| | December 20148CIOReviewIoT is Changing the Paradigm of ConnectivityWhen you think of the internet, did you ever dream things such as a `connected tennis ball'? What would be the point? In a ground-breaking innovation, the Womens Tennis Association (WTA) is now allowing on-court coaching by using a real-time analysis of play; leveraging a range of technologies that can track a tennis ball during tournaments and allow complex analysis and replay the same on a Smartphone or tablet. Coaches can now impact a player's performance instantly during a game based on how they and their competitors are playing at any given moment.The traditional concept of the internet has been that a human `connects' to it and requests a response from one of the many web servers around the world. But now we talk of `things' that connect and we can now even define these things as something that is not usually considered a piece of technology. However, their behavior is interesting enough to capture and share using technology.The technology for the WTA is a combination of high-speed visual motion capture to track the ball, real-time computing for high speed analysis of the data, and mobile for the visualization. The tennis ball hasn't been modified, but its behavior can be tracked by modern cameras and image processing technology and turned into information that becomes of value to player and coach to improve performance.This analysis has also been provided to the fans via a public app that can be downloaded at a tournament, and including a wider range of player information significantly enhances the audience engagement whether they are attending the event or watching it from anywhere around the world.This powerful combination of technologies is only just starting to show how the world can change ­ anything can become a `thing' that can be incorporated into a system where analysis can be performed to improve decision making, that can lead to improved performance, optimization and even new kinds of services that can expand a business.Take vending machines for example. These can be made `smart' by adding By Simon Dale, Head of Hana Enterprise Cloud, Asia Pacific and Japan, SAPIn My Opinion
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