Published reports indicate that Apple is working on building a self-driving car and even looking for a location near San Francisco to test it out. Presuming the report is true, the caveat being that only Apple ever knows what Apple is coming out with in the future, this could be an interesting potential for advertisers and marketers.

Beacons are hardly the biggest thing in the Internet of Things but they continually are one of the most talked about. Part of this is because they're being tried in so many places, from retailers to office buildings and homes.

The public pay phone is getting a facelift to become part of the Internet of Things. The ambitious project to install larger-than-life phones in New York City to provide free, high-speed WiFi to pedestrians is coming to life.

There may be a million or so beacons in the marketplace but that doesn't mean consumers have any idea about what they are or what they do. Almost three quarters (70%) of consumers don't know what a beacon is, according to a new survey.

In almost any in-depth conversation about the Internet of Things with marketers, the issues of data and privacy come up. This was a recurring theme at the recent MediaPost IoT: Shopping conference, right from the opening panel, led by Joe Mandese, MediaPost editor-in-chief.

Much of the value in the Internet of Things is in the connections. Not the technical connections between and among objects, but the people connections that result.

While the world of the Internet of Things is complex, there are numerous insights around IoT that provide potential directions for future dealings with customers. Several of these came up throughout the MediaPost IoT: Shopping conference held in New York yesterday and I'll be addressing several of them in coming days here.

The Internet of Things will impact the entire shopping process in a big way. There also are a lot of questions around the behavioral transformation of shoppers, many of which will be addressed today at the MediaPost IoT: Shopping conference in New York.

Marketing and advertising via the Internet of Things is just around the corner. The most prominent and obvious IoT current implementations involve beacons.

Any marketers looking to use the Internet of Things for messaging any time soon may want to check in on those developing the capabilities for it. While consumers are the clear target market for one in three developers, more than a quarter of them are unsure of the eventual audience, based on a new global study.