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the home temperature down to 50 degrees until shortly before the user's planned
return home.
The Nest is one of an expanding set of
smart appliances
that use the internet for
automatic upgrades. Others include modern television sets, Blu-ray disk players,
and even some high-end microwaves and washing machines. Currently, the Nest
thermostats are only sold in the United States and Canada. One reason for this is
that the Nest uses U.S. zip codes to localize some of its seasonal features.
In 2012, Nest Labs was sued by Honeywell for patent infringements of seven
patents dealing with the remote control of a thermostat, the circular shape of the
wall unit, and other features. Nest Labs has stated that it will contest the validity of
the patents and intends to see the case through a court trial. As this topic is written,
the results of the litigation are not known.
Nest Labs is one of a growing number of smart appliance manufacturers that
are using software and the internet to provide services that were not formerly
available, such as remote access and keeping historical data.
Peer Index
Peer Index is in a brand-new niche that is built on top of a slightly older niche.
As social networks become common and compete with each other, both their own-
ers and interested parties such as advertisers want to know which ones are most
successful. Peer Index is one of several companies that measure social-network ef-
fectiveness.
Peer Index was formed in London, England, in February 2010 by Azeem Ad-
har, Ditlev Schwanenflugel, and Bill Emmott (the former editor of
The Econom-
ist
). The company has developed three complementary measures of website rel-
evance: activity, audience, and authority. The social networks that are measured
include Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Quora.
The activity metric deals with visits to a specific site. The authority metric tries
to quantify the number of “likes” or favorable recommendations that a site ac-
cumulates. The audience metric tries to ascertain the demographics of site users
when compared to the general population.
As social networks grow in numbers and popularity, derivative companies such
as Alexa and Peer Index have sprung up to provide statistical evidence of effect-
iveness. This information is of some importance if the sites depend on advertise-
ments for revenue. For example, a site used primarily by mature PhD physicists
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