top 10 ways the Internet has changed our lives for good.

Instant access to Information:

Today the first place anyone turns to for information is the internet Not long ago people had to turn to their own books, their friends or the local library for information. Today, Information is freely available at the click of a button. There is hardly a question the omnipotent Google cannot answer.

It’s a small world out there:

From telephones and letters, we have moved on to social networks and online communities. Thanks to the internet, we are today able to communicate and befriend total strangers. We make friends online, whom we would not even have seen. Yes, face-to-face communication and bonding are still important, but distance is no longer a barrier for a relationship.

Shopping, without the hassles:

Planning to buy the new 4k resolution TV? Or maybe a new bed, or planning a new wardrobe? You no longer have to step out of your home to buy what you desire. From the comfort of your armchair, you can order almost anything. You also get to compare prices from several online portals as well.

Never get lost:

Earlier visiting a new place or finding an address used to be a big challenge.

Today aided navigation is possible thanks to the mobile internet service. Now you will never get lost thanks to the ever-advancing navigation technology.

Your Laptop or the phone is your bank:

Earlier everyone had to visit their bank for even the most simple of transactions. Not anymore. Everything you can do at the bank barring physical withdrawal of cash, can be done any place that has internet access.

Entertainment Unlimited:

For movie buffs or music aficionados finding their favorite music or movie is no longer a difficult task. Anything and everything you want in entertainment is all available at one place. Maybe you are looking for the perfect action game? Again, the internet offers you a plethora of choices.

Work from Home:

Thanks to availability of high-speed internet, more and more companies are offering their workers the option to work from home. This is beneficial to both as the employee gets to work from work while the company gets to reduce overheads.

Explore the World:

Travel used to be an adventure, with people visiting strange lands with only a rudimentary knowledge of what to expect. Today you can plan your travel to the minutest detail thanks to the internet. From flight bookings to hotel rooms to guided tours, ask for anything and you get it.

Health awareness:

Today every person you talk to is a doctor, or so it seems. There is so much of information about health on the internet, that you can observe your symptoms and come to a broad understanding of what is ailing you. But self-diagnosis is dangerous. However, the internet also offers N number of ways to stay healthy and fit.

Changing Marketing Strategies:

With so much change in lifestyle by internet, marketing too has seen a sea of change.

Unlike mass marketing where everything was thrown at everyone, modern marketing companies are devising and executing strategies that target specific audiences with messages that will appeal to them.

9 Ways the Internet Will Change Your Life in 2025, for Better and Worse

In honor of the 25th birthday of the World Wide Web, the Pew Research Center recruits more than 2,000 experts try to predict what the Web—and life—will look like some 10 years out.

Happy Birthday, World Wide Web.

Twenty-five years ago today, Tim Berners-Lee (now Sir Berners-Lee) wrote a paper describing an information-management system that we would later know as the World Wide Web. Berners-Lee released the code to make his system real on Christmas Day, 1990.

The rest, as they say, is history. To mark the Web’s 25th birthday, the Pew Research Center has been conducting a series of research projects to better understand impact of the Web and to try to predict and prepare for its future. In collaboration with Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Project, Pew asked 2,558 handpicked experts—folks such as Hal Varian, danah boyd, Vint Cerf, and Marc Rotenberg—to describe what the Web will look like, and how we’ll be interacting with it, in 2025. Pew then grouped those answers into «theses,» some more positive than others.

Here are nine of the report’s predictions for 2025:

1. There will be added awareness of our world and our own behavior.

For this, we’ll have the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and big data to thank. This awareness won’t be limited to ourselves, though. We’ll have similar insights into other people as well. As Judith Donath, a fellow at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, writes: «We’ll have a picture of how someone has spent their time, the depth of their commitment to their hobbies, causes, friends, and family. This will change how we think about people, how we establish trust, how we negotiate change, failure, and success.»

2. Information sharing will be so enmeshed in our daily lives that we mostly won’t even notice it.

By 2025, the Internet will become akin to electrical service or another utility. Says Joe Touch, director at the University of Southern California’s Information Sciences Institute: «We won’t think about ‘going online’ or ‘looking on the Internet’ for something—we’ll just be online, and just look.»

3. Wearable devices will transform health care delivery.

Wearable devices will give us not just early detection of disease but early detection of the very risk for disease. That will help us make lifestyle changes not only day-to-day but hour-by-hour, «magnifying the effectiveness of an ever more understaffed medical delivery system,» says Aron Roberts, a software developer at the University of California-Berkeley.

4. Governments may lose control.

The Internet enables more people in the developing world to become more aware of disparities in access to health care, education, water, and human rights, and for everyone to become more aware of the cost of manipulative governments. The result will be more peaceful changes but also more public uprisings such as the Arab Spring. «Nations» of those with shared interests will become increasingly difficult for formal governments to control—but we can expect them to try mightily, with new regulations and increased monitoring.

5. The Internet will become (more) fragmented.

In a line that sounds right out of a 1980s science-fiction novel, David Brin, an author and futurist, predicts: «There will be many Internets. Mesh networks will self-form and we’ll deputize sub-selves to dwell in many places.» If you have a «work persona» on LinkedIn and use Facebook mostly to communicate with your relatives, you already know what Brin is talking about.

6. Education will be available to all.

A singularly sunny prediction about the effects of universal access to education is represented in the report by a quote from Hal Varian, now Google’s chief economist. «The smartest person in the world currently could well be stuck behind a plow in India or China. Enabling that person—and the millions like him or her—will have a profound impact on the development of the human race.»

7. Gaps between the haves and the have-nots may expand, leading to violence.

Oscar Gandy, an emeritus professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School, predicts «growing inequality enabled and amplified by means of networked transactions that benefit smaller and smaller segments of the global population.» Social media makes it easier for people to share their frustrations; it also makes it easier for people to challenge the status quo—not necessarily peaceably.

8. The bad guys will have new tools to make life miserable for everyone else.

Privacy and confidentiality will become things of the past (see below). As the world becomes less safe, terrorism and cyber-terrorism may become daily occurrences. Dirty tricks over social media may become more influential in political campaigns. As one antispam expert commented: «Abusers evolve and scale far more than regular Internet users.»

9. Say good-bye to privacy.

By 2025, only the relatively well-educated and affluent will have the ability to maintain their privacy. Whether they will choose to do so remains to be seen.

The report closes on a positive note, sharing a reminder voiced by many of the experts who were consulted: The best way to predict the future is to invent it. Robert Cannon, an Internet law and policy expert, writes: «The good news is that the technology that promises to turn our world on its head is also the technology with which we can build our new world. If offers an unbridled ability to collaborate, share, and interact. It is a very good time to start inventing the future.»

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How the Internet has changed our lives

How has the Internet changed your life?: (Gene in his all-too-natural habitat.)

So, tell us: How has the Internet changed your life? Leave a comment.

Your Comments, Thoughts, Questions, Ideas

Oh boy, I’m with Gene. I spend way too much time surfing the Web. We have four computers operating currently in the house. My «home office» has spilled out onto the dining room table where I currently keep my laptop (there’s no more room on my desk). But it doesn’t necessarily stay there. We’re wireless and so I can take the laptop anywhere in the house, and probably out to the front or back yards.

I don’t think I could function without the Internet. I use the Web for just about everything: working, paying bills, transferring funds, ordering and paying for merchandise, paying taxes, student loans for my kids (FAFSA), entering festivals or contests, sending samples of work (or links to them), communicating, forwarding jokes, photos and videos, downloading music, etc.

I’ve always loved getting mail so email (mostly junk) feeds into that addiction.

Back in 1999, I created an informational website relating to some of Duluth, MN’s history. This seemed just a natural (and modern) way to further disseminate the research I had originally gathered for a couple of magazine articles I published in the 1990s. I still get hundreds of hits each day on these sites. According to my usage reports, visitors from something like 75 different countries visited the site last month. The site also links back to my “home page” where visitors can access other work samples (photography/video) I have posted. I don’t have a MySpace page, but I do have a Web presence on MNartists.org, which has been a great place to post my work. Some childhood friends and I also keep in touch through a blog site we set up about four years ago. We meet for lunch about one day a month, and the site serves as an easy way to post information and also give each other a hard time. We’ve kept it as a private blog rather than public, so participants have to be invited.

I’m a collector of sorts and have bought and sold a lot of stuff on eBay. I went through a silent movie memorabilia phase for a decade, then NASA Apollo-era stuff, vintage photography, and now mostly historical paleontology material (engravings, books and some early toys, etc). eBay has been a tremendous source for collectibles. It does tend to send prices soaring but that’s either good or bad depending on if you’re selling or buying.

The problem with having all this presence on the Web is two-fold. It’s a lot of work keeping websites up to date. The original software I used to create my personal and information sites is outdated and doesn’t recognize new file types, plus I can’t run the program on my current system software, so I have to use one of my older computers, or else find and learn a new program to do it. It’s a lot of work and expense keeping up with it all, and the thought of dealing with it doesn’t appeal to me so I tend to just leave things as they are.

The other big problem is remembering passwords and web ids. It is a major problem, and it’s beginning to drive me crazy. How is one to keep track of them all? I haven’t quite figured that out. My system software has an application for storing and keeping track of that kind of thing but just last week for some unknown reason, my computer ditched just about all of it. I don’t know why. Luckily, I still had a document elsewhere containing the information but what if I hadn’t? It would have been a nightmare. But where do you store back-up files and documents? My wife and I purchased a safety deposit box last year to store backups of that kind of stuff but with bank mergers, and new credit card companies, and revamping of existing websites, our id/password information seems to change on a regular basis. We’d be running to the bank all the time. I used to use one particular password, but at one point, someone breached my identity on eBay, and I had to change it for all sites in fear someone would use it on some of my other accounts. Then once you change an id or password, it usually can’t be used again on that particular site, so eventually you end up with a boatload of different identities and passwords. It’s really a dilemma.

How the Internet of Things will change our lives

Information technology

Transport

The Internet of Things (IoT) has the power to change our world. And while we are starting to see its incredible impact, we are still very much at the beginning of the transformational journey. Here’s a look into the current state of affairs in the race to standardize IoT, along with what people are saying about it.

Soon every device you own – and nearly every object you can imagine – will be connected to the Internet. Whether it’s through your phone, wearable tech or everyday household objects, the Internet of Things (IoT) will connect us in ways we can’t even imagine yet.

Your thermostat, alarm system, smoke detector, doorbell and refrigerator may already be “networked”, but changes are starting to take root in our cities as well. Better management of energy, water, transportation and safety are bringing people in closer touch with their surroundings and capturing our imaginations for urban bliss – a fully integrated, smart, sustainable city. Last but not least, we’re seeing dramatic increases in activity and innovation on the factory front, where the potential for cyber-physical systems to improve productivity in the production process is vast.

As you can imagine, life in ten years will look materially different from how it looks in 2016 as the pace of technology change accelerates, thanks in large part to the coming boom of the Internet of Things. In some ways, IoT still feels like empty tech jargon. It’s hard to lump all these different, disparate things together and talk about them in a meaningful way. So, in an attempt to make sense of this emerging technology, let’s look at what plans are afoot to build an IoT future.

Paradigm shift in technology

Technology consulting firm Gartner, Inc. projects that 6.4 billion connected things will be in use worldwide this year, up 30 % from last year. And this number is expected to grow by more than three times to nearly 21 billion by the year 2020.

Over half of major new business processes and systems will incorporate some element of IoT by 2020, assures Gartner. The impact on consumers’ lives and corporate business models is rapidly increasing as the cost of “instrumenting” physical things with sensors and connecting them to other things – devices, systems and people – continues to drop.

Futurist and technologist Chuck Evanhoe, who has spoken extensively about IoT, explains the precipitation of devices connected to the Internet and each other: “IoT will be a tremendous enabler of better information in both the consumer and business environments. I believe that the impact of IoT will be across the board. All of the systems that we don’t think about in our day-to-day life will be more effective in keeping humans productive so the impact won’t be in just one area.”

While flashy applications to consumer technologies understandably generate the most media buzz, there is more to IoT than merely everyday life situations and communications. Networked devices perhaps hold the most promise to cut costs and raise efficiency in production and manufacturing, offering not only to make their management more effective but the work itself smarter.

Evanhoe lists the multiple benefits: “From ‘Smart Appliances’ to the ‘Smart Factory’, we will have better information, more control and insight into the everyday things that we need to function, both known and unknown. By unknown, I refer to things most people don’t think about until they become a problem, such as the power grid. By sensing the things in our world, systems will be better able to keep running without human intervention until something needs or will need, e.g. predictive maintenance, our intervention.”

Welcome to Industry 4.0

Around the world, traditional manufacturing industry is also in the midst of a major change, marking the dawn of smart manufacturing or Industry 4.0. Every day, technologies based on IoT make factories smarter, safer and more environmentally sustainable. IoT connects the factory to a whole new range of smart manufacturing solutions, which run around the production. The dramatic improvements to production and cost reduction are projected to generate billions in revenue growth and productivity over the next decade. The transformation that it implies is huge.

IoT gives manufacturers the ability to track objects, to find out how consumers are using a certain product, and to determine which features are the prominent ones. This creates a better understanding of what adjustments should be made to the product(s) to help improve adoption and purchasing rates. Knowing what the users do with the product is something brands want to leverage and IoT makes that readily available.

According to a global survey released by Gartner earlier this year, adoption of IoT is expected to reach 43 % of enterprises by the end of this year, with the heaviest users including companies in the oil, gas, utilities and manufacturing industries.

IoT, for example, promises to bring to the automotive industry changes that we can’t predict yet and is already influencing how carmakers build their vehicles and how they think of the future of their products.

Igor Demay, Chair of ISO/TC 22, Road vehicles, explains: “IoT in the automotive industry appeared around the beginning of the 21st century, with navigation systems changing dramatically the relationship between the driver and the vehicle. We are now in the second period with ‘mirror devices’ such as mobile phones or portable navigation units known as nomadic devices, whose screens are used by car owners or drivers while driving their vehicles.”

That influence is only going to deepen as more connected cars come online and as consumers continue to demand more technology in their vehicles. “The third step,” says Demay, “will consist of all advanced driver-assistance systems and automated driving solutions.” So while IoT solutions are part of the industry’s future, the challenges that lie ahead are mountainous as the levels of sophistication continue to grow.

Biggest challenge

As with any new technology, IoT can be confusing and intimidating, especially as debates swirl around standardization. Currently, the biggest problem facing IoT is the lack of consistent standards.

While some layers of the IoT technology stack have no standards, others have numerous competing standards with no obvious winner. Without a “common communication method”, devices will only be able to talk to their own brands and severely limit the helpfulness of connected machines.

To understand how a lack of uniform standards can complicate product development and industry growth, consider connectivity issues. For example, if a company that develops smart clothing is different from a company that develops smart home technology, the chances of their products communicating are minimal. That’s because different devices will often use different communications protocols, resulting in a lack of interoperability and an experience that’s far from seamless for customers. However, if the two companies used the same standard for connectivity, interoperability would be much more likely.

It’s no wonder, therefore, that IoT is a hot topic in the standards community. ISO/IEC joint technical committee JTC 1 formed a working group on the Internet of Things (WG 10) to develop an architectural model for the interoperability of IoT systems. Many of the standards that are needed probably exist, but their relative importance, deployment and application are not yet clear.

To address the situation, ISO established a Strategic Advisory Group (SAG) on Industry 4.0. Its Chair, Kai Rannenberg, believes network connectivity that enables these objects to collect and exchange data is key. “The IoT opens great opportunities and unforeseen applications, but can also create major risks, e.g. when data collection is exaggerated, or when devices connected to the Internet were not designed to handle this challenge.”

Rannenberg sees standards leveraging IoT technologies to create more efficient, responsive make-to-order systems. “There will be interfaces, interfaces and more interfaces. Standards are needed to avoid interfaces becoming bottlenecks for bringing products to market. And there is certainly a big role for standards on the architectural design of Industry 4.0/smart manufacturing to coordinate workflows and processes.”

For Rannenberg and others, the culmination of the SAG’s work is a set of standards ensuring that every device connected to the Internet will be able to seamlessly talk to each other – no matter the chip, operating system or maker of the device.

Collaborating and sharing

Although multiple organizations, including interest groups and industry consortia, are attempting to establish standards, ISO has its eyes set on collaborative efforts. Earlier this year, ISO, IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) and ITU (International Telecommunications Union) organized a joint workshop on standards for IoT in Berlin, Germany. The event was hosted by the German Institute for Standardization (DIN), the ISO member for the country, and led by ISO/IEC JTC 1. The aim was to share experience and gain insights on ongoing standardization activities in the area of IoT among the three organizations.

Demonstration of the new Saeco application which controls the bluetooth coffee machine on an Apple Iphone 6 Plus.

Speakers from various sectors shared their expectations of IoT and how it could impact their area of activity. Several use cases were presented, addressing applications such as smart grids, intelligent manufacturing, supply chain management and wearable smart devices. Global challenges such as energy conservation, smarter cities and improved healthcare were also discussed as concrete examples where IoT can have a significant transformational role. The workshop also examined issues transversal to the different application domains of IoT, such as data privacy and security, and reference architectures. Progress of related standardization is critical for the large-scale adoption of IoT technologies and solutions.

The workshop concluded that International Standards are of great importance to build a global market for safe, energy-efficient and interoperable IoT devices and systems. Panellists concurred that expanding the existing collaboration between the three international standards organizations is vital for accelerating the successful deployment of IoT.

Ultimately, it’s likely that more than one collaborative effort will be needed before the state of standards flux settles. No doubt we’ll see many more joint efforts to make standards compatible. As a practical matter, though, this pending work will come about in an evolutionary fashion. The experts seem hopeful that we’ll start to see a shake-out in 2017 or so – stay tuned.

Going beyond connectivity

Rapid changes in IoT technology make it challenging for even the most experienced experts to anticipate the future of standardization in the field. What is certain, however, is that the possibilities will be limitless.

Evanhoe, as a futurist, understands the current trends of technology and predicts where they are headed. “The convergence is inevitable,” he says. “IoT goes beyond connected devices, i.e. things with an IP address; all of the automatic identification technologies, including RFID and bar codes, enable IoT by helping to identify the ‘things’ in IoT so it’s all of this working together to enable IoT and its benefits.”

Whether it’s through your phone, wearable tech or everyday household objects, IoT will connect us in ways we can’t even imagine yet. So, if you are looking to hitch your wagon to a rising tide, grab the coat-tails of the coming IoT standards tidal wave and hang on for the ride of your life.