New York, Mar 31 (EFE; additional reporting by The Costa Rica Star).– Technology giant IBM announced Tuesday that it will invest some $3 billion over the next four years to create a new unit dubbed the Internet of Things, or IoT, based on the interconnection of everyday objects with the Web.

The company, as it explained in a communique, seeks to make use of its experience in this field and the data that it compiles to offer new solutions for the business world.

“Our knowledge of the world grows with every connected sensor and device, but too often we are not acting on it, even when we know we can ensure a better result,” Bob Picciano, senior vice president, IBM Analytics, said.

“IBM will enable clients and industry partners to apply IoT data to build solutions based on an open platform,” Picciano said, adding that “this is a major focus of investment for IBM because it’s a rich and broad-based opportunity where innovation matters.”

The company estimates that 90 percent of all data generated by devices such as smartphones, tablets, connected vehicles and appliances is “never analyzed or acted on,” a situation it plans to correct with its new Internet of Things. EFE

Understanding the Internet of Things

One of the first IoT projects undertaken by IBM is the Weather Company. This is how the company describes it:

The IoT and cloud computing allow for the collection of data from more than 100,000 weather sensors and aircraft, millions of smartphones, buildings and even moving vehicles. WSI’s forecasting system ingests and processes data from thousands of sources, resulting in approximately 2.2 billion unique forecast points worldwide, and averages more than 10 billion forecasts a day on active weather days.

As part of this partnership, The Weather Company, including WSI, its professional division, will shift its weather data services platform to the IBM Cloud and integrate its real-time weather information with IBM Analytics portfolio on cloud. This alliance will enable IBM and The Weather Company alliance to deliver new weather insights to businesses.