The Internet of Things will cause a tsunami of data triggered by billions of sensors of all types deployed around the world. One of the big questions is how marketers will coral and utilize all that consumer activity information. There already is data from smartphone activity, such as information including location, motion and consumer traffic patterns.

Interactive virtual reality is getting another financial boost. A $50 million fund is being set up to finance the creation of at least 25 interactive content experiences over the next three years. The fund, by IMAX, Creative Artists Agency (CAA), Acer and others, will be used to aid the creation of higher quality VR content that can be used across all platforms, including IMAX VR centers, according to IMAX.

The car of the future may be here sooner than many people think and mobility of the future may look different than expected. One of the most significant effects of the driverless car of the future will be the different ways that time will be spent in a car along with new revenue streams from in-car advertising, based on a major new study. The lengthy global report on the car of the future by Citi GPS identified four major auto industry changes between now and 2030.

Facilitated by new IoT capabilities, the way people communicate and interact in their home is evolving. Consumers were already becoming familiar with speaking commands into their phones for, say, a target destination in Google Maps or to log an appointment through Apple's Siri. Then voice assistant interactions moved to the home, courtesy of devices like Amazon's Alexa and Google Home.

The Internet of Things has no geographical boundaries. We often write about various research studies here, some of which are based on worldwide IoT trends and some that are U.S. only. Like the Internet itself, the mass of things that can be connected to the Net is global in nature.

There are a lot of virtual reality headsets coming, which will cause a lot of money to change hands. Next year is now seen as the biggest year for console-based VR revenue, based on a new study. That growth will be driven by several new units coming into the marketplace, according to the study by Juniper Research, which excluded augmented reality from this report.

Many retailers see the value in the Internet of Things but also see a lot of shortcomings in their own ability to take advantage of it. Retailers say that IoT solutions could help them with shoppers by better engagement and customer service in stores, according to a new study. The study, the Internet of Things In Retail: Getting Beyond the Hype, also found that those same retailers see many organizational inhibitors to make the best use of the Internet of Things.

There are now more predictions of where the Internet of Things may be heading in the next year. These are not forecasts based on orders or sales, but rather insights into coming market trends and directions. The first batch of these, by Forrester Research, came out earlier this month, as I wrote about here at the time,

The projections for the growth virtual reality keep coming and the farther out they go, the higher they get. The latest forecast has virtual reality growing to $38 billion in revenue in 10 years. VR growth over the next two years will be modest before explosive growth after that, according to the semi-annual study by Greenlight Insights.

The idea of consumers treating smartwatches as voice communication devices to make and receive phone calls hasn't quite materialized. Rather, smartwatches are being used more as devices for activity tracking and text-based communication, based on a new study. Last on the list of what people's daily smartwatch activity is making or receiving phone calls.