Tracking Ships, Containers with Blockchain

Another example of the used of blockchain as a database, a secure open distributed ledger.

The blockchain heads out to sea as IBM and Maersk develop ship tracking platform By Duncan Riley   In SiliconAngle:

The blockchain is heading out to sea with IBM Corp. and shipping operator A.P. Moller–Maersk Group (most commonly known as Maersk) teaming up to track shipping transactions using the technology that powers bitcoin.

The tracking system is being built on top of The Linux Foundation’s Hyperledger platform and will link shippers, freight forwarders, ocean carriers, ports and customs authorities with a goal to track 10 million shipping containers by the end of this year, some 14 percent of the 70 million containers shipped globally each year.

IBM estimates that the digitization of the supply chain process from end to end could save shipping carriers a whopping $38b billion a year.  .... " 

IOT and High Value Goods

In Readwrite: Not extremely new.  Had seen solutions by GE using essentially the idea in remote power plant applications. Active RFID applications.   The idea has also been applied to container tracking.   Pointer to an ROI analysis.   But do expect it to expand via the use of better location intelligence applied to analytical methods. Our own interests focused on case or grouped goods on shelf or in inventory.

Seeking Standardized Software Containers.

In Wired:

Software Containers Are Bringing the Tech Giants Together   ...

Software containers are poised to do the same thing for the web that shipping containers did for logistics. They make it far easier to move applications from the individual laptops and workstations where they are coded to the vast clusters of computers that serve those applications to customers. Now, a who’s who of tech companies, including Amazon, Google and Microsoft, have formed a new organization called the Open Container Project to create an open source standard for software containers. .... "