"big data" articles

The recent rise of insurtechs has spurred modernization in the fundamentals of insurance, including policy creation, underwriting, and claims management. Insurtechs, such as Hippo and Lemonade, have implemented AI and data analytics to provide quick and accurate quotes to their customers while also decreasing their own operating costs. Such innovation has disrupted the traditional insurance industry and has helped alter underlying business models of legacy companies, forcing them to...

According to Parks Associates research, the percentage of broadband households not intending to purchase a smart home device due to security and privacy concerns has increased from 21% in Q1 2017 to 32% in Q1 2018. Further, more than one-fourth of U.S. broadband households strongly agree that it’s impossible to keep their personal data away from unauthorized users. Security and privacy concerns are clearly becoming top of mind for many connected consumers. As the number of...

The smart home today is not really all that smart. It is obedient and does what it is told to do, but has limited capability of making decisions on its own. Decision making requires first, an understanding of the situation, and then a method to make a decision based on the situation. The smart home industry must focus on understanding what is happening in and around the home, and the first step in understanding that context is gathering data. The sensors embedded in...

The smart home is a comprised of a collection of products and services that serve the needs of consumers using either a centralized or a distributed control architecture. In a distributed control architecture individual products perform specific jobs for consumers, but those products also benefit from collaboration with other products. A loose collaboration between autonomous products is sufficient for many jobs; however, some tasks may be better served by if they were coordinated as a...

According to Parks Associates research, nearly half of consumers rank data security and privacy issues as their greatest concern about connecting devices to the Internet. Parks Associates and Alticast recently released the whitepaper, Cybersecurity: Turning Necessity into Business Opportunity , which provides an overview of current content security systems and the pain points in the transition from content security to big data security, with an emphasis on real-time threat detection...

We at Parks Associates work with tremendous amount of data in an attempt to understand the complex and ever-changing landscape of digital living. A sizeable share of our work involves looking ahead to where digital technologies are heading ( see our new whitepaper,  Top 10 Consumer IoT Trends in 2017 ) as we help our clients stay ahead of the curve. However, as we bid farewell to 2016, an eventful year, I stepped back and looked at some of the broader news stories outside the realm...

Safety and security in the home has expanded beyond the long-term mainstays of burglar and fire alarms. There are now varied smart home devices that provide security and safety in the home  as well as convenience and peace of mind for the consumer. Key industry players are leading various sales channels for these devices, with security system providers at the forefront of that effort. Security system providers represent the sales channel for about one-third of all the safety...

This week in the Wall Street Journal , Brad Russell , Research Analyst at Parks Associates, provided some tips on what Yahoo users can do to protect themselves after yesterday’s news of a security breach in 2014. Brad’s recommended actions include: Be watchful for any communication from Yahoo that clarifies whether you are affected and to what degree. Immediately change your Yahoo password and any similar passwords you use for other online accounts....