Type of Article: MacTech Blog

Approximately 154 million homes in Europe and North America will be equipped with smart technology by 2021, according to M2M Research Services.

Smart homes and home automation are ambiguous terms used in reference to a wide range of solutions for controlling, monitoring and automating functions in the home. Berg Insight’s definition of a smart home system requires that it has a smartphone app or a web portal as a user interface.

The document management systems market is expected to reach $6.78 billion by 2023 from $3.59 billion in 2017, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.17%, according to Report Linker (www.reportlinker.com).

New data from Juniper Research (www.juniperresearch.com) has found that the development of smart grids linked to smart cities will result in citizens saving $14 billion per annum in energy bills by 2022. This is up from the $3.4 billion saving estimated for 2017, resulting from smart meter rollouts, energy-saving policies and sensing technology to improve grid reliability and efficiency.

Emotion artificial intelligence (AI) systems are becoming so sophisticated that Gartner (www.gartner.com) predicts that by 2022, personal devices will know more about an individual’s emotional state than his or her own family. AI is generating multiple disruptive forces that are reshaping the way we interact with personal technologies, adds the research group. 

While many Pennsylvanians found a new smartphone under the tree last month, Secretary of Banking and Securities Robin L. Wiessmann urges consumers to consider several strategies to protect their new smartphones from phony apps that can steal information, take over that new device, and wreak havoc on personal networks.