A Microsoft survey of executives in the utility industry identifies their core uses for IoT.

Microsoft discovers utilities are big on IoT: Once again, Microsoft has interviewed executives in a specific industry to understand how that industry views IoT. This time, the software giant interviewed 100 executives in the utility sector to determine how much they use IoT (a lot; 85% of the companies they represent are adopting IoT) and what their issues are. In the energy and utility industry, the biggest challenges to adoption are people-related; 47% have trouble finding workers and 44% lack the resources to train workers. Since IoT success is heavily dependent on people, this is a sobering stat for the energy industry. (Microsoft)

Whoop! I hate this idea: Whoop, the maker of a fitness band that measures activity and heart rate so it can convert them to insights that tell wearers when to rest and recover, is using data from employees’ bands to incentivize those employees to take better care of themselves. In a blog post from Whoop’s founder and CEO, he says that employees whose data ends up in the “red zone,” which means they need to rest, are allowed to work from home. And employees who get a set amount of quality sleep each month are entitled to a $100 bonus. I hate this story, as it’s the realization of some of my worst fears about the IoT surveillance state. I get that Whoop makes this product and it is trying to provide rewards, but any company using highly personal employee data to influence behavior, for any reason, feels like a dangerous precedent to set. (Whoop)

And here’s a story about using Fitbit data to track COVID-19: Researchers at The Lancet have apparently determined that using Fitbit data to track the spread of illness is feasible, so the writer of this article dives into all the questions they had about Fitbit’s data-sharing practices (they may surprise you) and whether or not we want our devices to share our data for public health research. It’s a good read, especially if that Whoop story scares you. (PJ Media)

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Originally posted by:

Stacey Higginbotham

www.staceyoniot.com

March 13th, 2020