Ubiquitous embedded intelligence combined with pervasive analytics will drive the development of systems that are alert to their surroundings and able to respond appropriately.
Context rich systems has been one of Gartner’s favorite trends for quite a while and for good reason. The use of complex systems and applications that utilize situational and environmental information about people places and things really has the ability to revolutionize the entire world.
Context rich systems falls into the same category as the internet of things and sensor technology for me as it is difficult to build context rich systems without the systems being connected through sensor technology. The difference here is that context rich systems will be more focused on actually storing and processing all the data and developing the massive systems that are charged with making sense of all the data being collected via connected devices and sensors.