Online purveyors, meanwhile, are embracing old-fashioned, bricks-and-mortar locations to drum up new business and gather new data on their customers.

WSJ: Clothing Shop Is Tailored to Digital Age

The latter is made up of six different instrument stations that gather data on plate tectonics, hydrothermal vents and deep sea creatures.

MSN: Seafloor observatory to keep close eye on Arctic Ocean

The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has set up a program to gather information about car crashes using data from sensor boxes.

BBC: car crash test PA

Approximately two-thirds (63%) of American adults say they currently maintain a profile on a social networking site, notes Pew, which may be a rich landscape for insurers who gather and analyze social data to cross-sell, up-sell and investigate claims.

FORBES: Stop Insurance Spies: Lockdown Your Privacy Settings

Now makes use of the data that Google and your phone can gather about your daily life and uses it to serve up useful information, spontaneously, in a stream of cards that is accessed by tapping the search field, or swiping the open button up.

FORBES: While Siri Wise-Cracks, Google Defines Smart Local Search