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 2019. This 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 technologies. Brimming 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 protocol – what 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 attention. Smart 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.
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 spam. Nowadays 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 safety. That 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 security. More 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 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 Hotspots – Corralling 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 Hotspots – IoT, robots, 4K to dominate CES
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
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
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
The one problem the Internet of Things hasn’t solved
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
Tomi Engdahl says:
Wearable fitness tech: Exercising your self-motivation skills
Do health trackers really keep you in good shape?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/05/29/breaking_fad_fitness_trackers_biobank/
Tomi Engdahl says:
‘Not just flavour of the month’: Intel expands Internet of Things push with opening of Haifa lab
http://www.zdnet.com/article/not-just-flavour-of-the-month-intel-expands-internet-of-things-push-with-opening-of-haifa-lab/
Summary:If others have gotten the headlines in Internet of Things, it’s not for her firm’s lack of tech, says Intel’s Europe head of IoT
Internet of Things is not just the “flavor of the month” at Intel, according to Louise Summerton, who heads Intel’s IoT labs in Europe and the Middle East.
“The predictions of 50 billion connected devices by the end of the decade are not unrealistic at all,” she said on the sidelines of an Intel IoT event in Israel.
The occasion was the opening of a new IoT lab in Haifa, part of Intel’s growing chain of such labs throughout the world. “Currently we have labs in Munich, Stockholm, Istanbul, and Swindon UK. Haifa is our fifth, and we expect to expand to the Americas and Asia over the next year or so,” said Summerton.
For such a short acronym, IoT is a huge topic – technically, any object can be networked, which makes IoT potentially the biggest IT play since MS-DOS. The new Israel lab, like the others in the network, will do their own development, and partner with local startups to help build IoT products.
Although all Intel IoT Labs will develop products and technologies that apply to many verticals, the company expects each lab to develop in areas where the local tech ecosystem is strongest (in Munich, for example, the emphasis is on in-car technologies).
In Israel, that means smart cities and homes, agriculture, and transportation, said Summerton. Already, there are many smart city projects in Israel.
Smart agriculture is another area of expertise for Israel, and represents a huge market for tech companies. Although it doesn’t usually get headlines, many of the world’s top tech firms – Intel, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, and others – have worked extensively with startups, agricultural groups, and government in Israel to establish big data and smart agriculture products for watering crops, feeding cows, and growing chickens.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google is fully using its Nest acquisition to step into the Internet of Things market by announcing Project Brillo, its own operating system for IoT devices. Brillo is derived from Android to provide low power, wireless solution that can be easily scalable to all types of Android devices.
It’s also using its own language named Weave to communicate between the Brillo OS, a device and the cloud. Weave is available cross-platform.
Source: http://thenextweb.com/google/2015/05/28/everything-google-announced-at-google-io-2015-in-one-handy-list/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google Announces ‘Brillo’ Operating System for IoT, ‘Weave’ Language; Unlimited Photo, Video Storage
http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2015/05/28/google-announces-brillo-operating-system-for-iot-weave-language/
On stage at Google’s (GOOGL) “I/O” developer conference in San Francisco, senior vice president Sundar Pichai unveiled the company’s “Brillo” operating system, which he called the “operating system for the Internet of Things,” the IoT, a stripped-down version of the Android mobile operating system.
Pichai said the software will be made available to developers in Q3 of this year. He billed it as a “polished” version of Android, hence the reference to the scouring pad.
Along with Brillo, Pichai unveiled something called “Weave,” which he billed as a common communications language for connected devices. Using Weave, “Your recipe app on your smartphone can turn on your smart oven and set it to the right temperature,” he said.
Developers will submit so-called schemas that tell many apps how to manipulate the functions of a device. “A camera can define what it means to take a picture,” said Pichai, and then all apps can access that picture-taking function. “A [smart] door lock can define ‘lock’ and ‘unlock’ as common phrases,” for apps to use.
Pichai said Weave will be available as code running on top of Brillo, or “on top of your existing stack.” In either case, it “exposes developer APIs [application programming interfaces] in a cross-platform way.”
Weave will become available to developers in Q4, he said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Apple’s HomeKit platform will see first accessories launch next week
http://9to5mac.com/2015/05/29/apple-homekit-shipping-june/
The first home automation products using Apple’s new Siri-controlled HomeKit platform will arrive next week, according to sources briefed on Apple’s plans.
The company first introduced HomeKit last year alongside iOS 8, introducing a framework for developers to build home automation accessories that could integrate with one another and be controlled using Siri. After Apple officially began to accept HomeKit product plans last November, a number of companies began showing off HomeKit products at CES 2015 in January.
Many of the companies previewing HomeKit products in recent months are likely to be among the roughly five companies sources say will make announcements early next week.
Tomi Engdahl says:
David Pierce / Wired:
With Project Jacquard, Google aims to bring touch sensors, haptic feedback, and more to fabric used for everything from jeans to car seats, partners with Levi’s
Google Is Hacking Our Clothes to Work Like Touchscreens
http://www.wired.com/2015/05/google-wants-turn-everything-wearable/
If you want to understand a key piece of Google’s vision for the future of the fashion, furniture, and automotive industries, look no further than Lady Gaga. Specifically, at a dress she wore to a 2013 iTunes Festival in London.
Poupyrev is a technical program lead inside Google’s ATAP division, the top-secret lab run by former DARPA director Regina Dugan that is responsible for some of Google’s most insane and ambitious ideas. One of the most ambitious ideas to date: smart pants.
OK, technically Poupyrev’s idea is called Project Jacquard.
It aims to bring conductive yarns to every garment and fabric on earth, and then to integrate touch sensors, haptic feedback, and more right into your jeans, car seats, curtains, everything. “If you can weave the sensor into the textile, as a material,” Poupyrev says, “you’re moving away from the electronics. You’re making the basic materials of the world around us interactive.”
Conductive fabric is nothing new, but conductive fabric at scale is. And the Jacquard team created a way to produce this conductive yarn with the same looms and machinery the textiles industry already uses. They also figured out how to integrate tiny electronics into textiles, which Poupyrev hopes will soon live inside every item of clothing you buy. Google is working on an ecosystem of apps and services that will let you interact with your phone and other gadgets just by grabbing, tapping, swiping, and touching your clothes.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The “3rd Platform,” driven by SMAC (social, mobile, analytics and cloud), generates a wide skills gap versus traditional IT skills.
6. SMAC Meets the Internet of Things
SMAC is moving the enterprise from the office out into the larger world. SMAC has a symbiotic relationship with Internet of Things, each supporting the growth of the other. IoT will act as an accelerator for SMAC as more devices come online, and it will add value to SMAC because of the increased context these devices bring us, empowering organizations to conduct new, different kinds of conversations with their customers.
Source: http://www.csc.com/innovation/insights/117537-the_6_hottest_it_trends_for_2015?utm_campaign=0515-GDC-Outbrain4ThoughtLeadershipLegCampaign&utm_source=outbrain&utm_medium=ocpc
Tomi Engdahl says:
Model House Models House, Vice-Versa
http://hackaday.com/2015/05/30/model-house-models-house-vice-versa/
[Eric Tsai] is on a home-automation rampage. Not content with the usual smartphone-based GUIs, [Eric] built a cardboard model house that models his house. Open the garage door, and the model house’s garage door opens. Open the real front door, and a tiny servo motor opens the cardboard front door.
The model house also comes with a power meter that represents his current power usage
Physical Home Automation Interface
http://www.instructables.com/id/Physical-Home-Automation-Interface/?ALLSTEPS
An interface conveys information and allows the user to control things. Most home automation platforms rely on a “virtual interface ”. You pull out a smart phone and open the app to see what’s going on with your house and turn lights on and off. That works OK when you’re away. But looking at a virtual representation and parsing the information on the display takes work. It requires focus, and doesn’t feel intuitive.
I wanted to make a “physical interface” – a small model house that physically mimics the things I want to know about with my real house.
So, in the following steps, I will
1. Build a model house to display things like door position, energy usage, and whether a light has been left on.
2. Build an energy monitor using the Open Energy Monitor Arduino library, and feed energy use information to the model house and to OpenHAB
3. Provide a couple ways of sending door/window position to the model house. Show how the Wink Hub and the Wink “Tripper” contact sensor data can be utilized in a DIY home automation system.
4. Use Wink and Arduino to perform outputs, like open/close the actual garage door or turn lights on and off.
The model house has some servos and LED’s wired to an Arduino controller. This controller subscribes to MQTT messages that indicate door positions and energy usage, and actuates the servos accordingly. Same idea with the LED that indicates whether a light is on or off. There’s a few options for getting this sensor information to the MQTT broker, so I’ll detail that in later steps. In the middle of it all is a Raspberry Pi running a MQTT broker (Mosquitto) and OpenHAB. Although OpenHAB is not needed to run the model house, it is needed to provide the interface for the smart phone app, and allow remote monitoring and actuation. Just because I want to have a physical interface doesn’t mean I’m ready to throw out the virtual one.
Tomi Engdahl says:
IoT Standards eclipse.org
http://iot.eclipse.org/standards
The IoT Working Group is supporting open standards for the Internet of Things.
We provide open source implementations for IoT protocols such as CoAP, ETSI SmartM2M, MQTT or LwM2M.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Pool/Hot Tub Monitoring and Data Collection
http://hackaday.com/2015/06/01/poolhot-tub-monitoring-and-data-collection/
Pools and hot tubs, although enjoyable, require monitoring and maintenance to keep the water clean and clear. [bhuebner] didn’t like having to constantly testing his hot tub’s vitals using test strips and water test kits.
The hardware is based on a Nanode (think Arduino with on-board Ethernet). Three sensors are connected to the Nanode and placed in his hot tub’s water. The sensors measure pH, ORP and Temperature. That data is then uploaded to xively.com where the data is not just stored, but tracked over time and displayed in graph-form.
[bhuebner] made his code available
What is Nanode
http://www.nanode.eu/what-is-nanode/
In a nutshell, Nanode is an open source microcontroller board which has on-board internet connectivity.
It is a low cost building block to allow experimentation with the Internet of Things.
If you are familiar with Arduino, then you will recognise Nanode as the next logical step in the creation of exciting open source hardware projects – ones which can interact with cloud based applications and events in the online environment.
Initially, Nanode provided a simple means of communicating with the internet, using processes such as an online browser, or through an open data api – such as Cosm. Using these simple techniques, Nanode could serve a simple webpage, and allow a user to interact with it’s hardware using a browser interface. Nanode can also be used for sensing environmental data, such as temperature, weather or air-quality – using simple add on sensors. This data could be conveyed up to a cloud based open data service such as Cosm, and then using the tools provided, the data could be visualised, graphed and acted upon.
Nanode is also capable of subscribing to online data sources, again using Cosm, or by monitoring a Twitter feed. Nanode can act upon the changing data or text within these feeds and perform an action. The best known example of this is Nat Morris’s dog feeder, which feeds his dog Toby biscuit snacks in response to a Twitter feed.
Nanode does however provide six 10-bit analogue input lines and six digital I/O lines of which four have pulse width modulation (pwm) available.
Nanode provides the same Arduino shield connectors allowing the system to be expanded by stacking boards on top.
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.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sensor Data Analytics — Unlocking Value in ‘Big Data’
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1326715&
With data flowing from ubiquitous sensors, the new field known as sensor data analytics, or SDA, is beginning to show its ultimate promise.
“Big data” analytics continues to gather massive amounts of attention and investment across the business spectrum.
Much of the analytics performed today is focused on understanding human behavior, such as uncovering insights and drawing conclusions from a consumer’s purchasing history, website browsing patterns, reading list, and movie preferences.
These analytics are designed to better understand consumers’ needs and to make companies’ sales and marketing more targeted, cost-effective and profitable. In these applications, the underlying data is about humans, is generated by humans, and analyzed by humans in the hopes of affecting human behavior.
With the growth and acceleration of the Internet of Things (IoT), connected devices will overtake humans as the most prevalent sources of “big data.”
This ubiquity of sensors and the flow of data from them are leading to a new field known as sensor data analytics, or SDA, one that is only beginning to show its ultimate promise.
These sensor capabilities and information architecture open up many interesting possibilities, in two broad categories:
In the first category we can use sensor data to rethink conventional products and applications and redesign them to better serve our needs.
The second category opened by sensor data analytics involves the monetization of the information itself.
The good news in all these examples is that there will be no shortage of data from sensors for analysis and action, opening unlimited possibilities for designers and business people. There is one challenge we must consider, though, in design and implementation in the IoT — security and privacy.
Sensors are so sensitive and can pick up ambient signals that not only contain the target information needed by an application, they often carry other information that different sensor data analytics algorithms can uncover. Without the proper security and privacy built into products, private information could be unwittingly transmitted.
To guard against mayhem and financial disaster we need to think beyond the Internet of Things and get to the Internet of Tomorrow. The Internet of Tomorrow is a highly-secure version of the Internet of Things, one that implements strong security at every level of the Internet infrastructure — at the end node, gateway and cloud levels, and within each device at each level. Only secured data can be trusted data.
The secure Internet of Things will continue to grow, and sensor data analytics will be a key component in driving new applications.
Tomi Engdahl says:
CIA Chief: Ending NSA Spying Would Boost Terror Threat
http://www.securityweek.com/cia-chief-ending-nsa-spying-would-boost-terror-threat
CIA chief John Brennan warned Sunday that allowing vital surveillance programs to expire could increase terror threats, as the US Senate convened for a crunch debate on whether to renew the controversial provisions.
With key counterterrorism programs set to expire at midnight Sunday, the top intelligence official made a final pitch to senators, arguing that the bulk data collection of telephone records of millions of Americans unconnected to terrorism has not abused civil liberties and only serves to safeguard citizens.
“This is something that we can’t afford to do right now,” Brennan said of allowing the expiration of counterterrorism provisions, which “sunset” at the end of May 31.
Brennan added that groups like Islamic State have followed the developments “very carefully” and are “looking for the seams to operate.”
No US Senate Deal, Spy Provisions Expire at Midnight: Lawmakers
http://www.securityweek.com/no-us-senate-deal-spy-provisions-expire-midnight-lawmakers
The US Senate failed Sunday to reach a deal that would prevent key counterterror provisions from expiring at midnight, after Senator Rand Paul blocked the chamber from advancing a solution.
“The Patriot Act will expire tonight,” said Paul, a 2016 presidential candidate, after hours of ultimately fruitless debate on how to get a reform bill across the finish line that would have preserved important national security provisions.
The USA Freedom Act, which has already passed the House, would end the National Security Agency’s controversial dragnet that scoops up telephone data on millions of Americans with no connection to terrorism.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Researchers Find Over 50 Security Flaws in D-Link NAS, NVR Devices
http://www.securityweek.com/researchers-find-over-50-security-flaws-d-link-nas-nvr-devices
SEARCH-LAB, a Hungary-based security testing company that specializes in embedded systems, has identified more than 50 vulnerabilities in network-attached storage (NAS) and network video recorder (NVR) products from D-Link.
The list of security holes includes information leakage, authentication flaws, CGI vulnerabilities, input validation problems, and webpage issues. Some of the weaknesses can be exploited by remote attackers to execute arbitrary code and take complete control of the targeted device.
SEARCH-LAB researcher Gergely Eberhardt told SecurityWeek that a large majority of the security bugs can be exploited remotely over the Internet.
Experts have conducted an analysis of D-Link DNS-320 (Rev A: 2.03), DNS-320L (1.03b04), DNS-327L (1.02) NAS devices, and the D-Link DNR-326 Professional NVR (1.40b03). Some of the vulnerabilities they have identified also impact DNS-320B, DNS-345, DNS-325, DNS-322L, and possibly other products.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Number of Botnet-Powered DDoS Attacks Dropped in Q1: Kaspersky
http://www.securityweek.com/number-botnet-powered-ddos-attacks-dropped-q1-kaspersky
Kaspersky Lab has published a report detailing the botnet-assisted distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks launched by malicious actors in the first quarter of 2015.
A report published by IBM in March revealed that DDoS attacks were among the most common types of cyberattacks last year. These incidents are closely monitored by companies that provide DDoS protection services, such as Akamai’s Prolexic and Corero Networks. The reports from such companies detail DDoS trends based on the attacks launched against their customers.
Kaspersky Lab has taken a different approach. The security firm has analyzed botnet-powered attacks by using data from its DDoS Intelligence system, which focuses on the commands that arrive to botnets from command and control (C&C) servers. The system doesn’t require the presence of a bot on a victim device, or the execution of commands from the C&C server.
Kaspersky has determined that the number of DDoS attacks reported in the first quarter of 2015 (23,095) is lower by 11 percent compared to the fourth quarter of 2014 (25,929). The number of unique victims was 12,281 in Q1, which is 8 percent lower compared to the previous quarter.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Feedback Friday: Industry Reactions to Wassenaar Arrangement
http://www.securityweek.com/feedback-friday-industry-reactions-wassenaar-arrangement
Many cybersecurity experts have raised concerns after the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) published a proposal for the implementation of the Wassenaar Arrangement with regard to cyber weapons.
The Wassenaar Arrangement focuses on export controls for conventional arms and dual-use goods and technologies. Intrusion and surveillance systems were added to the list of regulated technologies in December 2013 in an effort to protect activists and dissidents who might be targeted by totalitarian regimes. The European Union adopted these changes last year and now the United States wants to do the same.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Higher Education Crams for Cyber Security
http://www.securityweek.com/higher-education-crams-cyber-security
Earlier this month, Penn State University was forced to completely disconnect a portion of its network from the Internet in response to multiple cyber attacks. The attacks that apparently emanated from China centered on Penn State’s College of Engineering and the duration of the attack stretches all the way back to September of 2012.
The university was first alerted to the threat by the FBI November of 2014, and during the ensuing investigation, the university determined that user names and passwords for more than 18,000 people had been compromised in the attack.
In many ways, this attack conforms to what we have come to expect from cyber attacks. Like most breaches, Penn State first learned of the breach from an outside party – the FBI in this case.
Universities and colleges have a combination of risk factors that would give most IT security managers nightmares. As research institutions, they contain highly valuable data that isn’t available anywhere else in the world.
However, in addition to cutting-edge research, universities are a treasure trove of personal information of their students and faculty. Personal information, payment information, and medical records are all potentially on the menu for an attacker.
While these assets can make colleges and universities a target, the real trouble lies in the environments itself. Universities must support tens of thousands of users who all bring their own device.
Campus networks supported BYOD long before the term existed, and user autonomy extends well beyond the physical device. Students constantly adopt the latest applications and technologies, and where there’s file sharing, social media, and porn, malware is never far behind.
Tomi Engdahl says:
New Linux Based OS Brings Internet of Things Closer to Reality
http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/new-linux-based-os-brings-internet-things-closer-reality
The “Internet of Things,” or IoT, has the potential to change the way we interact with the devices and objects in our homes and lives.
The IoT is the idea that all of the devices and gadgets that you interact with could be connected to the internet.
To make this work, the “things” would need sensors, actuators and a way to connect to the Internet. And software to run them, of course.
Using sensors and actuators to automatically or remotely control devices is not a new idea. Neither is using a local network to connect the devices together and control them.
There are lots of examples of this type of idea in practical use.
But connecting the devices to the internet opens up a number of new possibilities.
Now anyone with the right permissions will be able to access the data. This way the information from multiple devices could be collated and analyzed.
But if we’re going to make the IOT a reality, we need simple tools which manufacturers can use to built these devices.
A simple, customizable open source operating system designed for these types of embedded systems would make it easier for a lot of manufacturers to bring viable products to the market. Just as Android made it easier for new manufacturers to enter the smartphone market.
To be suitable for this purpose, an operating system would need to be:
1. Small, because these are mostly simple devices without much in the way of resources.
2. Open source, so manufacturers can tinker with it to get it to work with their equipment.
3. Capable of detecting and working with a wide variety of different sensors and actuators.
4. TCP/IP ready.
Chinese firm Huawei has announced that it will be releasing an open-source Linux-based operating system named “LiteOS” that ticks all the above boxes. It is part of an IoT infrastructure that they hope will be adopted industry wide.
They claim that the OS will be the lightest to target the IoT space, weighing in at only 10KB.
If true, they will have a considerable advantage over Google’s “Brillo”, which is another new OS to target IoT devices. Brillo requires 32MB – still small by today’s standards, but more than 3,000 times larger than LiteOS.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Home> Analog Design Center > How To Article
When will ZigBee RF4CE land in Europe?
http://www.edn.com/design/analog/4439559/When-will-ZigBee-RF4CE-land-in-Europe-?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_analog_20150528&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_analog_20150528&elq=65d6a80d50e04d0ab9d35631fb7a4346&elqCampaignId=23183&elqaid=26116&elqat=1&elqTrackId=ec0cbd233f594067be66451ff2c18e01
ZigBee RF4CE (Radio Frequency 4 Consumer Electronics) is the popular wireless communication protocol that enables interoperability between remote controls and a variety of TVs, set-top boxes, gateways and other home networking and entertainment systems from different manufacturers. ZigBee RF4CE standardizes the communications protocol and establishes a pathway for Cable Operators and other MSO’s (Multiple Service Operators) to provide new Smart Home subscription services to the consumer. In the US, most remote controls and set-top boxes have already adopted RF4CE as their primary communication protocol.
It will be just a matter of time until ZigBee RF4CE becomes the standard of choice worldwide in the Europe, Asia, the Americas and other parts of the world as well.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why voice and apps sometimes don’t beat an old-fashioned knob
Look forward to your Dickian future of disobedient appliances
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/05/28/hacked_by_thermostat/
nternet of Lawnmowers I recently gave the Internet of Things (IoT) a good look. I talked about geofencing and the communications technologies of the IoT, but now I think it’s time to talk about nightmares.
Specifically, I want to talk about my wife’s “you need Lastpass for your smart house” IoT nightmare. It’s the reason I’m not allowed to buy a bunch of creepy hivemind meshnet frippery and replace all my perfectly good switches and knobs with “smart” tech.
You see, careful studies of people who are not you have determined the optimal user interface is not what it was the last time that same study was run six months ago. So right about the time that you have finally managed to burn everything into your muscle memory the interface to all of your house’s critical functions will change.
Tomi Engdahl says:
MediaTek Rolls 3 IoT Products Toward Next Cash Cow
Company sees growth in IoT devices
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326745&
TAIPEI — MediaTek Inc., Taiwan’s largest chip designer, unveiled three Internet of Things (IoT) products today (June 1) at the Computex electronics trade show in Taiwan as the company ramps up for its next big growth driver.
While smartphones are likely to be the biggest source of revenue for MediaTek during the near term, the company expects IoT devices to become its biggest cash cow once the smartphone business loses steam.
MediaTek announced the MT7687, a low-power, WiFi System-on-Chip (SoC) that enables home appliances and smart devices to connect to and be controlled through a home network. The company says the chip, which will be available to customers and developers in the third quarter of this year, provides advanced security, integrated memory, and an enhanced user-programmable microcontroller.
The MT7687 has the ability to transmit at a maximum power output of 21dBm, a level that the company says exceeds comparable SoCs for enhanced WiFi coverage in smart homes. In addition, security is achieved through AES and 3DES/SHA2 protocols as security engines.
MediaTek also launched the MT7623 and MT7683, Quad-core CA7 platforms that can support 4×4 11ac retail and broadband routers, IoT gateway, WiFi hotspots, and media routers using Linux and OpenWrt for connection across multiple platforms. The MT7623 and MT7683, which also support the latest security features for a fast wireless experience, will be available in the third quarter this year and are expected in home-control devices by late 2015.
The company said the MT7623 and MT7683, supporting major IoT standards, are the world’s first gateways to allow IoT devices with different standards to work together within smart homes. The smart-home gateways allow for the interworking of OIC and ARM mbed devices via pre-Thread to enable interoperability among different IoT standards, facilitating easy communication of all IoT devices. The MT7623 and MT7683 will work with the MT7687.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
First HomeKit-Compatible Products Launching Today, Led by Lutron, iHome and Elgato
First HomeKit-Compatible Products Launching Today, Led by Lutron, iHome, Elgato, Insteon and Ecobee
http://www.macrumors.com/2015/06/02/first-homekit-products-launching-today/
Ahead of Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, several of the company’s HomeKit partners are today announcing the availability of the first HomeKit-compatible products. HomeKit is Apple’s home automation platform, first introduced at the 2014 Worldwide Developers Conference.
HomeKit provides a standardized framework for manufacturers that develop home automation products, letting them interface with the Apple ecosystem and with each other. Through HomeKit, connected devices like lights, thermostats, speakers, smart plugs, and more can be controlled by Siri. For example, HomeKit enables commands like “Siri, turn off my lights,” or “Siri, turn the temperature up before I get home.”
Though HomeKit was announced in 2014, it has taken nearly a year for companies to complete Apple’s certification process and get products ready for store shelves.
Lutron’s Smart Bridge, part of the Lighting Starter Kit, supports HomeKit and is designed to let users control their Lutron Caséta Wireless dimmers using Siri on an iPhone or iPad.
Tomi Engdahl says:
IoT Enabled Thomas The Tank Engine
http://hackaday.com/2015/06/02/iot-enabled-thomas-the-tank-engine/
This month the popular “Thomas the Tank Engine” toy celebrated its 70 anniversary. As a fun project, [tinkermax] wanted to bring this traditional toy into the age of IoT, while preserving its physical appearance and simple charm.
He used a model called the “Diesel” which seemed big enough to house the electronics, but proved otherwise once he inspected the innards. He needed to fit in an ESP8266 module, an accelerometer breakout, some discrete parts, a nifty analog multiplexer, and a 14500 3.7V LiPo.
A “THOMAS” TOY TRAIN JOINS THE INTERNET-OF-THINGS
http://tinker.yeoman.com.au/train/
I already had an ADXL345 accelerometer module, so used that
The device uses serial communication (i2C or SPI). Because of the SPI clock polarity required, I ended up writing my own spi “lite” library.
I placed a 1Ω resistor in series with the motor to be able to measure current (i.e. motor load)
Probably the least complex but immediately useful enhancement to the train is speed control. This is accomplished quite simply using the PWM functionality built into the ESP8266 – i.e. I send an MQTT message containing a value that represents the desired pwm duty cycle. An external transistor is used to drive the motor.
The ESP8266 code is simple enough
WEB PAGE MONITOR
Sensor_scrnReal time sensor updates are streamed 5 times per second via the MQTT protocol to a Raspberry Pi MQTT broker under the train table. I developed a webpage containing javascript to receive the MQTT messages from the Raspberry Pi (over websockets) to display the sensor data.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Portable tiny IoT device solving general problem
https://hackaday.io/project/4201-portable-tiny-iot-device-solving-general-problem
Twitter and Wi-Fi connection are just examples of tiny device. This tiny device would provide solutions of healthcare, education problems!
Twitter and Wi-Fi connection are just examples of this tiny device. Healthcare, education, climate problems would be treated by using extensive features of this tiny computer! Most of ATMega1284 features are still unused, and potential functions can be, medical sensor, climate sensor and more, and those can be connected with I2C, SPI and sensored values can be transmit through Wi-Fi. Total cost is less than $20 and affordable for most of the people in the world, also presenting a solution for digital divide problem by providing an opportunity for computer program. I would present the basement for it!
Currently supporting:
ATMega1284P version
128×64 SPI OLED display
160×128 SPI Color LCD
SD card, WiFi by Flashair
Twitter message compose and sending through FlashAir
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Google plans expansion of Baseline Study for later this year with Study Kit apps that enable collection of health data on iOS, Android, and Chrome — Google Tests ‘Study Kit’ Apps To Collect Health Data Before Wider Launch Of Baseline Study This Year — In July 2014, Google announced Baseline Study …
Google Tests ‘Study Kit’ Apps To Collect Health Data Before Wider Launch Of Baseline Study This Year
http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/02/google-tests-study-kit-apps-to-collect-health-data-before-wider-launch-of-baseline-study-this-year/
In July 2014, Google announced Baseline Study, a Google[x] “moonshot” that involves collecting and analysing diagnostics from people to paint a picture of “what it means to be healthy.” While Baseline Study started as a limited pilot with Duke University and Stanford University in July 2014 with 175 participants, TechCrunch has learned that Google is now preparing for the next stage of the project: a bigger launch for later this year.
As part of that, the company has confirmed that it is testing something called the “Study Kit,” the first apps that are being used to collect data.
Study Kit comes in the form of iOS and Android apps as well as a Chrome extension — all of which are currently only open to a limited number of registered participants in the Baseline pilot.
The Study Kit apps actually first appeared around the end of March, but people were left guessing as to what they were.
Some believed they were Google’s answer to Apple’s ResearchKit open-source project, which lets medical nonprofits and other organizations set up research projects
In actuality, the bigger ambition for Google’s Baseline Study is at once more singular and more complex-sounding.
“It may sound counter-intuitive, but by studying health, we might someday be better able to understand disease,”
Initially, data for the project was gathered by way of blood and urine samples from participants. The apps are essentially the second wave for how Baseline collects data.
As for the third, a feature in the WSJ notes that longer term, the plan is to use other wearable connected devices to provide data to Baseline, for example special ‘smart’ contact lenses that can monitor and transmit a person’s glucose levels.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Rockchip Announces RKi6000 WiFi SoC for ULP IoT
by Andrei Frumusanu on June 2, 2015 12:00 PM EST
http://www.anandtech.com/show/9329/rockchip-announces-rki6000
Today at Computex in Taiwan, Rockchip announced a ultra-low-power WiFi SoC for IoT devices. The RKi6000 promises huge jumps in power efficiency, and the ability to provide WiFi connectivity at the levels of Bluetooth Low-Energy. The RKi6000 is a 802.11b WiFi combo-chip with up to 11Mbps data transfer rates. Rockchip explains that it achieves such drastic improvements in low power in the following ways:
- Improvements in wireless communication and radio-frequency architecture: Rockchip’s patented technology greatly reduces an IoT smart device’s power consumption by receiving and transmitting data continuously, enabling devices to achieve ultra-low power consumption while in standby and in use.
Comparing the RXi6000 to other competing solutions from Broadcom, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments or Gainspan shows significant reduction in Rx power, with up to 3 times less power than the next-best WiFi solution.
While Rockchip has a clear advantage in power over other LP WiFi chipsets, it’s the comparison with other low-power transmission technologies that Rockchip is able to show its true strength
When comparing the RKi6000 running WiFi 802.11b at 11Mbps, the chipset is able to present an order of magnitude of improvement over other technologies such as Bluetooth with Enhanced Data Rate, Bluetooth LE or Zigbee.
Applicable product categories include wearables, home appliances, home automation and safety. The RKi6000 starts availability in Q3 2015.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Wanna play with IoT toys? Then prepare to be breached
BYOD’s trashier cousin becoming a right tearaway
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/06/03/iot_toys_insecurity_byod/
Bring Your Own Device is problematic enough, but now staff are increasingly bringing inherently insecure, internet-connected smart devices into work, making a mockery of established security policies in the process.
Staff and bosses bringing their own smartphones and laptops into enterprises can be managed using mobile device management technology, encryption and segmentation of devices.
But few have thought through the implications of bringing smart TVs into the same environment.
IoT devices are penetrating some of the world’s most regulated industries, including healthcare, energy, government and financial services. These devices introduce new avenues to attack enterprise networks, a new study by OpenDNS warns.
The internet infrastructure used to enable IoT devices is beyond both the user and IT department’s control. IT’s often casual approach to IoT device management can leave devices unmonitored and unpatched against vulnerabilities, including Heartbleed and others.
Consumer devices such as Dropcam internet video cameras, Fitbit wearable fitness devices, Western Digital “My Cloud” storage systems, various connected medical devices, and Samsung Smart TVs continuously poll servers in the US, Asia and Europe, even when not in use.
OpenDNS’s study is based on real-world but anonymised data from customers. The firm is talking to vendors of IoT kit as part of its on ongoing research into the subject. “The security of these devices is based on nobody knowing the URLs they contact – it’s security through obscurity,” Hay added.
Consumer-grade IoT devices are often developed with little or no thought for security. The insecurity of theses devices – along with threat intelligence – were both key themes of Infosecurity Europe 2015.
Ken Munro, a director at security consultancy Pen Test Partners, added: “Every time we look at IoT we see security flaws from 2001.”
Convenience and wow factor are driving the consumer market for IoT gizmos. In this rush, little thought has been put into security, which is a problem because it’s always more expensive to bolt security on after the fact than build it in during the design process.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The 2015 Internet of Things in the Enterprise Report
http://info.opendns.com/rs/033-OMP-861/images/OpenDNS-2015-IoT-Report.pdf?__utma=190091958.54761238.1433324246.1433324246.1433324246.1&__utmb=190091958.2.10.1433324246&__utmc=190091958&__utmx=-&__utmz=190091958.1433324246.1.1.utmcsr=google|utmccn=%28organic%29|utmcmd=organic|utmctr=%28not%20provided%29&__utmv=-&__utmk=181178215
Tomi Engdahl says:
Port of Hamburg to pave its roads with Cisco things
How smart is your road?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/06/04/port_of_hamburg_to_pave_its_roads_with_cisco_things/
Cisco’s scored a win for its Internet of Everything approach to running cities, with Hamburg Port Authority deciding to try out a “smart road”.
Promising better traffic flow (and the resulting environmental benefits), the “smartROAD” will be built with a variety of environmental partners, and is Cisco’s first such win in Europe.
To soothe privacy concerns, the system will blur faces and number plates to anonymise them, and discard them from long-term storage. The focus, Cisco says, is on realtime data and analytics.
Areas of interest include traffic management, where sensors automatically log and report traffic incidents and feed them into a real time traffic management console; as well as structural sensors on infrastructure in the area, including a lifting bridge.
The bridge monitoring will allow technical and maintenance staff to precisely and predictively manage repairs to structures in the area, while minimising disruption to traffic in the surrounding areas.
The project also includes environmental sensors and smart lighting. One of the streets in the area also uses “follow me” lighting to improve the safety and amenity to pedestrians and cyclists using the precinct, while lowering the environmental footprint of the infrastructure.
All the sensors for the smartROAD project are connected using a secure network, in addition to a security framework allowing port management to take security action in real time.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Like Cisco, the Scandinavian superpower thinks there’ll be lots of Internet of Things devices connected by 2020 – about 26 billion machine-to-machine devices. However, those things won’t be generating enough traffic to get their own breakout in the chart, mostly because video is going to be mobile’s killer app.
What M2M communications will need, Ericsson reckons, is more spectrum below 1 GHz to maintain the kind of coverage the Internet of Things is going to need: “This enhances rural geographical coverage and improves deep indoor coverage in urban areas”, the report notes.
Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/06/04/lte_will_catch_up_with_3g_by_2020_ericsson/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tweet-Powered Bat Removes Effort Required To Obtain Pinata Contents
http://hackaday.com/2015/06/04/tweet-powered-bat-removes-effort-required-to-obtain-pinata-contents/
The physical machine is pretty simple.
Mounted on top is a large stepper motor with a long wooden arm holding an aluminum bat. Once a tweet came in, a moderator would check for offensive content (hey, there are kids around) using a custom Twitter API app, and if acceptable, the tweet would be displayed on an LED matrix while an Arduino controlled a stepper driver to spin the motor and swing the bat.
Activision Painyatta
http://roowilliams.github.io/projects/2014-10-05-painyatta.html
A tweet-powered baseball bat to bring a digital presence to the launch event of Activision’s Skylanders Trapteam.
Tomi Engdahl says:
IoT Gets Sane Forecast at Event
1.9B new IoT devices shipping by 2020
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326761&
SAN JOSE, Calif. — Forget the 50 billion devices on the Internet by 2020 as preached by networking giant Cisco Systems. That over-quoted fantasy projection includes all PCs, smartphones, tablets and probably a few iKitchen sinks.
At his first event dedicated to the Internet of Things, Linley Gwennap will roll out his own forecast. The veteran market watcher estimates 1.9 billion new IoT devices will ship in 2020, up from about 200 million annual shipping today, mainly in the industrial space.
“I tried to look at new end applications instead of just making a big number – it’s more of a bottoms-up look,”
He leavened his projections with real-world stats on, for example, the global middle class population (about two billion) and the number of homes with WiFi and broadband (about 600 million).
The forecast assumes the industrial IoT is already in its heyday. For example, more than 300 million smart meters are installed already, and new systems are being deployed wherever there’s a solid business case in everything from parking lots to irrigated farm fields.
The IoT is already well served by a dozen major vendors that combine a processor and a radio on SoCs, Gwennap noted in a new report on the sector. “There are actually a lot of companies shipping these integrated processors,” Gwennap said.
“Broadcom and Marvel have taken existing wireless chips and put microcontrollers into them,” he said. “Atmel, Freescale and STMicroelectronics have taken micros and added radios to them; Qualcomm and MediaTek have come at this from their smartphone SoCs; and Toshiba and TI have products,”
Despite a crowded market, “over the next year or two there will be even more chips to make it easy to make a low-cost IoT product,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
IoT Needs New MEMS Approache
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1326768&
New approaches to MEMS are needed to drive growth in sensors and the Internet of Things, according a panel of speakers at the upcoming Semicon West event.
If the Internet of Things (IoT) is going to drive the next round of electronics industry growth, it will depend in large part on the MEMS and sensor technology that will enable all those smart objects to interact with the real world. But the ramp of new MEMS designs to volume production may take too long and cost too much to meet IoT market expectations, unless the industry figures out ways to accelerate MEMS development.
New applications for existing MEMS devices are driving healthy 12% annual growth in the MEMS sector, but the difficulty of ramping disruptive new products to volume production may slow down growth unless the sector figures out how to smooth the translation of mechanical devices to silicon
Incremental innovation in smaller, higher performance, lower-cost devices has continued to spur strong growth both in the sensors and the systems they enable, by ever-wider adoption of established MEMS devices into more applications.
The IC industry has found ways to collaborate on pre-competitive research, and has a well-developed commercial support infrastructure that has supported continued growth, he noted. “Some things need to happen in the MEMS industry to simplify and speed the process of design and ramp to volume.”
“I think the growth of the MEMS industry is really just now starting, with the demand for sensors everywhere for the Internet of Things, for contextual awareness, and especially for new kinds of bio-chemical and bio-medical sensors,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
ARM, TSMC to Roll 55nm IoT Chips for Smart Homes
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326753&
ARM and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) today (June 1) announced their development of an IoT subsystem for ARM Cortex-M processors that they expect will simplify design of chips used in devices for smart homes and smart cities.
The individually licensable subsystem IP block, together with ARM’s Cortex-M processor and Cordio radio IP, is the basis for IoT chip designs allowing the integration of sensors and other peripherals.
Using ARM Artisan physical IP, the design is optimized for TSMC’s 55nm Ultra-Low Power process technology with embedded flash memory to create chips with reduced size, cost and power consumption operating at less than one volt.
“With industry expectations of hundreds of billions of new smart connected sensors by 2030, we see a demand for highly customized chips,” said James McNiven, ARM general manager, systems and software. The ARM IoT subsystem “enables our partners to focus finite resources on the system functionality that differentiates them in their market.”
The ARM IoT subsystem is optimized for mbed OS and Cordio Bluetooth Smart radio while allowing integration with other radios and wireless networking standards such as Wi-Fi and 802.15.4.
“By offering the IoT subsystem, ARM is enabling both new and established semiconductor vendors to design and deliver solutions in a very timely and cost-effective manner,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Toshiba-Microsoft IoT collaboration wins at buzzword Bingo
Samsung and Telefónica’s Thinking Things spiel comes a close second
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/06/04/toshiba_and_microsoft_win_at_buzzword_bingo/
“Internet of Things”, “Cloud”, “SaaS”, “state of the art”, “great user experience”: it’s all in the latest cross-supply agreement between Microsoft and Toshiba.
The two companies have signed a memorandum of understanding where Toshiba will supply the hardware and Microsoft the software to build Internet of Things things, specifically Microsoft’s Azure infrastructure – which is where “cloud” comes in. Toshiba will deliver sensors and accompanying data-driven applications.
In this partnership, Toshiba will provide XaaS (X as a Service), making use of its extensive in-house technologies such as ApP Lite (Application Processor Lite), in-vehicle driving recorders, sensors and cloud storage services. Microsoft will provide IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service), private line services (Azure ExpressRoute) and advanced analytics (Azure Machine Learning) as part of Microsoft Azure.
The first application for the alliance will be a product for the transportation and logistics market later this year.
“Bringing together the power of the Azure Services and IoT Suite with Toshiba’s cutting-edge, sensor-driven devices will provide a new level of data access and business intelligence to customers,” said Nick Parker, corporate vice president OEM Division, Microsoft.
Also jumping on the incomprehensible corporate jargon IoT bandwagon is an alliance of Samsung and Telefónica. Both companies are working on integrating Thinking Things, which comes out of Telefónica’s I+D’s research division, using Samsung’s kit. Two prototypes are currently in development.
The first prototype integrates Telefónica’s Thinking Things Modular solution with the capabilities of Samsung’s devices and sensor technology. Pressing a button will do whatever the stack of modules is designed to do. The second prototype is just the button which can be attached to a dumb device to give it smarter attributes.
It could, for instance, be attached to a dishwasher so that when it was out of rinse aid an order went in to an online supermarket which would then deliver it.
“At Samsung, we believe that the true value of IoT technology is making the user experience easier and more intuitive.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
The IoT Revolution Promises New Challenges for IT
http://www.cio.com/article/2922897/cloud-computing/the-iot-revolution-promises-new-challenges-for-it.html
Another disruptive trend, another set of headaches for IT.
The Internet of Things (IoT), spurred by the arrival of inexpensive storage and better chipsets for connectivity, promises a future where Internet smarts extend far beyond the familiar realm of smartphones and computers.
The potential is huge: The McKinsey Global Institute predicts that IoT may add between $2.7 trillion and $6.2 trillion to the world economy annually by 2025.
The success of this emerging IoT ecosystem will depend upon a robust cloud infrastructure managing all these new sensors, devices and data. As more companies seek to connect existing infrastructures to IoT-enabled devices, they will turn to public and hybrid clouds to help manage and scale their systems. The right cloud offering will let companies store and process the IoT data they collect and attach rules and structure to that information for later consumption.
However, IoT’s speed of adoption also presents myriad new security and platform issues that IT will need to navigate as more businesses make the transition to the cloud.
Indeed, the sheer scale of IoT is creating an “attack surface” of unprecedented size given the proliferation of connected assets and devices – a change that presents new potential headaches for IT because of the variety of platforms and protocols now involved.
Tomi Engdahl says:
LoRa™ Technology
http://lora-alliance.org/
LoRaWAN is a Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) specification intended for wireless battery operated Things in regional, national or global network. LoRaWAN target key requirements of internet of things such as secure bi-directional communication, mobility and localization services. This standard will provide seamless interoperability among smart Things without the need of complex local installations and gives back the freedom to the user, developer, businesses enabling the role out of Internet of Things.
LoRaWAN network architecture is typically laid out in a star-of-stars topology in which gateways is a transparent bridge relaying messages between end-devices and a central network server in the backend. Gateways are connected to the network server via standard IP connections while end-devices use single-hop wireless communication to one or many gateways. All end-point communication is generally bi-directional, but also supports operation such as multicast enabling software upgrade over the air or other mass distribution messages to reduce the on air communication time.
Communication between end-devices and gateways is spread out on different frequency channels and data rates.
National wide networks targeting internet of things such as critical infrastructure, confidential personal data or critical functions for the society has a special need for secure communication. This has been solved by several layer of encryption:
Unique Network key (EUI64) and ensure security on network level
Unique Application key (EUI64) ensure end to end security on application level
Device specific key (EUI128)
LoRaWAN has several different classes of end-point devices to address the different needs reflected in the wide range of applications
LoRa™ Product Family
http://www.semtech.com/wireless-rf/lora.html
Semtech’s LoRa RF platform (SX127X product family) is a 2-way wireless solution that complements M2M cellular infrastructure, and provides a low-cost way to connect battery operated and mobile devices to the network infrastructure. By combining our LoRa RF transceiver products with our LoRa concentrator gateway, you can create networks with longer ranges and the capacity to handle millions of devices.
You can also improve the battery lifetime of your end-user devices, while minimizing signal interference. The result is a network ideal for Internet of Things (IoT), metering, security, asset tracking, and machine-to-machine (M2M) applications.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microchip’s Long Range Low Power End Node solution
http://www.microchip.com/pagehandler/en-us/technology/personalareanetworks/technology/lora.html#utm_medium=Press-Release&utm_term=RN2483_PR_3-2-15&utm_content=WPD&utm_campaign=LoRa+Module
With the growing Internet of Things, Microchip has a LoRa™ Technology wireless solution to address increasing demands on end-devices for long range connectivity, low power for battery operation, and low infrastructure cost for volume deployment.
Microchip’s LoRa Technology solution is ready to run out-of-the box and with the complete LoRaWAN™ Protocol and certifications in place, it reduces time to market and saves development costs.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Oulu based IoLiving broaden the range of our online store. The new devices are based on the IoT technologies and for example, they measure the quality of indoor air. New products were on display at Computex trade show in Taiwan.
IoLiving modules for measuring temperature, humidity and carbon dioxide concentration in the most accurate components in the market. The equipment and the service has been developed in Finland.
The new products have a clear need, as carried out in the traditional technique of carbon dioxide measuring devices, as well as restaurants, self-monitoring products are really expensive.
On the other hand IoT market is really tough area, to increase competition. Measures based on sensor solution is quite easy to develop, so they are doing well in the race, which developed applications can make the best use of data collected and further processed.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2931:oululainen-iot-firma-yrittaa-maailmalle&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
ARM coins it in the IoT, costumes, landfill rescue and the internet of cats
Off the beaten track at Computex is all manner of enterprise and industrial kit. This year I spotted quite a few white box servers and switches, more than a few in open compute form factors. Anything with an interface – serial, parallel , digital, analog or pigeon-powered – is now a Thing, as in Internet of …
I’d need a week at Computex to do that stuff justice, so let’s stay close to home for a quick peek in the form of ARM’s new Cordio platform, a tiny Bluetooth LE radio ready for integration with its Cortex processors.
Cordio needs under one volt to do the business. Combined with a Cortex CPU it should give Intel’s button-sized Cure system-on-a-chip a run for its money. Intel revealed Curie in January and says its committed to the idea but isn’t in a rush to productise it. Perhaps the competition from ARM will spur it along?
The device most-often trying to claim “Thing” status was surveillance gear, either video cameras or other sensors. Most were of a muchness, but the little robots below caught my eye. The idea is that you’ll get your old phone and instead of turning it into landfill, strap it to these bots and let them roam about your house or office.
Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/06/05/the_clouds_got_consumer_tech_in_a_nasty_tangle/?page=2
Tomi Engdahl says:
3. Internet of things
Much was made about the Internet of Things being big at this year’s Computex. In reality, there were none of the ubiquitous sensors we’ve been promised, only a smattering of weatherproof routers and a few folks offering the guts of telematics for cars. Gadgets like Bluetooth bathroom scales and WiFi lightbulbs were lumped into the category and easy to find, but also easy to dismiss because none appeared original in concept or execution.
One category of product often shoe-horned into the IoT was small industrial computers and/or comms kit.
Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/06/the_strippers_unicorn_computers_and_martian_watches_of_computex/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Check out IBM’s proposal for an internet of things architecture using Bitcoin’s block chain tech
https://gigaom.com/2014/09/09/check-out-ibms-proposal-for-an-internet-of-things-architecture-using-bitcoins-block-chain-tech/
In tech circles block chain technology — the transaction processing engine behind the Bitcoin crypto-currency — has become the technological equivalent of quinoa. Not everyone is sure of what it is, but everyone is raving about it as an answer to any number of tough problems. The latest is IBM’s research team, who are looking at building out a distribution platform for the internet of things that uses block chain.
Paul Brody, the head of mobile and internet with IBM, is proposing a system called Adept, which will use three distinct technologies to solve what he sees as both technical and economic issues for the internet of things. The Adept platform is not an official IBM product, but was created by researchers at IBM’s Institute for Business Value (IBV). Adept will be released on Github as open-source software.
Block chain: As mentioned above, block chain is the distributed transaction processing engine that keeps track of Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies. The beauty of block chain is that it can be used for many purposes.
Telehash: It’s one thing for devices to use block chain to understand contracts and capabilities, but they also need to communicate it, which is why Adept is using Telehash, a private messaging protocol that was built using JSON to share distributed information. It’s creator Jeremie Miller says at its simplest telehash is a “very simple and secure end-to-end encryption library that any application can build on, with the whole point being that an “end” can be a device, browser, or mobile app.”
BitTorrent: And finally, to move all this data around, especially because not everything has a robust connection to each other — especially if they are using a low data rate connection like Bluetooth or Zigbee, Adept uses file sharing protocol BitTorrent to move data around keeping with the decentralized ethos of Adept.
there are two reasons he’s eyeing the new architecture.
The first is economic.
There’s way too much overhead in operating a cloud platform, especially for devices that are designed to live in people’s homes for a decade or longer.
The second reason is that Brody has some ideas about how this architecture could change the business models for the internet of things. He’s not convinced that the sales of data will ever amount to much, especially since sensors will be so cheap. If a company decides it wants data, it’s not terribly difficult to put a sensor on the market and build a program so consumers will use it to share their data.
But with this architecture and the use of block chain, one could actually create new business models around sharing more than just data. Devices could share computer power, or bandwidth or even electricity via the block chain’s instructions.
Tomi Engdahl says:
IBM Reveals Proof of Concept for Blockchain-Powered Internet of Things
http://www.coindesk.com/ibm-reveals-proof-concept-blockchain-powered-internet-things/
IBM has unveiled its proof of concept for ADEPT, a system developed in partnership with Samsung that uses elements of bitcoin’s underlying design to build a distributed network of devices – a decentralized Internet of Things.
The ADEPT concept, or Autonomous Decentralized Peer-to-Peer Telemetry, taps blockchains to provide the backbone of the system, utilizing a mix of proof-of-work and proof-of-stake to secure transactions.
IBM and Samsung chose three protocols – BitTorrent (file sharing), Ethereum (smart contracts) and TeleHash (peer-to-peer messaging) – to underpin the ADEPT concept. ADEPT was formally unveiled at CES 2015 in Las Vegas.
According to the draft paper, blockchains deployed within the ADEPT system would serve as a ledger of existence for billions of devices that would autonomously broadcast transactions between peers in a three-tier system of peer devices and architecture. By using an implementation of the bitcoin protocol, ADEPT could serve as a bridge between many devices at low cost.
IBM ADEPT Practictioner Perspective – Pre Publication Draft – 7 Jan 2015
https://www.evernote.com/shard/s15/sh/a0b8847e-0cd7-4748-8b4d-396c39558c35/200022bfb620e02d
Tomi Engdahl says:
Computex: MediaTek shows off contactless heart rate monitor and IoT wine brewer
Ideas become products thanks to LinkIt IoT chip
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2411746/computex-mediatek-shows-off-contactless-heart-rate-monitor-wearables-for-the-elderly-and-iot-wine-brewer
TAIPEI: WHILE MEDIATEK MIGHT BE best known for its multi-core smartphone processors, the firm was very keen to show off its more adventurous side at Computex 2015.
Launched in autumn last year, MediaTek Labs is a worldwide initiative to help developers of any background or skill level to create and market wearable and Internet of Things (IoT) devices.
With the firm’s LinkIt Development Platform, based on the MediaTek Aster (MT2502) chipset, sitting at its core, the Labs programme provides developers, makers and service providers with both software and hardware development kits, technical documentation and business support.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why is the so-called Smart World still so stupid?
http://www.edn.com/design/analog/4439621/Why-is-the-so-called-Smart-World-still-so-stupid
Links tells us that today’s – and tomorrow’s smart homes – are not very smart. In fact, most of them are still downright dumb.
Links claims that this is because people are confusing “connected” with “smart”. Just because a house, its devices and its systems are connected to each other and to the Internet, enabling the home owner to monitor and maybe even control what is happening in the home from a smart phone, does not make the house smart.
He says that to be smart, the smart house actually needs to have some intelligence of its own.
Have you heard? The Smart Home will change everything.
The Smart Home will revolutionize how the electronic and technology industries function in the future. Because of the Smart Home, how we live our lives will totally change.
The industry is alive with Smart Home buzz, excitement and promises. Unfortunately a lot of it is just hype. It is just not real. Yet.
Smart Homes and the IoT
Various analyst groups and industry prognosticators have been tossing out some very big numbers. According to these fortune tellers, within the next few years, there will be hundreds of millions, tens of billions, even trillions of smart homes connected by the Internet of Things.
However, if you take a careful look at what is really happening – if you actually count up the number of homes that actually are “smart” – having intelligent systems installed within them that actually make our lives smarter, easier and safer, you will see that the number is actually pretty small. Why?
Because today’s – and tomorrow’s smart homes – are not very smart. In fact, most of them are still downright dumb.
This is because people are confusing “connected” with “smart”.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Pushing Place Tips, Facebook Offers Free Bluetooth Beacons To U.S. SMBs
Facebook is expanding its location-based program to reach walk-in consumers with marketing messages.
http://marketingland.com/pushing-place-tips-facebook-offers-free-bluetooth-beacons-to-u-s-smbs-131462
In January Facebook introduced Place Tips as a way for businesses to serve marketing messages to people visiting their real-world locations.
Triggered for users who check in at a location or have their location settings activated in Facebook mobile apps, Place Tips offer advice, recommendations and other information from friends with have visited the location and from the business itself.
Place Tip information shows up at the top of News Feeds for people in stores or other locations giving local businesses a prime opportunity to connect to consumers. Each person’s Place Tips are unique, Facebook said. “At a restaurant, Place Tips can show the menu, reviews and frequently mentioned information about the establishment, like a signature cocktail or popular table,” the company wrote in a blog post. “Place Tips for a retail store can help customers find business hours, locate popular items and learn about upcoming events.”
Facebook says that Place Tips have caused “a steady uptick in Page traffic from in-store visitors” for local businesses that are using them.
Businesses interested in applying for a free beacon, can sign up here. Businesses with active Facebook Pages will be given priority
Facebook Bluetooth® Beacons
https://www.facebook.com/business/a/facebook-bluetooth-beacons
When people visit your business and open Facebook, they’ll see Place Tips with information about your business like:
A welcome note and photo
Prompts to like your Facebook Page and check in
Posts from your Facebook Page
Their friends’ recommendations about your place
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jordan Kahn / 9to5Mac:
Apple unveils iCloud monitoring for iOS HomeKit accessories, support for new sensors, security systems — We previously detailed Apple’s plans to introduce a new app for its HomeKit platform, and today the company officially took the wraps off the project. Through iCloud, the new app …
Apple unveils iCloud monitoring for iOS HomeKit accessories, support for new sensors, security systems
http://9to5mac.com/2015/06/08/apple-unveils-icloud-monitoring-for-ios-homekit-accessories-support-for-new-sensors-security-systems/
Before the new HomeKit app, users were only able to control HomeKit accessories using Siri voice commands and in some cases third-party apps offered by the accessory manufacturer. But Apple’s new app will offer a visual view of accessories and the ability to manage and monitor all HomeKit accessories from one central location.
Apple also showed off controlling HomeKit accessories with Apple Watch and Siri, a feature that will arrive with its just unveiled Watch OS 2 update
In addition to the new app through iCloud for controlling your HomeKit accessories, Apple announced that it will be supporting more types of home automation products in iOS 9. The new additions include window shades, security systems, and a long list of sensors such as motion detectors and carbon monoxide sensors.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Computex 2015: Bringing Home IoT
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326800&
Computex, world’s second largest information and communications technology (ICT) show and a grande dame at age 35, not surprisingly pushed three major themes this year (wait for it): The Internet of Things, mobile applications, and the Cloud.
Tomi Engdahl says:
New Breed of Wireless Sensor Developers Inspires New Tools
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326771&
Semiconductor companies that supply the hardware/software building blocks for embedded wireless M2M and IoT apps are running into a new breed of developer. Totally different than the experienced designers of past years, many of them have no background in MCU development or in any of the many wireless protocols. The only things they have in common with veteran developers are the desire to participate in a new wave of Internet of Things designs and get their ideas to market as fast as possible. Among these companies are Texas Instruments, Silicon Labs, and Freescale Semiconductor, each with its own view of what tools a developer needs and how best to provide them.
Inexperienced developers have always been there, demanding tools that are easier to use, Texas Instruments System Applications Manager Jarle Boe told EE Times. But recently, as the excitement about IoT and wireless sensors has grown, they have increased in number. “At TI-sponsored events on such topics in the past we would get 50 to 100 or so developers on average. Now, depending on the venue, we are seeing very many more than that. And many of the newcomers are inexperienced with hardware development on MCUs and want simpler and quicker ways to develop code.”
To meet that need and to accelerate adoption of its recently introduced SimpleLink family of ARM-based CC2650 wireless microcontrollers, TI this week introduced its new SimpleLink Multi-Standard SensorTag IoT kit for such newbies.
Initially the kit includes wireless connectivity tools for Bluetooth low energy, 6LoWPAN, and ZigBee apps on the CC2650 MCU. Planned for later addition to the kit is a Wi-Fi SensorTag for the SimpleLink CC3200 wireless MCU.
The software with the kit is primarily a cloud-based graphical menu environment in which developers can select from a set of wireless options for the sensor tag environment as well as MCU configuration, power requirements, and other critical information. It then generates the code for developing a prototype of a sensor tag appropriate in any specific product environment. “The aim was the creation of an environment was as hands-off as possible from the underlying hardware, with an emphasis on helping developers get the code they need as quickly as possible,” said Boe.
Out of the box, the developer is provided with a free iOS or Android app. With no programming experience required, the kit allows connection via the app to the Internet in less than three minutes to either a server for TI’s IoT cloud ecosystem, or the one for IBM’s Bluemix IoT Foundation.
Provided with the kit are reference designs which include such things as 3D print files of the SensorTag enclosures that allow reuse of the Sensor Tags as a starting point for a developer’s own designs.
Boe said that generating the necessary code using the kit’s cloud-based tool is as simple as downloading a sensor tag app from the Apple App Store or GooglePlay and pulling the tab on the sensor tag batteries in the kit to power it up. Then pick the sensor tag for a particular wireless option from a device list and select “sensor view” to see the sensor readings.
Texas Instruments is not alone in trying to meet the needs of this new population of developers. Recently Freescale introduced its Intelligent Sensing Framework (ISF) 2.1, which now includes integration with Freescale’s Processor Expert tool to help create, configure, and generate embedded sensor-based applications for Freescale’s microcontrollers (MCUs).
“Many of the new sensor-based Internet of Things (IoT) designs are coming from startups who are often unfamiliar with the complex process of abstracting, combining, and using sensor data,” said Chen, “and they want ways to quickly and easily integrate multiple streams of sensor data with the MCUs powering their applications.”
Silicon Labs also has been keeping an eye on the flood of recent newbie IoT and sensor tag developers, and has just completed an upgrade of its Simplicity Studio development tools to support ZigBee, SubGHz wireless, Bluetooth, and Bluetooth Low Energy, with more protocols to be added later.
“There will always be a need to meet the requirements of novice developers,” said Raman Sharma, Simplicity Studio Product Manager.
Sharma said the better option, from SiLabs’ perspective, is to have a development environment that fits all needs and experience levels, but which makes it easy for individual developers to pick the path that best suits their needs.
He said that one of the company’s starting assumptions with its tools was that no matter what his expertise, a developer wants to get to a finished design as quickly as possible, with the code and features needed.
The company makes extensive use of graphical configuration tools to make it easy to resolve errors at every step of the way on such things as pin configurations (pin out conflicts or mode settings), clock gating (if a peripheral is configured without enabling a clock to the module), or peripheral configurations.
“The design of connectivity products for some time to come is going to be a diverse one, with developers of varying skill levels and from a variety of application environments,” said Sharma. “The challenge is to have tools that are as flexible as is possible and make them useful to the beginners as well as to professionals.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
The IBM and Samsung ADEPT BlockChain of Things: ‘BoT’ — Not Internet of Things
http://www.newsbtc.com/2015/01/22/blockchain-things-bot-not-internet-things/
IBM and Samsung have partnered to put the Blockchain Technology to good use. The partnership points us towards their vision to pioneer in the soon-to-dawn era of Internet of Things. There has been lots of murmur in the tech sphere ever since news about ADEPT was released. Especially among those who understand and anticipate the Internet of Things.
ADEPT stands for Autonomous Decentralised Peer-to-Peer Telemetry. IBM & Samsung’s ADEPT aims to be the technology for ledgers, record-keeping of the gazillions of data points that the Internet of Things will start to generate the moment these things start to communicate to each other their ‘states’ in 1’s and 0’s.
“Right from the time a product completes final assembly, it can be registered by the manufacturer into a universal blockchain representing its beginning of life. Once sold, a dealer or end customer can register it to a regional blockchain.”
Putting this in perspective.
The traditional worry for the Internet of Things has been the following:
Where will we store all this data?
How do we store that data securely?
How do these data points talk to each other, meaningfully?
How do we maintain data integrity?
How about Information entropy?
Privacy and Protocol? And so on…
Amidst these chaotic limitations of IoT, enters the Blockchain technology — a robust candidate that has successfully handled transactions of Bitcoin currency with grace and consistency
ADEPT demo by IBM/Samsung
https://www.theprotocol.tv/adept-demo-ibm-samsung/
In this live demonstration filmed at International CES 2015, researchers deploy three protocols to empower its vision of The Internet of Things — Telehash for messaging, BitTorrent for file-sharing, and Ethereum for smart contracts.