ARM: "IoT needs more investment and increased collaboration"
1 min read
ARM seems to have bet big on the idea that the Internet of Things (IoT) will impact on nearly every aspect of our lives in the near future. At a dedicated event held at London's Science Museum this week, company CEO Simon Segars urged delegates to stop wasting time and invest early in the IoT, or risk being left behind by the many companies already taking advantage of it.
He also called for increased collaboration: "There are some really important issues we have to solve if the huge potential of the IoT is to be realised. But none of these will be solved if we don't talk to each other. It all comes down to collaboration; people coming together to solve problems, agreeing the best way to solve them and then coming up with the appropriate standards."
Segars said he was against a 'one size fits all' approach when it came to standardisation. Instead, he said there was a need to address "how we coalesce around the right standards, how we group them together in the right way and how people agree to use similar standards to solve similar problems".
In terms of future potential, Segars insisted that despite the IoT still being in the 'hype phase', the actual prospects for it were 'huge'. However, he said that the main value was in the data, describing it as "a goldmine of economic value that the IoT can liberate".
So what happens now? Segars said ARM's main focus was on privacy and security: "Every day there are articles about security breaches. People are concerned, and rightly so. Technology is already in place to help secure data and networks. But the threats and attacks are changing all the time, so we've got to keep evolving."
Talking about privacy, Segars described it as a 'very different issue'. "When properly used, data can drive real economic growth," he continued. "But it's about controlling the use of the data and having a say over who uses it and for what. Again there are big concerns being raised by consumers about access to their data. The IoT has massive potential to be used positively, but consumers have to have confidence in it."
Wrapping up his keynote, Segars called for industry, technologists and government officials to come together to think about the framework needed for people to understand privacy and how their data is going to be used. "But we can't do this on our own," he stressed, putting a further emphasis on collaboration. "We need help."
