Driven by lower prices, new devices and an expanding array of content, the market size of virtual and augmented reality headsets is being propelled at a breakneck pace. Total VR and AR headset shipments will see explosive growth from 10 million units last year to 99 million units in four years, based on a new tracking report. The virtual and augmented reality headset market will grow 58% a year for the next five years, according to the new International Data Corporation Worldwide Quarterly Augmented and Virtual Reality Headset Tracker.

The Internet of Things is coming to a screen near you. While digital signage has been around for a few decades, it's taken quite some time for the maturing of the market of Internet-connected screens where content can be managed remotely. By the end of the last year, there were 38 million connected digital screens in use worldwide, according to a new report by Berg Insight, an IoT market research firm based in Sweden.

Consumers have a price in mind for what they consider to be a good value for a smart home. For most consumers, the minimum price seems to be about $20 a month. Half (50%) of U.S. broadband households consider $20 or more a month for a comprehensive smart home service to be a good value, according to new research by Parks Associates. N the higher end, 7% say the service would be worth more than $50 monthly.

The Internet of Things will impact retail in countless ways and some of them are starting to be seen. There are smart dressing rooms, in-aisle automatic payments, beacons and all types of customer tracking technologies, such as connected lights that can pinpoint a smartphone location to within inches. Some of the leaders of companies behind such innovations presented their strategies Monday, at a conference that dealt with all sides of the Internet of Things.

The Internet of Things is taking to the high seas. Cruise ships are being retrofitted and reengineered to include the latest IoT technology to enhance the experience of passengers. MSC Cruises, which bills itself as the world's largest privately-owned cruise line, just unveiled a fleet-wide digital innovation program for all its coming ships.

Millions of consumers use Amazon's Alexa for wide variety of things. The voice assistant's thousands of skills, basically voice front ends to standing apps, let a consumer talk to Alexa through an Amazon Echo device to order a coffee from Starbucks, tell the device to get an Uber or have it ask Fitbit how you're doing today. However, one thing many are not doing is making purchases through Alexa.

Even through the Internet of Things can involve devices or machines 'talking' to each other, the 'conversation' is generally silent. No more. In a rather offbeat twist, an ad agency has given voice to elevators so they can have conversations in real time, allowing people to hear machines talk. Hasan & Partners, the Finland agency, formerly part of IPG, had a long-time global elevator client that wanted to more easily describe its elevator monitoring capabilities.

The number of smart homes is growing, depending on how they are counted. There are smart home devices and then there are smart home solutions, at least from the standpoint of researchers. For example, if connected or smart televisions are counted as making a home 'smart,' then the 74% of households that have one are in that category, based on a survey of 2,000 U.S. adult broadband users conducted by The Diffusion Group.

The Internet of Things is impacting every business in one way or another and results are starting to be seen. Results range from return on investments to improved customer experiences, based on a new study. Across the globe, the average return on investment from Internet of Things projects was 34%, according the report by Hewlett Packard.

The concept of 'connected cars' is starting to get more real. At CES in Las Vegas three years ago, General Motors executives, with the help of two cars on stage and one in the back of the room, demonstrated how they expected consumers would be using technology inside their vehicles.