This is the May 2023 edition of the neXt Curve Tech Insights newsletter. This edition covers new and takes on the topics of generative AI, 5G, IoT, industry 4.0, cloud and edge computing, and telecom tech. Subscribe for the tech and industry insights that matter.
Continue readingHow Edge Computing Shapes the Retail Industry
Retail always seems to come up when vendors and telcos talk about edge computing or the edge. It’s no surprise given that the global retail industry is forecasted by eMarketer to hit $27 trillion in sales worldwide in 2022. That’s a lot of retail, many modes of retail, and many categories of retail.
Continue readingThe Next Digital Transformation
The Milken Institute Global Conference provided neXt Curve a unique opportunity to engage with a diverse community of leaders and thinkers across industries and domains of expertise to contemplate the role and essentiality of connectivity, computing technologies, and digital transformation in helping societies, economies, and individuals adapt and thrive through crises of humanity and nature as they look forward and create a more connected, resilient world.
Continue readingUnleash New Capabilities with Innovation at the Intelligent Edge
Innovation is such a generic and overused term. It seems that every organization claims that they are, or aspire to be, innovative. But what does it mean to innovate with all the artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities coming to the edge? What kind of approach should you have to take this expansive and complex thing that is edge computing plus AI to discover opportunities for creating value that was not there before for your business or your customers?
Continue readingUnderstanding and Executing on the Autonomous Enterprise
In this installment of the Cutting Edge, I’m going to suggest a big picture hypothesis for why edge computing will matter for businesses in the future while attempting to avoid hyperbolizing the possibilities that often are the outcome of such exercises. Hopefully, I can get your creative juices flowing with some inspirational perspectives on edge computing and how it can help you rethink process automation and operations optimization.
Continue readingIndustry Insight: The State of Smart Transportation
Smart transportation is closely tied with smart city initiatives. What happens when vehicle travels from a smart city to one that might not be so smart? Will autonomous vehicles bridge the intelligent transportation divide, or will autonomous vehicles rely on a smart infrastructure to support functions critical to improving public safety, traffic efficiency, and sustainability?
neXt Curve is joined by Bill Pugh, co-founder and managing partner of Smart Connections Consulting LLC to explore the following topics:
- Why does transportation need to be smarter? – Bill and Leonard discuss the motivations and the objectives that the auto industries and municipalities have for smart transportation. What is the carrot that is getting parties excited, or is the carrot not big enough to bring about the digital transformation we have all been expecting in some form?
- What are the challenges facing smart transportation? – Smart transportation has taken a patently vehicle-centric focus as of late with excitement about self-driving cars that will function as robotaxi’s that will chauffeur us around. But progress for smart transportation solutions that could benefit the broader driving community have been nothing short of stagnant with only a few pilot project of any notice. What are the persistent challenges that get in the way of the smart future of transportation?
- What kind of mindset change is need to make progress? – Do we have the right attitude about smart transportation? Could it be that we don’t think broadly enough about the benefits of modernizing our transportation system and how we will make that modernization happen?
- What can the tech and “IoT” industry do to deliver the promise? – Bill and Leonard brainstorm what the tech community and industry can do to make IoT a thing for transportation. We discuss the approaches that can be considered to get investments and commitments to stick given short-term political and administrative agendas of our cities, counties, states, an dour nation.

Our reThink Media Center features the YouTube video podcast of this episode.
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Realizing IoT Project Success
Technology Insight: NEOM
What if technology could not just make cities “smarter” but help us entirely reimagine the idea of a city of the future? NEOM is a visionary giga project that aspires to apply the most advanced in current and emerging technologies to realize a bold urban development concept called THE LINE, the revolutionary infrastructure concept that will bring about the world’s first “cognitive city”.
Continue readingIndustry Insight: Who Will Win 5G Gold?
Telco operators have great expectations of 5G and the industry hype mill has set very high bar for the value that 5G technologies and new market possibilities will bring to the communications sector. Is this excitement justified given the rapidly shifting ICT landscape? We are witnessing a dramatic change in the face of competitors and partners as new entrants into the communications service provider (CSP) space change the OTT dynamic and introduce a new breed of UTB (Under the Bottom) threat to traditional telco operators. Who will win 5G gold?
Continue readingIndustry Insight: Jio Platforms and Facebook Driving Digital India
Facebook’s recent investment and partnership with Jio Platforms was met with a great deal of media and industry excitement. This move was widely touted as a coming of age of Digital India. The largest US tech companies such as Facebook, Google, Microsoft are looking to expand their global fortunes in the new digital economic frontier that is India with its 1.32 billion large consumer market. What is really at stake here and what does it mean in the broader context of India’s economic digitization?
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