The European Union delegation is organizing a hackathon for smart city applications at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), here from today.

The hackathon aims to encourage designing new applications that a smart city could offer its citizens, its elected officials or its technical and administrative services.

It is a connected world that we all live in. Technology around is changing everything and making life ‘smarter’ and better for us. The new wave hitting all of us today is Big Data that is changing how we look at a piece of information and make decisions. How have our lives changed with Big Data being around? What are its impacts? What are some concerns? On World Telecommunication and Information Society Day, we look at how Big Data is making big impacts to our lives.

The ‘Internet of Things’ (IoT) is the new buzzword in technological corridors with most technology companies announcing a ‘smart’ device of sorts that runs on IoT. In simple terms, IoT is a giant network of connected ‘things’; a network of devices linked to Internet through wired or wireless connections. ‘Things’ could be anything from everyday devices like cell phones, washing machines and wearable devices, to pacemakers, biochips on farm animals, automobiles and industrial machines. It is estimated that, by 2050, a whopping 50 billion such ‘connected’ devices would emerge, dawning a new era of the Internet - one of the most powerful inventions in human history.