IoT trends for 2015

It’s undeniable: 2014 was the year when the electronics industry decidedly and collectively moved forward to push the Internet of Things (IoT). In year 2015 IoT markets will continue to grow. I think we’re going to see some critical mass on corralling the IoT in 2015. IoT is a young market – no one seems to be clearly leading. Communications are the key here. Over the last 10 years the world has done a remarkably good job of connecting the global wireless world. The last decade has radically changed the way we live. The smartphone and its cousin, the tablet, was the final link to ubiquitous wireless coverage, globally. The fantasy of the IoT is quite grand: everything on the planet can be smart and communicate. The idea is both powerful and impractical.

IoT is entering peak of inflated expectations: The Internet of Things is at that stage when the efforts of various companies involved in it, along with research, are proving to have a lot of promise. At this stage, the Internet of Things should not have too many difficulties attracting developers and researchers into the fold. As we turn to 2015 and beyond, however, wearables becomes an explosive hardware design opportunity. Tie the common threads of IoT and wearables together, and an unstoppable market movement emerges. There seems to be a lack of public appreciation of the extent to which the Internet of Things is going to fundamentally change how people interact with the world around them.

On the other hand, the Internet of Things is getting poised to enter the trough of disillusionment, which means that there is more room for failure now. There are issues of security, privacy, and sharing of information across vertical implementations that still need to be worked out. Until they are, the IoT will not be able to fulfill all its promises.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is beginning to grow significantly, as consumers, businesses, and governments recognize the benefit of connecting inert devices to the internet. The ‘Internet of Things’ Will Be The World’s Most Massive Device Market And Save Companies Billions Of Dollars in few years. BI Intelligence expects that the IoT will result in $1.7 trillion in value added to the global economy in 2019This includes hardware, software, installation costs, management services, and economic value added from realized IoT efficiencies.  The main benefit of growth in the IoT will be increased efficiency and lower costs: increased efficiency within the home, city, and workplace. The enterprise sector will lead the IoT, accounting for 46% of device shipments this year, but that share will decline as the government and home sectors gain momentum. I expect that home, government, and enterprise sectors use the IoT differently.

The IoT is only enabled because of two things: the ability of networks to reach countless nodes, and the availability of cost-effective embedded processors to attach to a multitude of devices. The prices for components and devices continues to decline while the skyrocketing global demand for 24/7 Internet access grows exponentially. The Internet of Things growth will benefit mostly from the autonomous machine-to-machine (M2M) connectivity that will make up the bulk of the objects of the IoT. This is the main driver for double-digit growth across verticals in the electronics, and especially the semiconductor industry well into the next decade. The IoT will connect places, such as manufacturing platforms, energy grids, health-care facilities, transportation systems, retail outlets, sports and music venues, and countless other entities to the Internet.

Internet of Things can become Engineering for Everyone. The emergence of open-source development platforms, developed and maintained by dedicated volunteers, has effectively raised the level of abstraction to a point where nonexperts can now use these platforms. The availability of open-source software and, more recently, hardware targeting embedded applications means that access to high-quality engineering resources has never been greater. This has effectively raised the level of abstraction to a point where nonexperts can now use these platforms to turn their own abstract concepts into real products. With the potential to launch a successful commercial venture off the back of tinkering with some low-cost hardware in your spare time, it’s no wonder that open-source hardware is fuelling an entirely new movement. A new generation of manufacturer is embracing the open-source ethos and actually allowing customers to modify the product post-sale.

Exact size predictions for IoT market next few years vary greatly, but all of the firms making these predictions agree on one thing—it’s going to be very big.

In year 2014 very many chip vendors and sensor algorithm companies also jumped on the IoT bandwagon, in hopes of laying the groundwork for more useful and cost-effective IoT devices. Sensors, MCUs, and wireless connectivity are three obvious building blocks for IoT end-node devices. Wireless connectivity and software (algorithms) are the two most sought-after technologiesBrimming with excitement, and with Europe already ahead of the pack, a maturing semiconductor industry looks expectantly to the Internet of Things (IoT) for yet another facelift. The IC sales generated by the connectivity and sensor subsystems to enabled this IoT will amount $57.7 billion in 2015.

Chips for IoT market to grow 36% in 2015, says Gartner as automotive V2X, LED lighting and smart domestic objects are set to drive semiconductor market growth through the year 2020, according to market analysis firm Gartner. The move to create billions of smart, autonomously communicating objects known as the Internet of Things (IoT) is driving the need for low-power sensors, processors and communications chips. By 2018, the market value of IoT subsystems in equipment and Internet-connected things is projected to reach $103.6 billion worldwide, which represents a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 21.0 percent from $39.8 billion in 2013.

BI Intelligence expects that by 2019 IoT market will be more than double the size of the smartphone, PC, tablet, connected car, and the wearable market combined. A new report by Yole Developpement pegs the market size in the $70 billion range by 2018, with the next five years presenting a golden opportunity for device makers as the IoT enters the growth stage.  Device shipments will reach 6.7 billion in 2019 for a five-year CAGR of 61%. 

Number of connected devices is expected to to reach 36 billion units by 2020, cautions that “all of this new market opportunity is under threat.” Other estimate according to market research firm Radiant Insights of San Francisco is that the number of Internet connections will grow from 9 billion devices in 2014 to 100 billion by 2020 (twice as many as the estimate from Cisco Systems Inc). IC Insights forecasts that web-connected things will account for 85 percent of 29.5 billion Internet connections worldwide by 2020. Currently fragmented market, the number of cellular M2M connections could rise from 478 million today to 639 million in 2020.

By 2024, the report predicts that overall market value for components will exceed of $400 billion, of which more than 10% will come from hardware alone.  Revenue from hardware sales will be only $50 billion or 8% of the total revenue from IoT-specific efforts, as software makers and infrastructure companies will earn the lion’s share. As the Internet of Things grows to a projected 212 billion items by 2020, the question of regulation looms increasingly large.

The growth of the IoT will present some very interesting issues in a variety of areas. You will see some very fast activity because unless it gets resolved there will be no IoT as it is envisioned.

General consensus is that the interconnect protocol of the IoT will be IP (Internet Protocol). As it stands today, the deployment of the billions of IoT objects can’t happen, simply because there just aren’t enough IP addresses with IPv4. While there is still some discussion about how to connect the IoT, most are in agreement that the IoT protocol will be IPv6. The first step will be to convert all proprietary networks to an IP-base. Then, the implementation of IPv6 can begin. Because direct interoperability between IPv4 and iPv6 protocols is not possible, this will add some some complications to the development, resulting in a bit of obfuscation to the transition for IPv6.

Is There Any Way to Avoid Standards Wars in the Emerging Internet of Things? I don’t see that possible. IoT will be in serious protocol war in 2015. There is a wide selection of protocols, but no clear set of winners at the moment. The real IoT  standardization is just starting – There are currently few standards (or regulations) for what is needed to run an IoT device. There is no single standard for connecting devices on the Internet of Thing, instead are a handful of competing standards run by different coalitions of companies: The Thread Group (Qualcomm, The Linux Foundation, Microsoft, Panasonic), The Industrial Internet Consortium (Intel, Cisco, AT&T, IBM, Microsoft), Open Interconnect Consortium (Samsung, Intel, Dell), Physical Web (Google),  AllSeen Alliance (Samsung, Intel, Dell) and huge number of smaller non-standardized protocols in use. Each of the standards vary how they do things.

Anyone who tries to build a physical layer and drive a software stack based on it all the way up to the application layer is a fool. But many companies try to do it this year. Today Zigbee is the most cost effective, but tomorrow WiFi will figure it out. On networking field in every few years there’s a new management protocolwhat will happen in IoT, it will keep moving, and people will need open APIs.

Currently the IoT lacks a common set of standards and technologies that would allow for compatibility and ease-of-use. The IoT needs a set of open APIs and protocols that work with a variety of physical-layer networks. The IP and network layer should have nothing to do with the media. The fundamental issue here is that at the moment the Internet of Things will not have a standard set of open APIs for consumers. IoT, it will keep moving, and people will need open APIs.  I suspect that at some point, after the first wave of the Internet of Things, open APIs and root access will become a selling point.

It is not just technical protocol details that are problem: One problem with IoT is that it is a vague definition. Do we simply mean ‘connected devices? Or something else? One of the main issues, which will only get worse as the IoT evolves, is how are we going to categorize all the different objects.

Early in 2015, the Industrial Internet Consortium plans to wrap up work on a broad reference architecture for the Internet of Things, ramp up three test beds, and start identifying gaps where new standards may be needed. The group, formed by AT&T, Cisco, GE, IBM, and Intel, now has about 115 members and aims to make it easier to build commercial IoT systems. The IIC hopes to finish a first draft of its reference architecture by the end of January and have it ratified by March. It will define functional areas and the technologies and standards for them, from sensors to data analytics and business applications. The framework includes versions for vertical markets including aerospace, healthcare, manufacturing, smart cities, and transportation. A breakout section on security also is in the works. Hopefully the reference architecture could be used to help people construct industrial IoT systems quickly and easily.

With the emergence of the Internet of Things, smart cars are beginning to garner more attentionSmart cars are different than connected cars, which are simply smartphones on wheels. Even though the technology has been on the evolutionary fast track, integration has been slow. For car manufacturers, it is a little tricky to accept driverless cars because it disrupts their fundamental business model: Private resources will evolve to shared resources, centrally controlled, since autonomous vehicles can be controlled remotely.

Over the next few years, we’ll see a torrent of new devices emerge that are connected to the Internet and each other through a wide range of different wireless networking protocols. As a result, there’s a race on, not just to get those devices connected, but also to provide the network infrastructure necessary to managing all of them at scale. WiFi, Bluetooth, and cellular networks are nowadays widely used, nut new alternatives are coming to solve applications were those technologies are not most suitable. There are different plans for wide area wireless networks that use licensed or unlicensed wireless bandwidth to transmit small amounts of data from various connected device – this could create its own connection to them in a cost effective manner without relying on existing cellular or WiFi networks.

Recently we have developed a pressing need, or desire to put our refrigerators, and everything we have access to while mobile, on the net, morphing the brave new world of the Internet of Things, into the Internet of Everything (IoE). And that will make that last 100 meters—that final frontier of interconnect—a reality. Today, only about 10% of the last 100 meter devices that will make up the IoT are connected.  As the IoT evolves, other small cells such as businesses, city centers, malls, theaters, stadiums, event centers, and the like, will connect much of what they have on premise (soda or popcorn machines, vending machines, restaurants, parking garages, ticket kiosks, seat assignments, and a very long list of others). And, there are a very large number of devices that are short-range in all of these various cells. What was once the last mile for connectivity is now the last 100 meters.

Plenty of people and companies in the technology world tend to come at the Internet of Things by dwelling on the “Internet.” But what if, instead, we started with the “Things?” Knowing intimately what “things” are supposed to do and how they think and behave will be the key to solving one of the IoT’s most pressing issues: application layers. Over the past 18 months, the industry has launched numerous consortia, from Qualcomm’s AllSeen and Intel’s Open Interconnect Consortium to Apple’s HomeKit and Google’s Thread. Every entity says it’s targeting the “interoperability” of things at home, but each is obviously concentrating primarily on its own interests, and making their “layer” specifications slightly different from those pursued by others.

It seems that no industry consortium is particularly interested in defining — in gory detail — the specific functions of, say, what a door lock is supposed to do. The library of commands for each function already exists, but someone, or some group, has to translate those already determined commands into an IP-friendly format. One of the standards organizations will take up the challenge in 2015. This will be the first step to “knock barriers down for IoT” in 2015.

Missing today in the IoT are reliability and robustness. Consumers expect their light switched and other gadgets to be infinitely reliable. In many today’s products we seem to be far from reliable and robust operation. Today’s routers can relay traffic between networks, but they have no idea how to translate what functions each device attached to them wants to do, and how to communicate that to other devices. The network needs to be able to discover who else is on the network. Devices connected to network need to be able to discover what resources are available and what new devices are being added. The network needs to be extensible.

missing piece of the smart home revolution

Despite the oft-mocked naming scheme, the Internet of Things (IoT) has an incredibly practical goal: connecting classically “dumb” objects—toasters, doorknobs, light switches—to the Internet, thereby unlocking a world of potential. Imagine what it means to interact with your home the same way you would a website, accessing it without geographic restriction. But there is one missing piece of the smart home revolution: smart home operating system. So what will be the system that capitalizes on the smart home in the same way, the enabler of all the applications and actions we want our homes to run and do? There are no ready answers for that yet. And there might not be a singular, cohesive operating system for your home, that this stuff isn’t one-size-fits-all. It might be that the real potential for home automation lies not in local software running on a home device but in the cloud. I think that the cloud is going to be more important over time, but there will always be also need for some local functionality in case the connection to cloud is lost. Right now the Internet of Things is rather disjointed compared to Internet and computers.

 

When everything will be connected, how about security? In the path to IoT, the issue of data and device security looms large. Security for the ‘Internet of Things’ will be talked about very much in 2015 for a good reason.  As Internet of Thigs becomes more and more used, it will be more hacked. Thus security of Internet of Things will be more and more talked about. Virtually anything connected to the Internet has the potential of being hacked, no matter how unlikely. Internet of Things devices often lack systematic protections against viruses or spamNowadays most security breaches are software-based, when an application can be compromised. Counter-measures for such attacks range from basic antivirus scanning software, to embedded hypervisors to hardware-bound secure applications tying their execution to uniquely identifiable hardware. There is emerging customer demand for silicon authentication. But the threats extend way beyond software and some hackers will put a lot of effort into compromising a system’s security at silicon-level. Individual devices can get hacked, but all systems should have some way of self-checking and redundancy. Those IoT systems can be very complex at device and system level. The problem with complexity is that you create more attack points and make it easier for hackers to find flaws.

Experts recommend far more layers of cyberprotection than manufacturers have thought necessary. Because many of the devices will often be practically inaccessible, the “patch and pray” strategy used for many desktop software packages is unlikely to be an effective strategy for many forms of IoT devices. Right now, there are hundreds of companies churning out “Internet of Things” (IoT) devices as fast as they can, without thinking too much on the security issues they can cause in the future. The imperative is clear: Do your homework on the specific security features of any IoT device you might consider bringing into the home. What steps are IoT companies taking to keep us safe from others online, and what constitutes a truly “safe” smart appliance?

What we’re opening up is a whole new subject not just of security but of safetyThat safety depends on devices to be constantly connected to the Internet the same way they’re connected to the power grid. That’s a whole new area that deserves its own consideration. Keep in mind that IoT is one field where cyber security flaws can kill in the worst case. Connecting unrelated devices in the IoT means many more pieces now affect reliability and securityMore devices are now considered critical, such as a connected baby monitor or a smart smoke detector, because wrong information can injure or kill people. The Internet of Things is coming no matter what happens. The people in charge of keeping the public safe and the industry healthy need to be ready.

The Internet of Things is coming no matter what happens. The people in charge of keeping the public safe and the industry healthy need to be ready. – See more at: http://kernelmag.dailydot.com/issue-sections/features-issue-sections/11298/internet-of-things-regulation-policy/#sthash.R2kQxkeR.dpuf

The European Police Office (Europol) said governments are ill-equipped to counter the menace of “injury and possible deaths” spurred by hacking attacks on critical safety equipment. There are many potential dangers are in transportation: many new cars are Internet connected and potentially vulnerable, SCADA Systems in Railways Vulnerable to Attack and Airline bosses ignore cyber security concerns at their peril. With industrial control systems becoming network-connected, security risks rise and will need a long-term solution. In light of the trend toward the Industrial Internet of Things, development teams must start thinking hard about network security and planning for its long-term viability.

You have to accept the fact that at each point in the IoT there are vulnerabilities to malicious attacks and interception of vital information. Soon, almost every network will soon have some IoT-hacking in it. IDC predicts that in two years from 90 per cent of the global IT networks have met IoT data theft. In a report, cybersecurity firm Fortinet expects greater threats from “denial of service attacks on assembly line, factory, industrial control systems, and healthcare and building management…resulting in revenue losses and reputation damages for organizations globally.” This opens new doors of risks in the areas of corporate extortion, altering of corporate business operations, and the extension of cyberattacks to include physical threats of harm to civilians.

There are lessons to be learned to keep the cyber security in control in the IoT era. There will be lessons to be learned for all the parties of the IoT ecosystem. The companies that figure out how to make security available on multi-stakeholder platforms will be the most successful ones. Figuring out a secure platform is important, but having different levels of security is still important. Different uses have different bars. Security is a self-regulating system to some extent because it is supply and demand. That is the Holy Grail for technology right now, which is how to build systems with enough security—not 100% protection right now—from a unified platform point of view for multiple applications.

The data generated by the Internet of Things has the potential to reveal far more about users than any technology in history: These devices can make our lives much easier … The Internet of Things however, can also reveal intimate details about the doings and goings of their owners through the sensors they contain. As the Internet of Things grows to a projected 212 billion items by 2020, the question of regulation looms increasingly large. There is a lot of effort is going today at the government level. They’re not thinking about whether the Internet goes down. They’re worried about what happens if the Internet gets compromised.

When we have devices on the field, there is question how to analyze the data coming from them. This is easily a “big data” problem because of the huge amount of data that comes from very large number of sensors. Being able to monitor and use the data that comes from the Internet of Things is a huge potential challenge with different providers using different architectures and approaches, and different chip and equipment vendors teaming up in a range of different ways. Many large and smaller companies are active on the field: Intel, IBM, Lantronix+Google, Microchip+Amazon, Freescale+Oracle, Xively, Jasper, Keen.io, Eurotech, and many other.

The huge increase of data is coming. Radiant predicts that wireless sensor networks will be used to monitor and control very many domestic, urban, and industrial systems. This promises to produce an explosion of data, much of which will be discarded as users are overwhelmed by the volume. As a result, analysis of the data within the wireless sensor network will become necessary so that alerts and meaningful information are generated at the leaf nodes. This year has seen the software at the very highest point in the Internet of Things stack — analytics — becoming tightly coupled with the embedded devices at the edge of the network, leading to many different approaches and providers.

Integrating data from one IoT cloud to another will have it’s challenges. Automation services make big steps by cutting corners. Sites like IFTTT, Zapier, bip.io, CloudWork, and elastic.io allow users to connect applications with links that go beyond a simple synch. Check what is happening with integration and related services like IFTTT, ItDuzzit, Amazon Lambda. For example IFTTT is quietly becoming a smart home powerhouse.

 

Most important sources of information for this article:

With $16M In Funding, Helium Wants To Provide The Connective Tissue For The Internet Of Things

IFTTT, other automation services make big steps by cutting corners

Internet of Things: Engineering for Everyone

IoT in Protocol War, Says Startup – Zigbee fortunes dim in building control

Analysts Predict CES HotspotsCorralling the Internet of Things

What’s Holding Back The IoT – Device market opportunities will explode, but only after some fundamental changes

Apps Layer: ’800lb Gorilla’ in IoT Nobody Talks About

Analysts Predict CES HotspotsIoT, robots, 4K to dominate CES

Chips for IoT market to grow 36% in 2015, says Gartner

10 Reasons Why Analytics Are Vital to the Internet of Things

Tech More: Mobile Internet of Things BI Intelligence Consumer Electronics – Most Massive Device Market

What’s Holding Back The IoT

Wearables make hardware the new software

Zigbee Opens Umbrella 3.0 Spec

IoT Will Give ‘Embedded’ a Shot in the Arm -  Connected cities to be largest IoT market

Smarter Cars, But How Smart?

Chips for IoT market to grow 36% in 2015, says Gartner

Apps Layer: ’800lb Gorilla’ in IoT Nobody Talks About

Short-Range, Low-Power Sensors – once the last mile for connectivity is now the last 100 meters

Industrial IoT Framework Near

The one problem the Internet of Things hasn’t solved

Securing The IoT

Plan Long Term for Industrial Internet Security

To Foil Cyberattacks, Connected Cars Need Overlapping Shields

IoT cybersecurity: is EDA ready to deliver?

More Things Are Critical Systems

Silicon, Security, and the Internet of Things

The missing piece of the smart home revolution

Hackers will soon be targeting your refrigerator

10 Reasons Why Analytics Are Vital to the Internet of Things

1,316 Comments

  1. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Huawei’s Agile Network 3.0 Architecture Launched at Huawei Network Congress 2015
    http://pr.huawei.com/en/news/hw-432402-agilenetwork3.0.htm#.VV3DvEZLZ4A

    [Beijing, China, May 20, 2015] Huawei today announced the launch of its Agile Network 3.0 Architecture at the HNC2015 (Huawei Network Congress 2015) themed “From Agility to Imagination” that is taking place in Beijing. As a highlight of the latest version of Huawei’s Agile Network architecture, Huawei introduced its Agile Internet of Things (IoT) solution. The solution enables enterprises to build an agile IoT infrastructure to capture infinite business possibilities and to realize the digitization of areas such as production, manufacturing and logistics.

    Huawei predicts that by 2025, a total of 100 billion connections will be generated globally and two million new sensors will be deployed every hour.

    LiteOS is the world’s most lightweight IoT OS. It is small in size at 10KB and supports zero configuration, auto-discovery, and auto-networking.

    While Huawei is focused on developing IoT infrastructure products and solutions, it is also committed to establishing an industry application-oriented IoT ecosystem through collaborating with upstream and downstream partners to develop industry solutions. This is part of Huawei’s approach to develop and provide Business-driven ICT Infrastructure (BDII).

    May 20, 2015 12:00
    Enabling Enterprises to Leverage Opportunities in the Era of Internet of Things

    [Beijing, China, May 20, 2015] Huawei today announced the launch of its Agile Network 3.0 Architecture at the HNC2015 (Huawei Network Congress 2015) themed “From Agility to Imagination” that is taking place in Beijing. As a highlight of the latest version of Huawei’s Agile Network architecture, Huawei introduced its Agile Internet of Things (IoT) solution. The solution enables enterprises to build an agile IoT infrastructure to capture infinite business possibilities and to realize the digitization of areas such as production, manufacturing and logistics.

    Huawei predicts that by 2025, a total of 100 billion connections will be generated globally and two million new sensors will be deployed every hour. However, our networks today cannot provide the connectivity to support this. As part of HNC, Huawei will also launch its Agile IoT Solution, which consists of three core components: Agile IoT gateway, Agile Controller and LiteOS, a lightweight IoT operating system (OS). “Huawei believes that standardizing ICT infrastructure will foster the development of Internet applications, including IoT applications. To address this, Huawei is launching our IoT OS, LiteOS,” said Mr. William Xu, Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer, Huawei, at the Congress.

    William Xu, Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer, Huawei, delivered keynote Speech at HNC2015

    LiteOS is the world’s most lightweight IoT OS. It is small in size at 10KB and supports zero configuration, auto-discovery, and auto-networking. It can be widely applied to different areas including smart homes, wearable, connected vehicles and other industries. The LiteOS helps to simplify the development of smart hardware to enhance IoT connectivity. In addition, Huawei announced that LiteOS will be opened to all developers, which enables them to quickly develop their own IoT products.

    While Huawei is focused on developing IoT infrastructure products and solutions, it is also committed to establishing an industry application-oriented IoT ecosystem through collaborating with upstream and downstream partners to develop industry solutions. This is part of Huawei’s approach to develop and provide Business-driven ICT Infrastructure (BDII). Yan Lida, President of Huawei Enterprise Business Group said at his keynote speech, “BDII requires close business collaboration and joint innovation efforts between Huawei and our partners. We have been involved in industry alliances, worked with standard organizations in the area of IoT, and established innovative research centers, open labs, and development communities to foster industry development.”

    “Over the last three years, Huawei has been involved in a number of in-depth technological collaborations with our global industry partners in IoT. We have developed a series of IoT solutions that have already been applied to buildings, electricity meters, vehicles, gymnasiums, factories, retail outlets, and street lights. In line with our approach to provide BDII”

    Reply
  2. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Huawei announces tiny 10 KB IoT kernel
    LiteOS will be made open source
    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/05/21/huawei_announces_tiny_10_kb_iot_kernel/

    Huawei has offered up a good look at its Internet of Things strategy, using its Network Congress 2015 to show off a microkernel that will be the bedrock of its future efforts in the field.

    LiteOS certainly is “micro”: the kernel is 10 kilobytes but nonetheless able to support “zero configuration, auto-discovery, and auto-networking”, the company’s canned statement says.

    As well as LiteOS, the company will be offering a gateway and controller under the Huawei Agile brand.

    But it’s the software – since Huawei says this will be opened for others – that’s likely to get the attention because it’s small enough to sit in the wearables space (other use cases the company’s targeting include smart homes and connected vehicles).

    Huawei’s LiteOS site (in Chinese) says the microkernel has been in use internally for some years, and supports “ARM Cortex-M, R, A and other 32 series and DSP chip architectures”.

    Reply
  3. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Amir Efrati / The Information:NEW
    Google developing Internet of Things OS called Brillo, designed to run on devices with perhaps as little as 32MB RAM — Google Developing ‘Brillo’ Software for Internet of Things — Google wants its software to power any electronic device that connects to the Internet, whether or not it has a digital screen.

    Google Developing ‘Brillo’ Software for Internet of Things
    https://www.theinformation.com/Google-Developing-Brillo-Software-for-Internet-of-Things

    Google wants its software to power any electronic device that connects to the Internet, whether or not it has a digital screen.

    To that end, Google is working on technology that could run on low-powered devices, possibly with as few as 64 or 32 megabytes of random-access memory, according to people who have been briefed about the project.

    Google is likely to release the software under the Android brand, as the group developing the software is linked to the company’s Android unit. The lower memory requirements for devices running the new software would mark a sharp drop from the latest versions of Android, which are primarily aimed at mobile phones with at least 512 megabytes of memory.

    Reply
  4. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Apple Watch Lacks Pulse, Says Startup
    Bloom paves way for medical-grade sensors
    http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326647&

    Today’s wearables don’t pass a physical exam, according to the chief executive of a startup that’s designing a medical-grade device. Julien Penders will share his opinions and experiences in a talk at the Embedded Systems Conference in Silicon Valley.

    The Apple Watch, for example, is a cool device but it doesn’t deliver the kind of data doctors and medical researchers need, said Penders, a former researcher at the Imec institute outside Brussels.

    “It’s pretty limited,”

    “It’s a great first step…on the other hand, the user experience is good as an extension of your phone with notifications — that’s well designed,” he added.

    To be truly useful, health devices need to be validated in trials in both hospital and home settings. The developers can begin to push the boundary of how often the devices can be relied on for medical-grade data, he said.

    So far, Bloom is working with Samsung, in part because it offers an open cloud platform based on its SmartThings acquisition. Samsung is “taking it to another level of more interoperability with devices and easier access for users, so we are pretty happy with that,” he said.

    Reply
  5. Tomi Engdahl says:

    News & Analysis
    Software Secure? Good! But What About the Hardware (FPGAs & SoCs)?
    http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326659&

    As we all know, more and more devices are being designed to be Internet-enabled. It’s also common knowledge that Cisco predicts that 50-billion devices, such as automobiles, home automation devices, consumer electronics, medical devices, and wearables, will be connected to the Internet by 2020.

    The sad fact of life, however, is that the creators of these devices often neglect the security aspects of their designs, thereby leaving them potentially susceptible to cyberattacks. Every day, we hear about new examples of things like hacking cars, hacking medical devices, and even a creep hacking a baby monitor to scream abuse at an infant and its parents.

    One problem is that current security analysis software is targeted toward testing the embedded software, assuming the hardware is secure when it may not be. As more and more devices are designed to be Internet-enabled, the more we need to be concerned about hardware security, because hackers are starting to focus their attention on the underlying hardware.

    Tortuga Logic’s goal is to solve security-specific problems and minimize security breaches in chips and systems by automating the process of verifying their security properties.

    Reply
  6. Tomi Engdahl says:

    A good effort, but a bit odd: Windows 10 IoT Core on Raspberry Pi 2
    The question is, does the Pi really need Windows?
    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/05/21/first_look_windows_10_iot_core_on_raspberry_pi_2/

    First Look Microsoft has released a preview of Windows 10 for Raspberry Pi 2, the £30 ARMv7 computer board produced by the Cambridge-based Raspberry Pi Foundation.

    The version of Windows 10 for the Pi (which is also available for the Intel Atom MinnowBoard Max) is called Windows IoT Core, one of three Windows 10 IoT editions. The other two are Windows 10 IoT for mobile devices (which is ARM only and similar to Windows 10 Mobile) and Windows 10 IoT for industry devices, which is Intel only and similar to Windows 10 Enterprise, tweaked to run a single locked-down application such as for a cash or vending machine.

    In other words, the company has hijacked the IoT (Internet of Things) buzzword and applied it to embedded Windows. That said, the old Windows CE apparently lives on for those who need it, since unlike other versions of Windows it is a real-time operating system (RTOS).

    Windows 10 IoT Core is an oddity in that while it does have a GUI stack, it is limited to Microsoft’s Universal App Platform (UAP), though note that this includes DirectX as well as XAML (Microsoft’s presentation language for UAP) and HTML.

    This means that there is no Windows desktop, nor even a command prompt. That said, it does support PowerShell remoting, which gets you a remote PowerShell terminal from which you can run familiar Windows commands.

    The price? “Windows 10 will include a new IoT edition for small devices that is tuned to run Windows universal apps and drivers and is royalty free to makers and device builders,” said Microsoft’s Don Box in this post.

    Note that IoT Core is not limited to UAP apps. Native Win32 apps run, but you will not see any output other than in a remote session. You can create server apps, though, and one of the samples uses Node.js with a native extension to return memory status to a browser. There is no web server in IoT Core, but Node.js has one built-in. Node.js normally uses the Chrome JavaScript runtime, but in this case it uses Microsoft’s Chakra engine instead.

    Getting Started

    Setting up Windows 10 IoT Core on a Pi 2 is a matter of signing up to Microsoft’s preview programme, downloading an SD card image and writing it to a card using Windows 10 technical preview. The documentation says you need a physical Windows 10 machine in order to get access to a card reader, but apparently VMWare can also work.

    Next, you pop the card into your Pi, preferably with an HDMI display attached, and boot up. You can also connect a USB keyboard and mouse. It takes a while to boot – especially the first time, when some set-up tasks run – but it worked first time for me, displaying a screen of information including the device name and IP address.

    Doing anything with the Pi requires a remote connection. I was able to connect via PowerShell, change the password and deploy a HelloWorld UAP app from Visual Studio 2015 running on Windows 10 build 10074. Everything worked first time. File sharing is on by default and I was able to browse the file system from another PC using the built-in administrative shares C$ and D$.

    The overall size of Windows IoT Core is similar to the stripped-down Nano Server
    the Windows folder on the Pi contains 809MB in 3,356 files

    Does the Raspberry Pi need Windows?

    Does the Raspberry Pi need Windows? It already runs several varieties of Linux, including Raspbian (based on Debian), Ubuntu and Fedora. These distributions lack the peculiarities of Windows IoT Core, with full access to the local command shell, as well as a desktop GUI should you need it. You can even run .NET applications using Mono and it should support the cross-platform .NET Core as well. So what is the point of Windows?

    Putting Windows 10 IoT Core on a Pi makes it less capable than it would be running Linux, but there will still be cases where it makes sense. In an educational context, where you want a smooth workflow for developing an app in Visual Studio, and testing and deploying on the Pi, it could work well.

    Visual Studio is a rich IDE, and with support for C#, Visual Basic, Python, Node.js and C++, there is plenty of scope for language experimentation.

    Reply
  7. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Is BLE Most Suitable for IoT Applications?
    http://www.eeweb.com/blog/eeweb/is-ble-most-suitable-for-iot-applications

    The concept of the IoT, while straightforward, leads to innumerable possibilities. Take anything and fit a sensor/actuator to it (the thing now becomes a “smart-thing”). The sensor detects and measures certain parameters (example: heart rate, speed of running /walking, where your pet is heading). This data is wirelessly communicated to a master (example: a phone or a PC). Thus, the IoT is all about detecting, measuring, and communicating.

    For a successful IoT environment to flourish, we need efficient and cost-effective intercommunication between masters and slaves as well as between slaves themselves. Communication is possible only when:

    1. “Things” are active and transmitting data
    2. They are within the communication range
    3. There is interoperability (i.e. the transmitted message is understood by the receiver)
    4. The data is relevant to the master

    At the same time, it is important to ensure that the communication process is quick and doesn’t drain device batteries.

    Connectivity within the IoT often utilizes wireless communication. There are quite a few wireless communication systems available to choose from. Which communication technology is the best fit depends on the application type and its requirement. Based on application needs, we can segment IoT communication requirements as follows:

    1. Short range and long range: How far can a device be from the master or another device and still communicate reliably? The previously mentioned cattle example illustrates a long-range application. On the other hand, there are numerous life-style, home automation, PC peripheral, and health applications where the need is for short-range communication only.

    2. Need for low-power communication: When it comes to industrial applications, there is a chance that devices are wired to a power source (or using a powerful battery) and thus low-power communication may not be required. However, for applications like wearable electronics that typically run on coin cell batteries, the need for low-power communication is acute. Such applications are a major growth area for the IoT in the coming years.

    3. Short burst or continuous data transfer: Some devices need to communicate continuously while some devices need to send data in short bursts periodically. The metric used to describe these transfer methods is duty cycle (= % of one period when the signal is active). Thus, devices can be segmented in terms of low or high duty cycle.

    4. Need for proprietary or standard communication: There are many proprietary (invented and owned by a single company) and standard (specifications defined by an industry body and multiple vendors complying to the definition) communication technologies available. One limitation with proprietary communication is the fact that both parties (master-slave, master-master, or slave-slave) need to be similarly equipped to acknowledge and interpret the data. This can usually happen when the transmitter device and receptor device are both manufactured by the same company or by companies that have co-developed a solution (e.g., a PC by company X can talk to wireless mice by company X using a particular proprietary communication technology).

    However, with more and more new IoT devices entering the market, the scope of proprietary communication technology begins to limit the marketability of devices.

    Reply
  8. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Teleimperium
    https://hackaday.io/project/5403-teleimperium

    Fully automated remote control and monitoring of agricultural growing systems

    The goal of this system is to develop a full stack scalable platform for remote monitoring and control growing systems including hydroponics, aquapoinics and traditonal outdoor soil growing. Custom hardware will placed at each node capable or reading sensors and controlling pumps, valves and lighting. The sensors will then communicate using a JSON API to a webserver that will allow remote graphing as well as control.

    Since last post we’ve won a LightBlue Bean from http://punchthrough.com. It is a neat little Arduino compatible bluetooth dev board, hopefully we can integrate it into our project.

    The first step to this project is to get a simple hydroponics system up and running.

    We have been working with time series databases and graphing for many years. This has been primary for network equipment using software such as cricket and cacti as well a writing our own software known as grasshopper and portcullis. One of the main problems with all of these programs is the configuration overhead of not being able to quickly and new devices to the system. Another issues is if data storage should use a averaging round-robin database like rrdtool and whisper or save every datapoint to a SQL database. We started working on new graphing software known as teleceptor which has a simple json based configuration as well as the ability to use both whisper and sqllite for datapoints. Data can then be analysed by downloading the full data stored in the SQL database or quickly generate long terms graphs from the whisper database.

    As well as working on software we have also been working on hardware
    Our latest attempt is the Teleimperium.

    We are big believers in open source thus all our software and hardware design are available on Github.

    Reply
  9. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Google Developing ‘Brillo’ Software for Internet of Things
    https://www.theinformation.com/Google-Developing-Brillo-Software-for-Internet-of-Things

    Google wants its software to power any electronic device that connects to the Internet, whether or not it has a digital screen.

    To that end, Google is working on technology that could run on low-powered devices, possibly with as few as 64 or 32 megabytes of random-access memory, according to people who have been briefed about the project.

    Google is likely to release the software under the Android brand, as the group developing the software is linked to the company’s Android unit.

    Reply
  10. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Google is reportedly building a new version of Android to power the Internet of Things
    http://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/05/21/google-is-reportedly-building-a-new-version-of-android-to-power-the-internet-of-things/

    Google’s interest in software for low-spec devices might take it through the emerging market and straight to the Internet of Things.

    According to The Information, Google is preparing to release an Android build capable of running on devices with as little as 32 megabytes of RAM, codenamed “Brillo”. The previous threshold for Android was 512 megabytes, but that’s meant for smartphones and wearables. Brillo is reportedly aimed at the myriad of sensors and dongles that comprise your connected life.

    Based on Android, Brillo is said to have the same purpose: bringing together disparate hardware onto a single software platform. Currently, Brillo is believed to be aimed at connected home devices rather than the all-encompassing Internet of Things.

    If Brillo is ready for prime time, next week’s Google I/O developer’s conference may make it official.

    Reply
  11. Tomi Engdahl says:

    How to connect to Raspberry Pi using Jabber/XMPP
    https://hackaday.io/project/4849-how-to-connect-to-raspberry-pi-using-jabberxmpp

    This is about using an Instant Messaging client (Pidgin, ChatSecure, etc…) to send and receive messages to/from your Raspberry Pi.

    I am working on an a Raspberry Pi based, Internet connected indoor air quality monitor called LiV. LiV is an open source hardware and software project. LiV measures temperature, humidity, air pressure and CO2 levels. I wanted to be able to retrieve measurements from LiV on my cell phone. So I wrote a simple XMPP/Jabber client that runs on the RPI. I created a free Jabber account on jabber.org for the client running on Raspberry Pi. I then added the newly created account in my buddy list in the client app that I am using (i.e. Messages app on Mac and ChatSecure on Android). I can now type commands in my client and receive messages from my Raspberry Pi LiV device. I am providing a github link to the Python source code

    Currently LiV implements the following commands: report, website, alarms, set, reset.

    LiV XMPP
    http://www.firstcypress.com/liv-xmpp.html

    LiV can connect to your IM client application (using Jabber/XMPP protocol) that runs on your mobile phone or computer. There are a variety of IM clients that support Jabber/XMPP (e.g. free open-source Pidgin). You can get a free XMPP addresses for LiV (and for yourself if you don’t have one)

    Reply
  12. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Absolute Overkill IKEA Lampan Lamp Hack
    http://hackaday.com/2015/05/24/absolute-overkill-ikea-lampan-lamp-hack/

    Sometimes too much overkill isn’t enough. [Jesus Echavarria] hacked an IKEA Lampan light for his daughter to add color LEDs, a timer, Bluetooth control over the hue, and a local override knob. The result: a $5 lamp with at least $50 of added awesomeness. Let’s have a look at the latter.

    The whole lamp system is based around a PIC microcontroller and WS2811 LEDs for the color light show.

    the guts from a cheap USB charger
    HC-05 Bluetooth module

    the SPP Pro app sets the colors by sending pre-programmed serial commands over Bluetooth to the PIC in the lamp

    Hacking a LAMPAN Ikea lamp
    http://www.jechavarria.com/2015/04/22/hacking-a-lampan-ikea-lamp/

    Reply
  13. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Anthropomorphizing an Ikea lamp (like Pixar but in real life)
    http://hackaday.com/2011/09/08/anthropomorphizing-an-ikea-lamp-like-pixar-but-in-real-life/

    ArduinoArts is animating an inexpensive Ikea lamp

    Reply
  14. Tomi Engdahl says:

    macchina.io
    http://macchina.io/

    What is macchina.io?
    A toolkit for building embedded IoT applications that connect sensors, devices and cloud services.

    Who is macchina.io for?
    macchina.io is for makers, professional developers, system integrators and device manufacturers.

    macchina.io is an open source software toolkit for quickly building embedded applications for the Internet of Things that run on Linux-based devices like the Raspberry Pi, Beaglebone, RED Brick or Galileo/Edison. macchina.io implements a web-enabled, modular and extensible JavaScript and C++ runtime environment and provides readily available, easy to use building blocks that allow your application to talk to various sensors and devices, as well as cloud services.

    Reply
  15. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Connected cars could cause data traffic jams for mobile operators
    As levels of machine-to-machine data overload networks
    http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2409834/connected-cars-could-cause-data-traffic-jams-for-mobile-operators

    CONNECTED CARS could lead to data traffic jams for mobile networks as levels of machine-to-machine (M2M) data overload networks, new research has found.

    Analyst firm Machina Research said that mobile operators could face major problems during “rush hour”, when “certain cells” will get a 97 percent increase in data traffic, which could have “grave implications”.

    It is believed that connected cars will be vital in the future as technology becomes more integrated into different aspects of vehicles to make them safer.

    Cars of the future will require an internet connection to function to their full potential, and will offer vastly improved safety features.

    They will be able to ‘talk’ to nearby vehicles and be aware of road conditions at all times, and will present traffic data in real time via the cloud. A range of companies are working on such technologies, including Google and Apple.

    “Connected cars, as with other M2M devices, don’t behave like smartphones,” said Machina Research founder and CEO Matt Hatton.

    “They represent a very diverse set of challenges to operators through highly varying network traffic patterns at different times of the day.”

    The report added that M2M connections will increase from 250 million this year to 2.3 billion in 2024

    Reply
  16. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Donky offers a cross-platfom data-packet service for the IoT era
    It’s not just push messaging anyeeyore
    http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2409897/donky-offers-a-cross-platfom-data-packet-service-for-the-iot-era

    PUSH MARKETING PLATFORM Donky launched officially this week, offering developers a series of platform-agnostic options to incorporate into apps and IoT devices.

    Capable of delivering rich media messaging, push notifications, user identification and marketing automation, the system can be niche targeted or action triggered, regardless of access method.

    “Because we create a web socket between two devices we can go where no push messaging has gone before into the likes of Android Open Source. We’re not reliant on the native push channels, he said.

    “They told us: ‘When we’re integrating a push channel, that’s great and everything, but we’re limited in what we can get out of it, so what we really want is for the network to be open enough so that we can broker conversations out of it, and transfer data between devices.’”

    The new Donky starts at just 12KB, running up to 120KB for the full shebang, making it very suitable for IoT sensors, but the company was ahead of its time,

    “This was all before the IoT revolution really started, so we were quite early on with this ability to use custom SDKs and standard SDKs, and our open API architecture which allows us to ‘do stuff’,” said Putman.

    Reply
  17. Tomi Engdahl says:

    NoteOn Smartpen
    Slim, wireless, self-contained. No special paper, no base station.
    https://hackaday.io/project/2678-noteon-smartpen

    The pen uses inertial measurement to track its movement, allowing it to be used with any notebook, post-it note, or napkin. Notes and sketches can be sent to a mobile device over Bluetooth, and from there to a cloud service like Evernote or Google Drive.

    Reply
  18. Tomi Engdahl says:

    DIY Wireless Power Outlet with Raspberry Pi
    http://www.eeweb.com/project/eeweb/diy-wireless-power-outlet-with-raspberry-pi

    Wirelessly control your power outlets from your phone with Tim’s DIY wireless power outlet built with Raspberry Pi. This device will control your power outlets via Wifi and RF.

    Steps:

    Connect wires to Rf transmitter and receiver chips. If you use different gpio pins the programs CodeSend and RFSniffer will not work. If you would like to use different pins check out Ninjablocks 433Utils
    Install Rasbian on Raspberry Pi
    Install Wiring Pi
    Install Apache and PHP on the Raspberry Pi
    Clone web files
    Use RFSniffer to find RF codes for your devices
    Change permission of codesend program so sudo isn’t required:
    Browse to Raspberry Pi ip address ‘http:///rfoutlet/ App demo
    Now you should be able to power on/off your outlets from a web browser. If you would like more range you can add an antenna to the transmitter chip. I cut a 12 inch wire from a cat 5 cable and it worked great.
    If you would like to schedule the outlets on or off you could use crontab.

    Wireless Power Outlets
    http://timleland.com/wireless-power-outlets/

    Reply
  19. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Is BLE Most Suitable for IoT Applications?
    http://www.eeweb.com/blog/eeweb/is-ble-most-suitable-for-iot-applications

    The Internet of Things (IoT) is often defined as a scenario in which objects, animals, and/or people are provided with unique identifiers and the ability to transfer data over a network without requiring human-to-human or human-to-computer interaction. Cisco’s IBSG (Internet Business Solutions Group) predicts (2) that by the year 2020, 50-billion “things” will be connected by the Internet of Things. The IoT is driven by a combination of sensors (or actuators), connectivity, and the Internet. All the “things” that are to be connected to the network are fitted with sensors or actuators. The sensors talk to the master devices (e.g. computers, phones, etc.) using a communication mode that is commonly understood and detectable by the master.

    One of the most celebrated achievements of the entire IoT revolution is the “cattle-sensors” invented by a Dutch startup called Sparked. These sensors, when connected to the ears of cattle, can track an animal’s vitals and message farmers when illness or pregnancy is detected. As a result, farmers can better control the health of their livestock. Similar breakthroughs have happened in other domains such as healthcare (wireless cardiac monitor), apparel (smart shoes), and consumer electronics (smart refrigerators).

    For a successful IoT environment to flourish, we need efficient and cost-effective intercommunication between masters and slaves as well as between slaves themselves. Communication is possible only when:

    1. “Things” are active and transmitting data
    2. They are within the communication range
    3. There is interoperability (i.e. the transmitted message is understood by the receiver)
    4. The data is relevant to the master

    At the same time, it is important to ensure that the communication process is quick and doesn’t drain device batteries.

    Based on application needs, we can segment IoT communication requirements as follows:

    1. Short range and long range: How far can a device be from the master or another device and still communicate reliably?

    2. Need for low-power communication: When it comes to industrial applications, there is a chance that devices are wired to a power source (or using a powerful battery) and thus low-power communication may not be required.

    3. Short burst or continuous data transfer: Some devices need to communicate continuously while some devices need to send data in short bursts periodically.
    devices can be segmented in terms of low or high duty cycle.

    4. Need for proprietary or standard communication: There are many proprietary (invented and owned by a single company) and standard (specifications defined by an industry body and multiple vendors complying to the definition) communication technologies available.

    Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE)

    Bluetooth Low Energy or BLE (marketed as Bluetooth smart) is a wireless communication technology designed and marketed by the Bluetooth SIG. BLE is targeting applications that have the following requirements:

    1. Range of up to 100m: However, as per the SIG website
    2. Need to run on coin cell battery for significant time
    3. Multi-vendor interoperability
    4. Data transfer up to 1Mbps

    Reply
  20. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Smart Factories Meet AI
    Germans define industry 4.0
    http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326676&

    Today (DFKI) is also applying its expertise in AI to application areas like the smart factory, according to professor Detlef Zuehlke, the director of innovation factory systems at DFKI.

    “Now is the right time for smart technologies to be used in our factories,” Zuehlke told us. “We call it the fourth generation of the industrial revolution, with the first being the invention of the steam engine, the second being the invention of the conveyor belt, the third being the use of electronics automation and now the fourth being the introduction of cyber-physical systems [CPSs].

    The fourth industrial generation is already adding hundreds of thousands of microprocessor-controlled equipment modules to the factory floor, all connected, and coordinating their use with data processing techniques that can process the terabytes of data they produce from anywhere on the internet, Zuehlke explained.

    Called “Industry 4.0″ the main point is using the internet-of-things (IoT) for factories–making all controls on the assembly line machinery available online. In addition the former assembly line workers must become smarter elements in the production process. Using smartphones, tablets or similar devices not just to control the manufacturing and assembly process, but also to program the modules thereby customizing their functions between runs.

    “Industry 4.0 marries the IoTs to the factories, making smarter objects, smarter machines and smarter products, but it also making the humans smarter elements in the production process,” Zuehlke told us.

    Thus the future of the industrial revolution 4.0 will be for require the operators to understand information technology (IT), so that they can make the process customizable not only for different jobs, but even for individual buyers. The CPS-driven concept is also married to a new concept of a “leaner” paradigm.

    “The next step will be based on semantic interfaces that allow descriptions of a problem to be translated into a configuration that solves it,” Zuehlke told us.

    Although DFKI has working prototype lines now, they are not hyping their modular techniques, estimating that it will take 10 years until factories can begin to routinely switch over.

    Industry 4.0 was invented by the German government, according to Zuehlke, starting with 220 million euros ($245 million) seed funding with 250 million euros ($278 million) more coming in 2016, with more money coming in by U.S. organizations like the manufacturing leadership council (MLC).

    Reply
  21. Tomi Engdahl says:

    From Manufacturing to Healthcare, Finance to Retail, the Internet of Things (IoT) is revolutionizing the worldwide technology market.

    Reply
  22. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Sniffing and Tracking Wearable Tech and Smartphones
    http://yro.slashdot.org/story/15/05/25/2147252/sniffing-and-tracking-wearable-tech-and-smartphones

    Senior researcher Scott Lester at Context Information Security has shown how someone can easily monitor and record Bluetooth Low Energy signals transmitted by many mobile phones, fitness monitors, and iBeacons. The findings have raised concerns about the privacy and confidentiality wearable devices may provide. “Many people wearing fitness devices don’t realize that they are broadcasting constantly and that these broadcasts can often be attributed to a unique device,”

    “Using cheap hardware or a smartphone, it could be possible to identify and locate a particular device”

    Sniffing and tracking wearable tech and smartphones
    http://www.net-security.org/secworld.php?id=18422

    The researchers have even developed an Android app that scans, detects and logs wearable devices.

    The Context findings follow recent reports that soldiers in the People’s Liberation Army of China have been warned against using wearables to restrict the possibility of cyber-security loopholes. “Many people wearing fitness devices don’t realize that they are broadcasting constantly and that these broadcasts can often be attributed to a unique device,” said Scott Lester, a senior researcher at Context.

    “Using cheap hardware or a smartphone, it could be possible to identify and locate a particular device – that may belong to a celebrity, politician or senior business executive – within 100 meters in the open air. This information could be used for social engineering as part of a planned cyber attack or for physical crime by knowing peoples’ movements.”

    Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) was released in 2010 specifically for a range of new applications that rely on constantly transmitting signals without draining the battery. Like other network protocols it relies on identifying devices by their MAC addresses; but while most BLE devices have a random MAC address, Context researchers found that in most cases the MAC address doesn’t change.

    BLE is also increasingly used in mobile phones and is supported by iOS 5 and later, Windows Phone 8.1, Windows 8, Android 4.3 and later, as well as the BlackBerry 10.

    “By 2018, more than 90 percent of Bluetooth enabled smartphones are expected to be Smart Ready devices,”

    iBeacons, which also transmit BLE packets in order to identify a location, are already used in Apple Stores to tailor notifications to visiting customers

    The current version 4.2 of the Bluetooth Core Specification makes it possible for BLE to implement public key encryption and keep packet sizes down, while also supporting different authentication schemes. “Many BLE devices simply can’t support authentication and many of the products we have looked at don’t implement encryption, as this would significantly reduce battery life and increase the complexity of the application,” said Lester.

    “It is clear that BLE is a powerful technology, which is increasingly being put to a wide range of uses,” concludes Context’s Lester. “While the ability to detect and track devices may not present a serious risk in itself, it certainly has the potential to compromise privacy and could be part of a wider social engineering threat. It is also yet another demonstration of the lack of thought that goes into security when companies are in a rush to get new technology products to market.”

    RaMBLE
    https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.contextis.android.BLEScanner

    RaMBLE is a proof of concept application for scanning, logging and mapping Bluetooth Low Energy devices such as iBeacons and fitness trackers.

    The scanner runs in the background and logs all advertising packets and scan responses received from BLE devices. All data is logged into a database that can be exported to the SD card. It does not connect to, or exchange any information with any devices.

    Reply
  23. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Stacey Higginbotham / Fortune:
    Alarm.com, a security and home automation cloud service provider with 2.3M customers, files for $75M IPO
    http://fortune.com/2015/05/22/alarm-com-ipo/

    Reply
  24. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Geofencing: The ultra-low power frontier for the Internet of Things
    Free-range for devices
    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/05/26/interernet_of_lawnmowers_pt1/

    Internet of Lawnmowers How are the next 10 billion devices going to connect to the internet of today, tomorrow? Having all of these gizmos talk to one another over your standard 2.4Ghz Wi-Fi is not going to happen, so how will all those gizmos connect to the wider internet, and how will we keep them all safe, happy and updated?

    The internet of things will rely on short and medium range wireless networking protocols. From geofencing your lawnmower or Roomba with infrared beacons to Zigbee, Bluetooth, 60Ghz and even visible light networking. Every iota of spectrum the general public can pry out of the hands of regulators will be used, but how is it all going to work?

    Geofencing is a critical set of concepts for the internet of things. It not only provides the basic technologies to stop our “things” from working outside of our secured environments, it also serves as a great start to explain the basic communications technologies.

    Like “cloud computing”, however, geofencing means different things depending on who you talk to.

    The first use of geofencing – constraining a device to a given location – comes in two forms. This covers devices that simply won’t work outside of the geofence, for example a corporate e-mail client that only works when on corporate premises. The second use of geofencing is devices that freak out when removed from the geofence. Think of the little radio tags that retail stores use for high value items.

    These forms of geofencing see practical uses in my everyday life.

    Beacons can be thought of as a highly localised GPS. If you know enough about where the beacons are placed and when they are supposed to squawk then you can do some maths and pinpoint position down to the centimetre.

    Some applications use beacons that – like GPS – just squawk time (and/or location) in order to make this sort of positioning possible.

    Reply
  25. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Bluetooth SIG launches dev studio to encourage development
    Give me your lightbulbs, your locks, your net-enabled forks yearning to be free
    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/16/bluetooth_sig_launches_dev_studio_to_encourage_development/

    Of course, this isn’t the first Bluetooth SDK – all of the chip vendors have tools for their own products and Cambridge Consultants launched a similar tool last year, aimed at product manufacturers who wanted to add Bluetooth and might hire Cambridge Consultants to smooth the process. The Bluetooth SIG tool, however, has the benefit of being free.

    Reply
  26. Tomi Engdahl says:

    The Internet of Things is at the very heart of the role Java will play in the next 20 years – a tiny lightweight embedded operating system powering sensors in everything from brakepads to bins to Bluetooth speakers.

    And if that environment becomes the next battleground for trolling, it could set the course of progress back by 20 or 30 years while everyone decides whether it’s OK for your thermostat to talk to your hoover without paying a surcharge.

    In addition, of course, Snappy Ubuntu Core is one of dozens of other embedded languages that are, ahem, snapping at Java’s heels, and one wrong move now will lose the dominance it has built up. Add to that, rumours that Google plans to launch its own IoT language, Brillo, at nest weeks I/O Conference.

    Source: http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2409867/java-the-caffeinated-consciousness-in-nearly-everything-turns-20

    Reply
  27. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Google I/O: ‘Brillo’ IoT software set to arrive alongside Android M
    Operating system to target devices with as little as 32MB or 64MB RAM
    http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2409766/google-i-o-brillo-iot-software-set-to-arrive-alongside-android-m

    GOOGLE REPORTEDLY will throw itself at the Internet of Things (IoT) market at I/O next week with the launch of a platform for connected devices.

    That’s according to a report at The Information, which claims that Google is set to launch an operating system for IoT devices called Brillo.

    Unsurprisingly, Brillo is tipped to make its debut at Google’s I/O conference next week, where the firm is also expected to launch Android M. A

    The launch of Brillo doesn’t mark Google’s first play in the IoT market. Earlier this year, the firm joined forces with ARM and Samsung to create a home automation network protocol called Thread.

    Google Developing ‘Brillo’ Software for Internet of Things
    https://www.theinformation.com/Google-Developing-Brillo-Software-for-Internet-of-Things

    Reply
  28. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Help Net Security:
    Security researchers say mobile and wearable devices can be tracked by monitoring Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) signal transmissions — Sniffing and tracking wearable tech and smartphones — Researchers at Context Information Security have demonstrated how easy it is to monitor …

    Sniffing and tracking wearable tech and smartphones
    http://www.net-security.org/secworld.php?id=18422

    Reply
  29. Tomi Engdahl says:

    This Paper “Slinky” Could Power Internet of Things
    http://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/green-tech/conservation/paper-origami-energy-harvesters

    Origami that harvests energy from the same effect behind most static electricity could eventually be used to power electronics in a cheap, lightweight, environmentally friendly way.

    Reply
  30. Tomi Engdahl says:

    johnny-five
    JavaScript Robotics and IoT programming framework, developed at Bocoup. Based on Arduino Firmata Protocol

    https://github.com/rwaldron/johnny-five

    Reply
  31. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Monolithic 3-D IC Topped With Solar Cell for Internet of Things
    http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/semiconductors/design/monolithic-3d-ic-topped-with-solar-cell-for-internet-of-thing

    A laboratory leading the charge toward monolithic 3-D ICs has now added ambient-light energy harvesters to its integration repertoire. Engineers at Taiwan’s National Nano Device Laboratories (NDL) hope to use the integrated photovoltaic component to create a convenient, mobile, and durable Internet-of-Things chip.

    The IoT chip is a 3-D stack that includes logic, a type of nonvolatile memory similar to flash, and SRAM all built atop each other. Usually, ambient light energy harvesters placed beside other chips on a circuit board. But building it right on top of a monolithic three-dimensional integrated circuit (3D IC) saved a lot of space, said Chang-Hong Shen, Division Director of the lab’s Emerging Device, said in a news conference in Taipei in March. “The integration reduced the size of the device by 60 percent,” he said.

    Reply
  32. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Internet-of-Growing
    connected smart objects enabling distributed experiments for collaborative research of sustainable food-production
    http://apduino.com//

    DIY Tech Tool for Backyard Food Production

    quaponics, hydroponics, aeroponics are interesting and promising growing technologies to experiment with in backyard greenhouses and polytunnels.

    A simple configuration that allows monitoring your aquaponics greenhouse and the outside environment… A starter for the APDuino Project.

    Reply
  33. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Ubi: The Wall Computer That Gives Your Home a Star Trek Vibe
    Program your own voice commands to control the Internet of Things
    http://spectrum.ieee.org/geek-life/tools-toys/ubi-the-wall-computer-that-gives-your-home-a-star-trek-vibe

    Ubi – The Voice of the Internet
    The fastest and easiest way to create custom voice interaction with Internet services and connected devices through hardware. Learn more…
    http://www.theubi.com/

    Unified Computer Intelligence Corporation (UCIC) designs and build platform for voice and language interaction with the Internet of Things and Internet services. Our mission is to make interaction with technology and the world around us seamless, secure and natural through voice by enabling everyday objects to come alive.

    UCIC provides the Ubi Cloud, a service that turns third party hardware into ubiquitous computing devices. Ubi Cloud integrates with services and IoT devices such as calendar, email, music, Nest Thermostat, SmartThings, Logitech Harmony.

    Reply
  34. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Top 7 consumer-tailored IoT devices
    http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/brians-brain/4439538/Top-7-consumer-tailored-IoT-devices?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150526&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150526&elq=528975af22ce49969a88457f7d125da8&elqCampaignId=23151&elqaid=26072&elqat=1&elqTrackId=869960a5ea5044b2ab05a2a9a88572f7

    The “Internet of Things” (often abbreviated as “IoT”) is, if you haven’t already noticed, one of the hottest buzzwords of late in tech. Why? IoT is widely anticipated to be a notable driver of both semiconductor and software demand in coming years.

    According to Gartner, there will be nearly 26 billion devices on the Internet of Things by 2020. ABI Research estimates that more than 30 billion devices will be wirelessly connected to the Internet of Things (Internet of Everything) by 2020. As per a recent survey and study done by Pew Research Internet Project, a large majority of the technology experts and engaged Internet users who responded—83 percent—agreed with the notion that the Internet/Cloud of Things, embedded and wearable computing (and the corresponding dynamic systems) will have widespread and beneficial effects by 2025. It is, as such, clear that the IoT will consist of a very large number of devices being connected to the Internet.

    IoT’s current status but also potential future trends.

    Video surveillance
    Surveillance offshoots
    Residence sensors and water monitors
    Home automation, easy shopping, and IoT for dogs

    Reply
  35. Tomi Engdahl says:

    How Fast Can I Iterate?
    A project log for An IOT Device That Tells Dad the Stove is Off.
    https://hackaday.io/project/4688-an-iot-device-that-tells-dad-the-stove-is-off/log/17599-how-fast-can-i-iterate

    I could just go with the Teensy LC, which I’ll need to get another one to make a back up prototype, and to do some science experiments with the stove with.

    I’m also looking at the MSP430, and the MSP432, but I’m not that familiar with programming it, unless I stick to just Energia.
    The MSP430′s nice because it’s low power.

    I also want to get rid of the CC3000 wifi break out board, and see if I can instead integrate the ESP8266 module, because it’s smaller and cheaper. The CC3000, while it’s nice, is a lot of hardware and expense. And I want to build something that’s manufacturable and cheap component wise. Plus I can include the ESP8266 information as a tutorial in how to use it.

    Reply
  36. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Wearable Sensors to Monitor Environmental Triggers for Asthma and More
    http://www.techbriefs.tv/video/Wearable-sensors-to-monitor-tri

    Researchers from the National Science Foundation-supported Nanosystems Engineering Research Center (NERC) for Advanced Systems of Integrated Sensors and Technologies (ASSIST) at North Carolina State University are using nanotechnology to develop small, wearable sensors that monitor a person’s immediate environment, as well as the wearer’s vital signs. These sensors would monitor environmental concerns, such as ozone, carbon monoxide, and nitrogen dioxide levels at the same time that they are monitoring vital signs, such as heart rate and hydration. The sensor’s data would be transmitted wirelessly to the wearer’s cell phone, and even to a doctor. The goal is to help people avoid exposure to the environmental conditions that exacerbate asthma and other health concerns.

    Reply
  37. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Why Johnnie Walker joined the Internet of Things
    http://www.cio.com/article/2926218/innovation/why-johnnie-walker-joined-the-internet-of-things.html

    With the help of printed electronics and an Internet of Things smart product platform, beverage giant Diageo is equipping its Johnnie Walker Blue Label whisky with smart bottles.

    British beverage company Diageo is the largest producer of spirits in the world

    “A lot of our brands are 300 or 400 years old, or even older than that,” says Venky Balakrishnan Iyer, global vice president, Digital Innovation, Diageo. “There’s a lot of craft and tradition that goes into creating our products. What we’re trying to do here is take the latest innovations and see how we can take something that’s special already and make it a richer consumer experience.”

    Johnnie Walker is a case in point. Nearly 200 years ago, John “Johnnie” Walker started selling his Walker’s Kilmarnock Whisky in his grocer’s shop.

    The brand and its iconic square bottle — first introduced in 1870 — is well-known nearly everywhere. But it may be time for that bottle, or more specifically its label, to change with the times. At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this past March, Diageo and partner Thinfilm Electronics introduced a prototype “smart bottle” for the flagship Johnnie Walker Blue Label whisky.

    The smart bottle features a printed sensor tag made with Thinfilm’s OpenSense technology. It can detect the sealed and opened state of each bottle. OpenSense uses smartphones’ Near Field Communication (NFC) capabilities, allowing Diageo to send personalized communications to consumers who read the tags with their smartphones.

    “Although these are very traditional product categories, there is a huge amount of digital interaction that is happening with our products,”

    Diageo sees millions of searches about its brands occurring, and more than 50 percent of those searches happen through mobile within a few feet of the bottle on the shelf. Communicating with those consumers at the point of sale is a major push for Diageo, Balakrishnan says. But Thinfilm’s technology goes even further, because it can detect the closed or opened state of the bottle.

    “We know the bottle opening event has occurred,”

    Diageo is primarily focused on the marketing elements of the technology, but it also has application in the supply chain. Companies with products equipped with Thinfilm sensor tags can track those products across the supply chain, in-store and to the point of consumption, with the sensor tags remaining readable even when the factory seal has been broken. This provides an additional layer of security to protect the authenticity of the product.

    Thinfilm’s sensor tags consist of an antenna and an integrated circuit (IC) printed on a label, says Matthew Bright, director of Product & Technical Marketing at Thinfilm and chair of the Retail Working Group at the NFC Forum. They have an engineered weak point that is designed to break when the seal of the container is broken, changing the information transmitted by the circuit.

    Each tag has a unique identifier encoded by Thinfilm and is 100 percent read-only, making them very difficult to clone.

    The technology could help detect counterfeiting, he adds. For instance, counterfeiting in the cosmetics world is a known problem.

    Smart labels can even be manufactured with temperature sensors that can detect if a product, like vaccines, goes beyond a set temperature range, Bright says.

    The Web of Things creates a network of data

    EVRYTHNG helped Diageo build a strategic technology platform called +More that runs on EVRYTHNG’s engine. +More allows digital interaction with retailers and other supply partners based on how products are made, sold and used. Diageo is using the platform for a range applications that allow it to track products in the supply chain and deliver interaction analytics.

    “The Internet of Things is about how stuff gets connected,” he says. “The Web of Things is about how things are connected in a broader network. How stuff is getting connected is the least interesting part of the whole puzzle. The value arises as a consequence of the data getting connected.”

    Leveraging the cloud-based EVERYTHNG Engine, Diageo used APIs and Web services to integrate its +More marketing platform with internal global ERP and CRM systems, external agencies, developers and social networks.

    http://www.thinfilm.no/

    Reply
  38. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Engineering for the internet of things.
    Create a culture of continuous innovation.
    http://www.ibm.com/ibm/continuousengineering/us/en/

    Continuous engineering is the enterprise capability to create the connected products and systems at the heart of the internet of things.

    Continuous engineering

    Speed delivery of smart and connected products
    http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/continuousengineering/index.html

    Continuous engineering is an enterprise capability that speeds delivery of increasingly sophisticated and connected products by helping businesses to evolve their engineering practices to adapt to the accelerating pace of business change.

    Insight originates with data — learn from:

    Your product in operation
    Customer sentiment and market trends
    Engineering performance metrics

    Reply
  39. Tomi Engdahl says:

    AllJoyn your whitegoods, says Qualcomm
    Stuff’s worth a billion, says Thing-zilla
    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/05/18/alljoyn_your_whitegoods_says_qualcomm/

    Qualcomm is giving its AllJoyn protocol another shove with new Internet of Stuff silicon targeting the home appliance market.

    As well as integrating the Allseen Alliance AllJoyne framework, the company’s QCA401x and QCA4531 chips put WiFi together with a microcontroller and various interfaces. The aim, the company says, is to get around the incompatibilities emerging in the Internet of Everything space.

    The 401x has 800 KB of on-chip memory (this is the IoE world, where small footprints are a good thing), and as well as WiFi supports IPv6, HTTP, and connections for sensors, displays and actuators. Security features include anti-tampering, data integrity and root of trust, the company says.

    The QCA4531 is a “feature rich IoE node” targeting appliance connectivity – the Internet of Whitegoods if you like. It includes embedded Linux and OpenWRT, a 2×2 MIMO 802.11n transceiver, and support for multiprotocol bridging. It can connect up to 16 devices and is power-optimised.

    Allseen support is hardly a surprise, since the AllJoyn protocols underneath it are Qualcomm’s baby.

    Forbes reports, Qualcomm is now able to classify the IoE as a US$1 billion segment of its business, with chips going into “city infrastructure projects, home appliances, cars and wearables”.

    Smartphones still dominate the Qualcomm business, but the company reckons 10 per cent of its chip revenues will come from “stuff” in 2015.

    Reply
  40. Tomi Engdahl says:

    IoT Security Groundswell Gathers
    http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1326687&

    After plenty of talk, a wave of real action aimed at solving the Internet of Things’s security problems is on the rise.

    At least twice a week someone pings me with an idea for a guest article on how engineers must solve security problems if the Internet of Things is going to reach its potential. After plenty of talk on the topic, a wave of real action is on the rise.

    The Intel-led Open Interconnect Consortium defining a high-level IoT software stack recently called for engineers to join its work on security. I know its rival, the Thread Group, is engaged in similar work. The IEEE is taking a different tack, organizing an effort in which policy makers to join engineers

    IoT security was a hot topic at the recent RSA Conference. The Trusted Computing Group put out a white paper there about how to embed in resource-limited IoT nodes its approach to a hardware root of trust.

    Stanford University recently wrapped up a seminar on the topic. Another good reference is this list of the ten top attack sites for IoT.

    The Global Semiconductor Alliance recently released a report on IoT that called out security issues as noted in a story by my colleague Junko Yoshida. Ad today, IBM released the annual report from the Ponemon Institute on the state of Internet security generally.

    The Ponemon study of 350 global companies across all industries said the average total cost of a data breach increased 23 percent over two years to $3.79 million. The average cost paid for each lost or stolen record containing sensitive and confidential information increased six percent to $154. However, the cost in healthcare companies was as high as $363.

    Reply
  41. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Nest rival: Smartmobes will decide who survives the Internet of Stuff war
    Ecobee CEO on Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, thermostats and more
    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/05/27/ecobee_interview/

    Interview It’s almost impossible to talk to anyone about the internet of things right now without them drawing some kind of connection to the Nest smart thermostat.

    When we spoke to the CEO of August Smart Lock, he talked about integrating with Nest. The general manager of Sengled USA – a company making smart lightbulbs – likewise. The CEO of smart doorbell outfit Ring talked about the thermostat in depth.

    In many ways, Nest has become the touchstone for conversations about a new generation of smart products. So you can imagine how frustrating it must be if you are actually the manufacturer of another smart thermostat.

    Fortunately, Ecobee CEO Stuart Lombard consoles himself with the fact that his latest product – the Ecobee3 – keeps getting better reviews than the ubiquitous Nest, from consumers and professional reviewers alike.

    “Read the customer reviews,” he tells us. “We’re the highest valued by a significant margin. We’re simply a better product. And we have better reliability.”

    But moving away from the Coke v Pepsi battle, Lombard has a unique vantage point in the growing “internet of things” (IoT) market as the manufacturer of one of the few “smart” products that so far consumers have decided is worth the extra investment: the thermostat.

    It’s not hard to see why. “So I have $26,000 worth of solar panels on my roof,” Lombard tells us. “But my $200 Ecobee saves just as much energy every year.”

    Heating and cooling accounts for between 40 and 70 per cent of a home’s energy use. By installing a smart thermostat, a typical household can save around 23 per cent of those costs a year, according to stats the company has amassed. “Basically, it pays for itself in about a year.”

    The other thing driving consumer acceptance of the new wave of thermostats, apart from saving money, is the fact that they aren’t hideous. “We’ve moved away from the beige box and into ease-of-use. A lot of the effort [in the new Ecobee3] has gone into making it look beautiful.”

    And the Ecobee 3 does have a beautiful design. Where the Nest has gone for a rotating interface, the Ecobee 3 feels like an iPhone, with a touchscreen and moving menus.

    Reply
  42. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Cisco predicts Rise Of The Machines in new networking index
    Things are going to come online faster than people as we head for two-zettabyte traffic splurge
    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/05/28/most_new_connections_to_2019_will_be_m2m_cisco/

    The Internet of Junk Things isn’t going to overwhelm the Internet’s capacity any time soon, according to Cisco’s rolling Visual Networking Index (VNI) report.

    What the IoT will do, if Cisco’s got its numbers right, is account for the bulk of new connections to the Internet in the next five years, suggesting that The Borg doesn’t share the “connect the world” optimism of Facebook and others.

    That snippet is what El Reg gleans, anyhow, from the user and traffic growth data provided in the latest VNI.

    Cisco says machine-to-machine (M2M) connections will grow from 24 per cent of connections in 2014 to 43 per cent of connections by 2019.

    With total connections growing from 2.8 billion to 3.9 billion in that period, M2M is predicted to rise from 6.72 billion connections for 2014 to 1.677 billion in 2019 – adding 1.005 billion.

    If that’s correct, then the VNI is predicting just 95 million brand-new human connections to the Internet in the same period.

    Faster networks and more video, rather than new wetware, will remain the engine-rooms of traffic growth: average broadband speeds will rise from 20.3 Mbps to 42.5 Mbps, Cisco reckons, and hunger for video will drive the global traffic run rate to 2 zettabytes annually.

    With relatively low-bitrate M2M connections excluded from the 2019 forecast, that suggests the Netflix effect is going to continue to bite carriers.

    Reply
  43. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Ross Miller / The Verge:
    Google announces Brillo, an operating system for the Internet of Things — Google is rejoining the Internet of Things platform wars. Today at its I/O conference, the company announced Brillo, the “underlying operating system for the internet of things,” with a developer preview coming in Q3 of this year.

    Google announces Brillo, an operating system for the Internet of Things
    Developer preview coming in Q3
    http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/28/8677119/google-project-brillo-iot-google-io-2015

    Google is rejoining the Internet of Things platform wars. Today at its I/O conference, the company announced Brillo, the “underlying operating system for the internet of things,” with a developer preview coming in Q3 of this year. Brillo is “derived” from Android but “polished” to just the lower levels. It supports Wi-Fi, Bluetooth Low Energy, and other Android things.

    Additionally there’s Weave, the (cross platform) common language that will let Brillo devices, phones, and the internet all talk to one another — that’s coming in Q4. Android devices will auto-detect Brillo and Weave devices. Here’s a helpful chart to explain the relation — plus some code, because after all it is Google I/O:

    Reply
  44. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Designing wearables for good
    http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/now-hear-this/4439539/Designing-wearables-for-good

    Well-known charitable organization UNICEF and technology giant ARM are giving product designers around the world a huge challenge: to find new ways for wearable technologies to solve pressing global problems that globally prevent families from accessing basic health, education, and support services.

    “We have to look at where the line is between standardization and innovation,” said Ian Ferguson, vice president of marketing, at ARM. “The good thing with our technology is you can do anything with it and the challenging thing is also that you can do anything with it. It’s good to have frog and UNICEF, which understand what the environments are like and how to do robust product designs.”

    Using the battle cry “innovate for impact,” the two companies are collaborating with product strategy and design firm frog to start the multi-year initiative that will start with the Wearables for Good design challenge. ” We want to encourage the idea that all of us — makers, engineers, do-gooders, executives, computer scientists, inventors, innovators — are making things that are not just nice to have, but that people need,” the Wearables for Good site explains.

    The winners will be given a $15,000 cash prize, but more importantly the winners will get incubation and mentorship support from ARM and frog to help get the two chosen projects to the pilot stage and demonstrate the potential of the idea.

    Reply
  45. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Huawei vs. Xiaomi: China in Microcosm
    Two companies in charting IoT future
    http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326713&

    Huawei and Xiaomi are the rock stars of Chinese high-tech. Coming from vastly different backgrounds and experience, they share one goal: Connect everything.

    Huawei’s technological prowess in telecom and Xiaomi’s agility in China’s consumer electronics market illustrate both companies’ potential and their weaknesses. Understanding the differences offers a glimpse into the future — where China is guiding the global electronics industry.

    2. Most sought-after partner/investor in the industry
    Drop Huawei’s name to anyone in the IoT world. Leading vendors in different industries are likely to leap at the opportunity for a partnership with Huawei as they devise their own “everything connected” business strategy. Yang told us, “Companies like Benz and BMW are glad to talk to us.”

    Xiaomi, in consumer electronics, is not just the darling of the media. It’s also the most sought after investor many startups are looking for.

    1. Hardware vs. Internet
    The foremost difference is probably “how we think of hardware,” said Bin Lin, president and co-founder of Xiaomi. “At Xiaomi, we want to offer our hardware at amazing prices – almost at BOM cost.”

    2. Global vs. Domestic
    Huawei has already crossed the borders to become one truly global vendor among all Chinese high-tech companies. Asked about its difference from Xiaomi, Huawei’s Yang pointed out that Xiaomi’s biggest market remains China. “They haven’t gone global.”

    Xiaomi launched earlier this month its first e-commerce platform in the United States, selling Xiaomi’s accessories — smart wristbands, power banks, connected weight scales, etc. — directly to U.S. consumers, but sans Xiaomi smartphones.

    3. Organic growth vs. Investment spree
    Huawei doesn’t believe in M&A. The employee-owned company is focused on “organic growth,” according to Yang. “We want to move fast without getting caught up in the arduous process of integrating different organizations,” he explained.

    Xiaomi doesn’t do much M&A either — largely because it’s too small. But Xiaomi is rapidly expanding its portfolio and diversifying via a slew of investments.

    4. IoT concept vs. IoT products
    Huawei’s size and deep technical foundation fuels its full-bore pursuit of IoT in different market segments.

    Huawei is seeking IoT partners on the implementation level. But its strategy is to work with a select few industry leaders in each product category — such as automotive, smart home and wearables.

    Meanwhile, Xiaomi is rolling out connected products from Xiaomi’s ecosystem companies. Those products are featured with Xiaomi-designed connectivity module that contains Xiaomi’s service API. Xiaomi’s Lin told us: “The [IoT] concept remains only as a concept if we don’t make products. We think Xiaomi is good at making products, rather than Powerpoint presentations.”

    5. Distribution channels vs. Direct to consumers
    In getting into the smartphone business, Huawei had to pay costly price in learning how to work with distribution/retail channels in the consumer market.

    In contrast, Xiaomi, who was also a newcomer to the smartphone business five years ago, figured out a way to totally bypassed the intricacies of traditional distribution channels. They developed a strategy, from the very beginning, in selling their products directly to consumers via their own online platform. Further, they created a huge group of followers online.

    Reply
  46. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Chips Make Change in Emerging Markets
    http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1326708&

    The chief executive of ARM challenges engineers to put today’s technologies to use in developing markets.

    It is inspiring to see today’s companies deliver immense benefits with their technologies, building a more efficient digital economy that connects people in highly imaginative ways. Now it’s time to take these technological foundations and apply them to more basic services such as health, education and safety. Today’s technology building blocks can enable new products and services in parts of the world which have not yet been able to fully capitalize on the power of the silicon chip.

    Last week, ARM and UNICEF announced a multi-year partnership to deliver innovation for impact and deliver social change for children and underdeveloped counties. As part of that, in collaboration with frog, we also launched a Wearables for Good design challenge for developers and makers to design and develop new wearable technologies to address fundamental problems facing the worlds most disadvantaged.

    As part of our partnership, ARM will support UNICEF in scaling up some existing innovations. Worldwide, UNICEF’s innovation work is focused on real-time information using young people as a resource to provide access to vital information. Existing UNICEF projects making an impact include U-Report, Internet of Good Things (IoGT), EduTrac and mTrac. We are collectively looking for this level of innovative ingenuity to generate change in underserved populations.

    Reply

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