6th April, 2016
 
BEYOND THE IOT: The Internet of Experiences will change the way the world operates

In 2013, city officials in Melbourne, Australia, assigned ID numbers and email addresses to each of the city's more than 70,000 trees. Designers of the city's Urban Forest Strategy program intended for residents to use the addresses to report issues like disease or dangerous branches. However, residents did more than that: they began writing thousands of messages directly to the trees.

They have written heartfelt notes to individual trees to express their love and admiration, to share their memories and to express their gratitude for protection from the sun and carbon dioxide. Sometimes they ask the trees for their views on current events, or write simply to say hello or apologize for their dog's choice of a urinal.

Occasionally, officials respond to emails on behalf of the trees. One day soon, however, Melbourne's trees – fitted with an array of sensors and connected to low-cost wireless communications – could truly speak for themselves, sharing a wealth of data: temperature, humidity, noise levels, carbon dioxide concentrations, glucose levels and motion readings. Such data can be used to preserve and protect the health of urban forests, which play a vital role in improving air and water quality, reducing stormwater runoff, lowering urban ground temperatures, reducing energy use and mitigating greenhouse gas emissions.

Such is the power of the Internet of Things (IoT), a wave of innovation in which billions of everyday objects – not just trees, but trash cans, lampposts, parking spots, traffic signals, roadways, hospital equipment, appliances, manufacturing lines, crops in the field and much, much more – are being equipped with sensors, processors and communication devices to share valuable data across the Internet and, in some cases, to act on it.

At its most basic level, the IoT offers an affordable means to understand and manage real-world things from a distance while giving some things – a thermostat, for example – the data and capabilities they need to manage themselves. As the people of Melbourne have shown, however, once the things in the IoT are connected and given a voice, they become more than just "things." They become part of a living experience shaped by interactions among people, places and objects, among product, nature and life. They become contributors to what beckons just beyond the IoT: the Internet of Experiences.

THE INTERNET OF EXPERIENCES
 
While participants in the IoT tend to focus on "things" – the individual smart devices connected to a network – the Internet of Experiences aims higher, concentrating on what becomes possible when smart devices piggyback off one another’s capabilities to create experiences: innovative services that simplify and enhance daily life in ways never possible before. Enabling a tree, for example, to report, "I'm being attacked by caterpillars," which prompts a computer to dispatch a drone equipped to treat the situation. Or a highway to report, "I've reached my carrying capacity," which prompts the rerouting of automobiles onto alternate routes.

Such capabilities, however, only become possible when the maker of one device imagines, anticipates and virtually simulates how it can leverage the capabilities of devices made by others to improve the user’s experience. The trick, experience experts say, is to put the user at the center of the solution's reason for being, which is the essence of the Experience Economy.

"We have moved from a purely transaction-based, commodities economy to one based on goods, then services, and now experiences – meaningful experiences in a purpose-based economy," said Albert Boswijk, a co-author of Economy of Experiences and founder and managing director of the European Centre for the Experience and Transformation Economy. "The digitization of products and services is happening so fast that it’s difficult for us as human beings to make sense of it all. But, rest assured, this digital transformation will change the impact and depth of personal experience."
About EDS Technologies Pvt.Ltd.
 
EDS Technologies Pvt. Ltd. (EDST), established in 1995, is the largest PLM and Real-Time Visual Simulation solutions provider in India. EDST partnering with global leaders including Dassault Systemes, SAP, Presagis and VT-MAK provides CAD/ CAM/ CAE/ PLM/ ERP and 3D Visual simulation solutions, Training and on-site resources bringing in the most complete solution for any size and type of industry.

EDST's differentiation is its domain expertise, consultative approach and hands-on understanding of customer requirements required to drive successful implementations with world class training and technical support. With nearly two decades of experience, EDST has the largest customer base in the Indian market with more than 1000 customers from aerospace, automotive & supply chains, industrial machinery, high-tech and electronics, railways, infrastructure, consumer packaged goods, engineering service providers, defense, research and education sectors.
 
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