Well the wait is finally over and the first day is already done and dusted. It’s just like Dublin Bus. You wait for it for ages then it just flies past when it comes around. With that in mind, here’s what we took away from Web Summit: Day One.
Privacy versus Big Data
Last year was the Internet of Things and how the world is becoming more and more connected. With all this connectivity, we are producing an insane amount of data on a wide range of areas we’ve never had before. Standing in the way of progress and further data collection is how we protect these data sets.
@Goos3D_IE main sources concern: data privacy/protect, data & infrastructure security, algorithmic/anticipatory governance #smartcities
— Rob Kitchin (@RobKitchin) November 3, 2015
Within the coming years, this topic is likely to take centre stage in the tech world.
There we have it…he’s called it. @RobKitchin says protecting digital data will be the big subject over the next 5-10 years #websummit — Goos3D (@Goos3D_IE) November 3, 2015
The benefits of trusting technology
Once the apprehension that surrounds sharing our lives with technology can be moved to one side, the benefits are manifold.
Smart Cities
Speaking at the Machine Summit, Gary Bloom, CEO of MarkLogic, used Dublin as an example of a non-smart city, rife with inefficiencies.
Gary Bloom #WebSummit2015 roasting Irish govt. Dublin “not a smart city” as govt bodies not sharing info/thinking laterally. Preach Gary.
— Aoife Noelle Ngo (@aoifennph) November 3, 2015
The Dublin Dashboard provides us with a great example of data sources not utilised by local governments and councils for a host of reasons, the obvious being commute times. Ben Wellington gave a great TED talk on the worst place to park in New York, found out using Big Data, which is largely available to the public. Such data is now slowly trickling into the public domain in Ireland too.
Autopiloted driving
This is really the symbolic metaphor for our trust in technology. In cinema, we’ve been wowed by the thought of self driving cars. Tesla are leading the way on this becoming a reality as autopilot is gaining a stronger place in the public eye, but will people ever trust a car to do the driving? Audi’s Sven Schuwirth makes a different point that might just make people think differently about the adoption of technology that puts greater weight in the benefits to the risks.
Autopiloted driving will reduce accidents and impact car insurance – Sven Schuwirth #websummit pic.twitter.com/PAXrprTBPR — Goos3D (@Goos3D_IE) November 3, 2015
Smart farms
Sure given Ireland’s agricultural backround, we can’t just focus on the connected big schmoke! Drones are everywhere these days and they are almost certainly going to be the big gift this Christmas, but commercial drones are also exciting, offering new methods of reducing losses in and increasing yields for farmers.
Faults can be spotted in planting machines #drones #websummit #missedpotatoes pic.twitter.com/C8bYSiW9EZ
— Goos3D (@Goos3D_IE) November 3, 2015
Jono Millan of DroneDeploy described how drones carry something more important than physical items. Instead they carry with them huge amounts of data. He continued to describe certain drones in the field which are LTE enabled, meaning they can constantly beam data to the DroneDeploy database, giving farmers amazing data on how their crops are performing.
All of these sound great right? Of course, but we have to overcome some major trust issues that we have with Skynet Big Data and how its used, share and regulated.
Fear not, this is just the Web Summit round up at the end of Day One!
We’ll be back on the LIVE blog in the morning, bringing you even more tech news and updates as the day goes on.
