Worldwide spending on the Internet of Things will total nearly $773 billion this year, IDC has predicted. The IoT will sustain a compound annual growth rate of 14.4 percent, and spending will hit $1.1 trillion by 2021, according to the firm's forecast. Consumer IoT spending will total $62 billion this year, making it the fourth largest industry segment, after manufacturing, transportation and utilities. The leading consumer use cases will be related to the smart home, including home automation, security and smart appliances. [More...]

The next version of Apple's mobile operating system, iOS 12, automatically will share location data for iPhones used to make emergency calls. The system will use an IP-based data pipeline developed by RapidSOS to share location data from iPhones with 911 centers. "Communities rely on 911 centers in an emergency, and we believe they should have the best available technology at their disposal," said Apple CEO Tim Cook. "When every moment counts, these tools will help first responders reach our customers when they most need assistance." [More...]

Just like leaders in every other field you can imagine, academics have been hard at work studying information security. Most fields aren't as replete with hackers as information security, though, and their contributions are felt much more strongly in the private sector than in academia. The differing motives and professional cultures of the two groups act as barriers to direct collaboration, noted Anita Nikolich in her "Hacking Academia" presentation at CypherCon. For starters, academics and hackers have very distinct incentives. [More...]

Zuora's recent Subscribed user conference was a good first outing since the company's IPO, coming off some impressive first-quarter results. Year-over-year subscription revenues grew 39 percent and total revenue grew an amazing 60 percent, for example. As good as its present situation is, now that Zuora is a public company, it has to push down the gas pedal to feed the insatiable stock market. It has responded to that need with several interesting introductions that further build out its product line. [More...]