Type of Article: MacTech Blog

iBeacons are fast becoming the foot soldiers of indoor location in retail, bringing awareness and adoption, but it is just one of over 10 indoor location technologies competing in this $5 billion space. A host of new, higher-accuracy, “infrastructure-free” technologies are forecast to change the face of and use case for indoor location in the future,” according to ABI Research (http://www.abiresearch.com).

While traditional safety telematics services such as eCall, bCall, stolen vehicle tracking, and diagnostics aimed at the physical protection of vehicles, drivers and passengers are becoming main stream, awareness is growing about the threat of cyber-attacks and their impact on the physical integrity of persons, especially with Vehicle-to-Vehicle communication and autonomous vehicles, according to ABI Research (www.abiresearch.com).

Despite continued growth of online video viewing on connected CE devices and excitement from new platforms like Google’s Chromecast and new consoles from Microsoft and Sony, annual increases in mobile online viewing (tablets and smartphones) are higher than any other category, according to ABI Research (http://www.abiresearch.com).

ABI Research (http://www.abiresearch.com) has forecast that a combination of memory and microcontroller smart cards alongside disposable ticketing solutions will reach shipments totaling 1.7 billion units in 2018.

The primary drivers include the increasing move to national standards and the enablement of NFC and open-loop payments. This trend is a consistent feature across all continents with particular progress within the UK, U.S., Australia, Germany, Turkey, and the BRIC countries forming a growth engine for future contactless ticketing adoption.