A new report from research firm Kaleido Insights proposes that two of hottest new technologies — The Internet of Things (IoT) and blockchain — would make a really hot couple.
In IoT, wirelessly connected sensors are embedded in almost everything — refrigerators, auto parts, dog collars, perhaps even cereal boxes.
On the one hand, this means everything can be tracked, inventory-managed and made selectively accessible through a continual stream of signals. This flow of constantly talking objects and devices will help propel businesses away from a product-orientation (sell this car) to a service-orientation (sell the car, but maintain a connection with the car and the car owner).
On the other hand, it means that there is a continual stream of signals for as many as 10 billion connected devices and objects in the next four years, according to some estimates. Needless to say, that’s a huge amount of tracking to identify those Things, verify who owns them, authenticate their interaction with other Things and so on.
“The Internet of Trusted Things” report (free, registration required) proposes that blockchains — or other kinds of decentralized ledger technologies — could form the mechanism to monitor those oceans of signals.
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