October 13, 2014
Volume XLIX, Issue 12
CDSE:2014 Now Available Online
Whether or not you attended the Distributed Computing Industry Association's (DCIA) and the Cloud Computing Association's (CCA) highly informative and provocative CLOUD DEVELOPERS SUMMIT & EXPO (CDSE:2014) in Austin, TX, you can now relive the conference virtually thanks to the archival website that has been created.
Here you will find audio recordings of all sessions, keynote and workshop presentations, the conference brochure, a photo album, workshop flyers, and the CCA website event page.
A highlight of this website is the multimedia presentation of "Stay Ahead of the Game" by SAP's Scott Campbell.
The DCIA & CCA are especially grateful to conference sponsors and exhibitors IBM, SoftServe, Rackspace, Edwards Wildman, Paragon, Iron Mountain, and OutSystems.
Webinar: Cloud for Hotel Operators
Frontdesk Anywhere, provider of award-winning cloud-based hotel management software, and InnLink, a leading provider of central reservations services (CRS), will present a webinar entitled "Should You Move to the Cloud? Advantages, Pros, and Cons of the Cloud for Hotel Operators" on Tuesday October 21st at 1:30 PM ET.
The webinar is free and anyone who manages, owns, or operates hotels or any lodging property is encouraged to attend.
Cloud computing is a perfect fit for small to mid-size hotels. It's a great way to get large chain class features, without the large price tag. The new generations of cloud-based Property Management Systems (PMS) are powerful tools which bring incredible value to lodging providers.
Attending the webinar will give hotel operators the opportunity to learn more about cloud solutions. The session's ultimate goal is to arm hoteliers with the knowledge they need to make the best decision for incorporating cloud services into their operations.
The webinar will highlight what the cloud is all about and specifically how it can be applied to a hotel's PMS and online distribution.
Operational efficiency is crucial for hoteliers and cloud-based systems provide new ways to streamline processes and make life easier for hotels and their staff so they can concentrate on what's most important; the guest experience.
GE Forges IoT Alliances with Verizon, Cisco, Intel
Excerpted from ZDNet Report by Larry Dignan
General Electric (GE) on Thursday announced a bevy of alliances with enterprise technology heavyweights as it lines up support for its Predix platform, which is software designed to add intelligence to various Internet of Things (IoT) end points.
For GE, the IoT, which the company calls the Industrial Internet, the networking of machines and industrial gear is a growth engine. GE wants to position its turbines, engines, and other equipment as smart gear that are connected via its software. In many ways, GE is a software company and technology firm akin to IBM.
GE added that it will deliver more than $1 billion in incremental revenue from its roster of 40 industrial Internet services. GE currently monitors and analyzes 50 million data points from 10 million sensors on $1 trillion of managed assets daily.
In the Intel and Cisco pacts, the companies will work with GE to create "Predix Ready" devices, which will include metadata and open communication frameworks from sensors and devices to cloud based services. Intel is aiming to embed GE integration on its processors and Cisco is including Predix compatibility on its rugged networking gear like industrial routers.
Predix's architecture ties together cloud and data center computing resources with Hadoop. GE also counts EMC's Pivotal unit as a partner.
GE said it will open up the Predix platform to users and developers in 2015. The platform allows for customized industry apps, asset tracking and management and firewalls to protect infrastructure.
Verizon's role in the GE efforts will be to connect its machine-to-machine and cloud platforms to Predix.
Under the alliance, the Verizon and GE will launch services such as remote monitoring, diagnostics and maintenance fixes on GE's Predix platform. GE and Verizon also said they will collaborate on one global subscriber identity module (SIM) for global usage.
Telecom companies have been diving into machine-to-machine connections as a way to bolster their enterprise efforts and garner more high-margin accounts. GE also forged pacts with Softbank and Vodafone to cover its wireless bases abroad.
Report from CEO Marty Lafferty
 As announced last week, the Distributed Computing Industry Association (DCIA) is now pleased to invite qualified applicants to participate in The DCIA's Internet of Things (IoT) at CES 2015, a four-day marathon presentation, from January 6th through 9th in Las Vegas, NV, of the newest and arguably largest ever distributed computing industry phenomenon.
To learn more about how you can join the "The DCIA's IoT at CES," please contact me here.
As previously reported, the IoT is now on a growth trajectory to surpass 50 billion objects by 2020.
The 2015 International CES Show is the ideal place to start learning in-depth about the multiplicity of opportunities that this rapidly emerging movement offers product developers, software engineers, marketers, entrepreneurs, and other forward-looking professionals across many economic sectors.
The IoT traces its routes to 1969, when the first nodes of what would eventually become known as ARPANET, the precursor to today's Internet, were established at UCLA and Stanford universities; and 1982, when Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) became a standard, ushering in the worldwide network of fully interconnected networks that we now call the Internet.
John Romkey and Simon Hackett created the world's first connected device (other than a computer): a toaster powered through the Internet in 1990.
In 1999, Kevin Ashton coined the term "Internet of Things," and established MIT's Auto-ID Center, a global research network of academic laboratories focused on RFID and the IoT. That year, Andy Stanford-Clark of IBM and Arlen Nipper of Arcom (now Eurotech) introduced the first M2M protocol for connected devices: MQ Telemetry Transport (MQTT).
In 2005, the United Nations (UN) first mentioned IoT in an International Telecommunications Union report. Three years later, the first international IoT conference took place in Zurich, CH. The IPSO Alliance was formed in 2008 to promote IP connections across networks of "smart objects."
Google introduced a self-driving vehicle project in 2010, a major milestone in the development of a connected and autonomous car. Also that year, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) was introduced, enabling applications in the fitness, healthcare, security, and home entertainment industries.
In 2011 Nest Labs (Now Google) introduced sensor-driven, WiFi-enabled, self-learning, programmable thermostats and smoke detectors; and IPv6 launched, a protocol to exponentially expand the number of objects that can connect to the Internet by introducing 340 undecillion IP addresses.
Last year, Google Glass, controlled through voice recognition software and a touchpad built into the device, was released to developers; and this year, Apple announced HealthKit and HomeKit, two health and home automation developments, while the firm's iBeacon advanced context and geolocation services.
Approximately 12.1 billion Internet-connected devices were in use in April 2014. Currently, about 100 things connect to the Internet every second, and the number is expected to reach 250 per second by 2020.
As more and more "things" get connected to the Internet — expanding from the initial smartphones, phablets, tablets, laptops, and game consoles to such objects as toasters, physical activity monitors, home security systems, industrial equipment, and vehicles of all kinds — the stakes grow exponentially larger.
As Gilad Meiri, CEO of tech startup Neura, notes, "The IoT holds potential for disruptive change, and its evolution will likely be faster than the Internet."
"The DCIA's IoT at CES" will feature the very latest in connected consumer device innovations, wearable creations, machine-to-machine (M2M) advances, RFID developments, micro-sensor discoveries, smart environment construction, and more, which are leading the way in this world-altering trend. Share wisely, and take care.
Verizon Joins AT&T in GE's Industrial Internet
Excerpted from LightReading Report by Sarah Reedy
Exactly one year after AT&T announced it had signed up giant General Electric (GE) as a machine-to-machine (M2M) communications customer, Verizon is announcing it is in the mix too.
Verizon Communications said on Thursday that its LTE network and cloud will power the "Industrial Internet" that GE is building with the vast array of connected devices it offers, including electric vehicles, lighting systems, and engines.
The pair say adding connectivity will enable new value-added services for GE Predix, the software platform that supports the Industrial Internet, such as remote monitoring, diagnostics, and remote maintenance. They are also working on building a single SIM for global LTE connectivity.
Verizon will be joining AT&T in powering GE's industrial Internet, but the opportunity is certainly big enough for both of them. The huge, multinational conglomerate wants to play a role in rail, aviation, energy, and healthcare, among other verticals, helping enterprises improve their productivity through the analytics garnered from these sensors.
It sees this industrial Internet producing $82 trillion of output, accounting for half of the global economy by 2025. (See AT&T Clinches M2M Market Lead With GE Deal and AT&T Adds GE to M2M Roster.)
AT&T and Verizon have been duking it out in the M2M market for a while now. Earlier this year Verizon lost General Motors business to AT&T. Kicking AT&T out of GE would've been a nice feather in its cap, but at least joining it means Verizon won't miss out on this massive global opportunity. (See Verizon Spends $612M for a Future in Cars.)
In discussing Verizon's strengths at GE, Mark Bartolomeo, head of IoT Connected Solutions at Verizon, played up the carrier's secure cloud capability and the strength of its partner ecosystem. He sees energy and transportation, as well as healthcare, as the areas where both companies -- GE and Verizon -- are being the most aggressive.
"From our own perspective, we believe a strong partner ecosystem is critical to the industrial Internet," he says. "GE has tremendous capabilities and Verizon does too; other service providers do too. The key is how do we coordinate our activities to solve these big problems, like in healthcare, to deliver better patient outcomes."
IoT Will Be Massive Device Market & Save Companies Billions
Excerpted from Business Insider Report by John Greenough
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.
In an all-new report from BI Intelligence, we examine what is currently driving growth in the IoT and how various sectors of the economy will embrace IoT innovations.
Here are a few of the key findings from the BI Intelligence report:
The Internet of Things will be the largest device market in the world. We estimate that by 2019 it will be more than double the size of the smartphone, PC, tablet, connected car, and the wearable market combined.
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.
Device shipments will reach 6.7 billion in 2019 for a five-year CAGR of 61%. 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.
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. By 2019, government will be the leading sector for IoT device shipments.
The main benefit of growth in the IoT will be increased efficiency and lower costs. The IoT promises increased efficiency within the home, city, and workplace by giving control to the user. However, many are hesitant to use devices as security problems are still an issue.
The IoT lacks a common set of standards and technologies that would allow for compatibility and ease-of-use. There are currently few standards (or regulations) for what is needed to run an IoT device. Consortia that group together global industrial, tech, and electronics companies are involved in an effort to standardize the IoT and solve the most pressing security concerns.
In full, the report:
Defines what devices we include in the IoT and how the devices will be controlled
Forecasts the potential size of the IoT by 2019 in terms of revenue, number of devices, and value-added to the economy
Examines why factors including the drop in sensor prices, increases in Internet penetration, and current sales of smartphones and tablets are the drivers of rapid IoT growth
Looks at how the home, government, and enterprise sectors use the IoT differently, and lists possible future uses
Identifies the major consortia of IoT companies and examines what they are doing to help drive IoT growth
Compares our device estimates to those of other research firms
For full access to all BI Intelligence reports, briefs, and downloadable charts on the Internet of Things and mobile computing markets, sign up for a free trial.
Internet of Things (IoT) and Three Encouraging Trends
Excerpted from JD Supra Report by Giangiacomo Olivi
During the Technology Leaders Summit, which was held this week in the Silicon Valley, we discussed how the Internet of Things (IoT) will change our everyday life.
We have moved from an era of scarcity to computing abundance. Some may say that the IoT will play a limited role in this new scenario. However there are certain trends that will make IoT a long lasting revolution that will affect all sectors.
Just to list three of the main trends:
1. Hardware and Enhanced Power Sources: amazing (and cheap) devices are increasingly available, with more manageable (and long lasting) power sources.
2. Harmonization: we are finally witnessing concrete efforts for standard uniformity, as the main players have a now a clear understanding that this is the way forward to ensure a steady growth.
3. Behavioral Patterns: there are increasing expectations to control things around us. Third (and fourth) generation mobile communications, mobile apps and other consumer friendly technologies are making such control tremendously easy (and in fact certain tech appliances are also a cool thing to have!).
IoT created a new ecosystem, in which the current and more popular technology applications, like for instance, the systems for the delivery of health care in non-traditional sites or for using energy in a more efficient (and cost effective) manner, are just a tip of an iceberg.
IoT is in fact fostering new ways of collaboration, including IoT specific open sources initiatives, as well as new problem solving methodologies that place once again big data in the center of the arena.
How such big data are processed, retained and regulated will no doubt play a key role for the future of IoT. As was discussed during the event, cybersecurity has become increasingly important for the development of IoT: there are a number of service providers that have the capability to connect things, but do not have the right expertise to ensure that the data interchanged are kept secure.
It will be very interesting to assess whether the industry is able to adequately address the security concerns on its own, or a top down approach is required. This of course will be extremely interesting also for Italy, where, in addition to achieving the objective of the digital agenda (IoT needs customers online!), our regulators will have to reach a balance between functionality, market growth and security. In this respect, the outcome of the AGCOM consultation may shed some light.
Internet of Things (IoT) Is Cybersecurity's Next Frontier
Securing the Internet of Things (IoT) is going to be a considerable challenge in the next decade, not least because the security implications are more varied than for traditional information technology (IT) settings, according to ABI Research.
New variables come into play, including safety considerations, consumer privacy, and data protection. Media coverage has hyped the advent of hacked toilets and spammer fridges, but the underlying trend is worrying because it highlights the fact that secure product development is not the norm for "connected things and manufacturers are still trying to find their feet and justify investment in secure design, development, and product lifecycle."
The IoT is subject to numerous vulnerabilities at all of its core layers: perception, network, and application. The balance between cost and risk often means things are less likely to employ more complex, resource-intensive security, such as access control and authentication.
Some of these issues will be addressed at the gateway level or at the platform layer, but this is only part of the solution for strengthening things more generally.
"Embedded security, trusted computing, security protocols -- these are all fledgling areas of product development for the IoT," says Michela Menting, Cybersecurity Practice Director, "and manufacturers are still trying to find their feet and justify investment in secure design, development, and product lifecycle."
A few players are nonetheless pioneering the way for strengthening the IoT. Slowly shaping the market in embedded security or the testing and auditing of IoT applications prior to launch are the first steps in providing a trustworthy base: Arrayent, Hewlett-Packard, Microchip, NXP Semiconductors, Sonatype, and Wind River.
These companies are reviewed in ABI Research's report on Securing the Internet of Things.
These findings are part of ABI Research's Cybersecurity Technologies Market Research.
IoT and IBM Bluemix for Growth & Innovation
Excerpted from Thoughts on Cloud Blog by Rakesh Ranjan
You enter a store, select a pair of jeans for purchase, and weight sensors on the shelf communicate through the cloud to the retailer's data center that product inventory has changed. Inventory is replenished based on near-real-time analytics and trends. This is not a wishful thinking scenario; it is really happening in the retail supply chain, fueled by Internet of Things (IoT) technology.
Whether in retail, manufacturing or public service, we can see many IoT use cases in our personal and professional lives. For example, a driver in search of a parking spot navigates the streets of a busy town. Meanwhile, a parked vehicle leaves its spot. As the car takes off, an underground sensor detects the vacancy and sends a signal in near real time, notifying the waiting motorist of the available parking space through a mobile app.
We all know food safety is a major concern for retailers and consumers. In Vietnam, IBM IoT technology enabled by radio frequency identification (RFID) has helped to make fish safer for consumption by tracking every end point in the supply chain.
I recently headed to an IoT workshop at TechLAB, a technology startup incubator in Silicon Valley, California. There were about 30 participants from different industries and domains with one thing in common: they all viewed IoT as the future and wanted to utilize it for business growth and innovation.
The question is, how do you plug IoT devices and technology into your existing IT and business models to start getting value out of them?
IBM Bluemix offers a solid platform for your IoT applications. When you sign up to Bluemix, you get plenty of choices to build IoT applications rapidly and quickly, including Node-RED Starter and IoT starter boiler plates and services such as Wearable Fitness. We know that IoT is all about intelligent and interconnected devices, so we made sure that you can start connecting, collecting data and managing devices using the applications that you can quickly assemble in Bluemix.
Let's play with these services in an order that gets you started with what you already have.
Visit the IBM Internet of Things Foundation website. Click the link to try it out with our quickstart. Now open a browser on your smartphone and go to the IoT sensor link. Make a note of your device's media access control (MAC) address, shown on the top right corner. Enter the MAC address on the page opened on the IBM IoT Foundation website. View the live data coming directly from your phone device visualized in a nice graph. Play with humidity, temperature, and device temperature, and see the graph respond in near real time as the levels increase or decrease.
Next, you can do the same with your physical devices such as Arduino or Raspberry Pi. The IBM IoT cloud provides recipes and quickstarts for many devices. You can follow this link to use the recipes and connect your device.
In an upcoming blog post, I'll walk you through developing a Twitter sentiment analysis application in Bluemix using the Node-RED platform. Until then, get on board with IoT and use it for innovation at your work, and keep me updated on your progress by leaving a comment below.
Windows 10 Is Also an IoT Play
Excerpted from ZDNet Report by Larry Dignan
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said Windows 10 is the first installment in creating a platform that can run on multiple screens as well as the Internet of Things (IoT).
He also said the one Windows strategy could be as much about running sensors as well as the form factors everyone knows today.
Nadella, speaking at the Gartner Symposium ITxpo, was talking to enterprise technology executives and outlining the company's strategy. In his first appearance at the ITxpo, Nadella, who came off as down-to-earth, approachable and customer-focused, talked mobile, licensing and IT management.
Windows 10 appears to be the linchpin of so many points in Microsoft's strategy.
"Windows has gone through a re-architecture to one core Windows that runs everywhere. We architected the right Windows in the right devices with the right features," explained Nadella.
Nadella added that Windows will be able to run on everything from sensors to wearables to whatever computing shift emerges.
"Windows 10 is a very important step for us. It's the first step in a new generation of Windows as opposed to just another release after Windows 8. General purpose computing is going to run on 200 plus billion sensors. We've architected Windows where it can run on everything."
The key for Windows in the future will be offering user experience consistency where ever it will run.
"The IoT end points will need an operating system that's manageable and secure. I feel Windows will be a fantastic operating system to run on the edge," said Nadella. Another key point will be taking that OS and the data end point and offloading into Azure for predictive analytics.
"That's really our IoT strategy," said Nadella. "We're in IoT today. Listening to you today makes me want to go back and put my marketing department on it."
On other key topics:
Licensing. Nadella agreed that Microsoft licensing is too complicated, but that's because the company has listened to customers' needs for various options. Nadella said the Microsoft executive team wants to simplify and Office 365 pricing is a step in the right direction. Part of a recurring theme for licensing will revolve around the user and not the device. That change would account for mobility and customers that will hop from multiple devices. Consumption is another pricing option. "The changing nature of demand is what licensing will follow," he said.
Mobility. Nadella said mobility is not about devices, but the control plane and productivity and cloud tools. "We have to think about mobility as the user and app experiences not the devices," said Nadella. Windows 10 is a bet on the mobility front.
Active Directory. Nadella agreed with the notion that Active Directory is arguably Microsoft's most important asset. "We're making significant investments," said Nadella. Active Directory can be the cloud identity keeper.
Morphing architecture. Nadella added that Microsoft will adapt its code and approach as it goes along. "As paradigms change we will build platforms for them," he said.
Why gaming? Nadella said Windows took its voice technology from Xbox as well as a few key security features. There's value in gaming for the broader enterprise.
Cloud. Nadella said Microsoft's strength in the cloud is the ability to bring most things. But the most strategic API in the company is Office 365 and its extensions. That Office API even trumps Azure's. Office extensibility and data has led to billions of identity transactions in Azure Active Directory. Nadella said Azure has to keep up with Amazon Web Services, but Microsoft's strength is its hybrid cloud technology. System Center and other enterprise tools can connect directly into Azure.
AWS. Nadella chafed at the notion that AWS has hybrid cloud via its partnerships. Nadella said hybrid cloud is more than just the connections. The main part of hybrid cloud is the management control plane. "You have to think about what is your edge in the cloud," said Nadella, who quickly said that it's Microsoft's server platforms. He said Oct. 20th would feature more news on that front. Nadella scoffed at the notion that three North American companies — AWS, Microsoft, and Google — will dominate the cloud. He said Microsoft has to enable other clouds — including nation states — to be built on its technology.
Transitioning to new models. Nadella argued that Office 365 is the new Exchange and one will cannibalize the other. The key is to ensure that current Exchange customers can transition on their own terms.
RFID Maker Alien Raises $35 Million to Expand into IoT
Excerpted from Silicon Valley Business Journal Report
Alien Technology, a maker of radio tags and readers used for the Internet of Things (IoT), has named Chris Chang as its CEO as it secures $35 million in funding from a joint venture led by Shanghai Ruizhang Investment Company.
Alien said in a news release Thursday that the funds will help the Morgan Hill company build shareholder confidence in the market for Radio Frequency Identification (RFID).
"Our goal has been to find strategic investors that not only bring funds, but also add other value to our business, and we have identified Ruizhang that meets these needs," said Chang in the release. "We believe that this capital injection makes Alien one of the strongest pure-play RFID companies in the industry."
John Smith, an electrical engineering professor at the University of California, Berkeley, launched Alien in 1994 and served as its chief executive until 1997, according to CrunchBase. The company has raised roughly $247 million since its inception.
The fresh capital arrives amid new interest in Alien's technology and growing popularity of the IoT, or Internet-enabled devices.
Synapse Wireless Champions the Internet of Things
Excerpted from TechAlabama Report
Synapse Wireless celebrated company growth, a new location and the eighth anniversary of its SNAP technology on October 2nd
Since Synapse formed in 2007, it has received 21 patents, has more than 6,000 SNAP developers, and has attracted customers such as American Airlines, General Motors and the US Army, just to name a few.
Synapse Wireless is an emerging leader in wireless solutions that empower the Internet of Things (IoT).
It is now located in the SAIC building in Cummings Research Park and has added 65 employees, a 150 percent increase over the past year.
The IoT is an industry that fosters the technological fabric to connect 26 billion devices - not including PCs, tablets and smartphones - by 2020.
With the technology that Synapse has mastered, it is possible to build connected computers into light fixtures, medical devices, patient bracelets, combustion engines, kitchen equipment, merchandise racks, electric meters, or solar panels.
Leading analyst firm, Harbor Research, said this about Synapse: "They are jumping ahead of the current market's noise and confusion about wireless connectivity and Big Data and is re-defining how value is created from sensors and the data received."
Nominet and Love Hz Use IoT for Flood Detection
A pioneering, Oxford, England based trial, led by Nominet and Love Hz, will explore the potential for the Internet of Things (IoT) to help create an extensive, localized, early warning system for flood-prone areas for the first time in the UK.
Hundreds of homes were evacuated in Oxfordshire last winter along with widespread travel disruption to road, rail, and power supplies. Although the Environment Agency provides blanket warnings, it has limited resources and uses just a few, expensive, professional sensors. A higher density of sensors with more detailed data would make a real difference to monitoring water levels in flood-prone areas, particularly in small waterways.
The IoT is set to connect 50 billion devices by 2020 and this trial will use Nominet's new TV white space network (TVWS) to provide wireless connectivity for sensors which will be installed by Love Hz. Initially, thirty sensors will monitor water levels in the streams, groundwater, and basin of the Thames and Cherwell Rivers and over time this project hopes to incorporate even more sensors planted by the local community. Work on the new white space network begins this week with the installation of a link in between Oxford City Centre and the floodplain.
TVWS uses the wireless spectrum freed up by the switch to digital TV broadcasting. The available set of frequencies varies, so the database that Nominet has developed performs complex calculations based on a number of factors and tells the devices which frequencies they can use in that area and for how long.
The flood sensors use ultrasonic distance measuring and will be secured above water, for example under a bridge, and pointed down at the changing water surface level. The readings are wirelessly transmitted to the white space network, which will send information back to Nominet via an antenna in central Oxford.
Nominet and Love Hz are looking for more volunteers who can install sensors in flood risk areas to take part in gathering data. In future, a crowdsourced map of the flood levels will give local residents a much better idea of imminent flooding in their area. It will also show whether flood protection schemes actually work and where bottlenecks occur. Flooding is a complex science and providing more data on the behavior of local flood waters will help long-term models for flood prevention.
The information collected will be open data, available for anyone to use so that it can be linked to, shared and published on various websites.
Nominet is part of a pilot of innovative white space technology which is among the first of its kind in Europe. Adam Leach, Director of Research and Development at Nominet comments: "Oxford has already had major issues with flooding this year, and it's great to be able to apply the emerging technologies that we are working on in Nominet R&D, like TV white space, to offer wireless connectivity over large distances to tackle old problems.
"The sensors will measure the water levels in the local area in real-time and send the data instantly over the Internet allowing users to get the most up-to-date picture of the affected areas. This partnership between us and Love Hz illustrates the exciting possibilities of the Internet of Things, it's a really practical way to use it to help communities prepare for and effectively manage emergencies."
Ben Ward, Director of Love Hz said: "The Internet of Things is often seen as a far-off technology of the future. The Oxford Flood Network shows it's happening right now, here in Oxford, and anyone can be a part of it. People are solving real-world problems with cutting edge technology.
"We encourage local individuals, groups and businesses to join in by finding the locations (streams, wells, and flood cellars are all good examples) or adopting a sensor. The technology lets us understand our environment and share that information to make better decisions and responses as a community."
IDF14: IoT and the Challenges of Connecting Everything
Excerpted from the Star Online Report
With over 50 billion devices set to be connected to the cloud by 2020, Eric Free, Vice President and General Manager of the Smart Homes and Buildings Division of Intel talks about the challenges of getting devices to talk to each other.
The Internet of Things (IoT) has become the buzzword for a new generation of tech.
"Very simply, it's the connecting of devices to the cloud to collect data that drives changes or transformation. We sort of laugh, because we've been active in the embedded space for more than 30 years and we've seen devices connecting to the Internet in the last five to 10 years. Now they've slapped a name on it and suddenly we're seeing a lot of excitement."
In fact, Intel expects some 50 billion devices to be connected to the Internet by 2020 and many of those will be from the home.
Of those devices, Intel is particularly interested in products for media entertainment, automation and security, health, and energy management for the home.
"What's really exciting is that we now see the industry moving as a whole," he said. "However, there are some real challenges ahead."
According to Free, one of the issues with IoT is that the market is very fragmented at the moment, and there is a lack of standards for interoperability and connectivity of various devices in the home.
To help set these standards, Intel has set up two different consortia to address the issues, namely the Open Interconnect Consortium (OIC) and Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC).
The OIC is meant to help smart devices talk to each other by setting up a common protocol and communications standard and, at the same time, make it easier for users to make these connections.
The IIC, on the other hand, was set up to address broader issues with regards to how IoT works both in the industry and at home especially when it comes to security.
Free admits that security is a major concern especially when everything in the home is connected to the cloud in some way — it's still a tricky situation to balance ease-of-use and making the system secure.
Jason Hope on the Challenges of Internet of Things
The Internet of Things (IoT) is changing the way we operate and creating significant benefits for the modern person, but Jason Hope and other technology experts warn that it is not without its challenges.
Connecting everything is a major endeavor, raising concerns about everything from distracted driving to security concerns.
Eric Free, Vice President and General Manager of Intel's Smart Homes and Building Division, agrees with Hope in his recent statement in an article published on September 29th in The Star titled: "IDF14: Internet of Things and the challenges of connecting everything" which states that over 50 billion devices will be connected to the Cloud by 2020.
Yet this IoT is not a new phenomenon. People have been connecting and active in the Internet and other embedded spaces for over three decades, but in the last decade the number has increased exponentially, and now it has earned a name.
So what are the challenges? Free indicated in a recent interview that the fragmented market was a problem.
Hope agrees. "We have numerous small to medium sized companies and a few major players, and all are competing with each other. So far no one has rose to the top of the marketplace to direct the growth of the IoT. This challenge means that the infrastructure is not developing as quickly or smoothly as it could."
Because of this fragmented market, there is a lack of inter-connection between devices. One device created by one manufacturer likely will not interact with other devices in the home made by someone else.
Recently the Open Interconnect Consortium (OIC) and Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC) were both held to help address these issues.
"For the Internet of Things to reach its full potential," states Hope, "we have to have a standard in place that will allow different devices to connect with one another, regardless of who made them.
Also, this standard needs to address security concerns. People want to know that their devices are secure when they are connecting things inside their homes to that nebulous cloud."
As the IoT develops, Hope and others expect to see these concerns addressed.
The Internet of Someone Else's Things
Excerpted from TechCrunch Report by Jon Evans
The Internet of Things (IoT) is coming. Rejoice! …Mostly.
It will open our collective eyes to petabytes of real-time data, which we will turn into new insights and efficiencies. It will doubtless save lives. Oh, yes: and it will subtly redefine ownership as we know it. You will no longer own many of the most expensive and sophisticated items you possess. You may think you own them. But you'll be wrong.
They say "possession is nine-tenths of the law," but even if you physically and legally own a Smart Thing, you won't actually control it.
Ownership will become a three-legged stool; who physically owns a thing; who legally owns it; …and who has the ultimate power to command it. Who, in short, has root.
This is not a hypothetical situation. Your phone probably has three separate computers in it (processor, baseband processor, and SIM card) and you almost certainly don't have root on any of them, which is why some people refer to phones as "tracking devices which make phone calls."
The NY Times recently ran a story about cars being prevented from starting because payments were days late. (And as CityLab points out: "Losing transportation could mean losing everything.")
Consider also the recent discovery that Belkin routers apparently had to connect to Belkin's servers before they would connect to the rest of the Internet.
As The Atlantic puts it:
"The smarter one's things, the greater the possibility that they'll be conscripted into schemes you never would have imagined and might not like."
The fundamental issue here is that the IoT will not have a standard set of open APIs for consumers. (Well, there's ThingSpeak, but it's not exactly widely supported.)
You can't get your Tesla to dump all of its data to a server you specify. While Nest has a public API, they maintain gatekeeper control over it. (You may think: "Of course!" — but imagine being told that you can't use Safari to access any Google services without Apple's explicit consent and approval.)
When you buy a Smart Thing, you get locked into its software ecosystem, which is controlled by its manufacturer, whether you like it or not.
Techno-utopians like to argue that open systems always win, but that simply isn't true, as the mobile era has shown. Android is more open than iOS, but for most intents and purposes, both are walled gardens.
So are we doomed to a future of Fifth-Column Smart Things that we don't really own, talking behind our backs to an array of siloed Stacks?
Maybe. But not necessarily.
For one thing, I suspect that at some point, after the first wave of the IoTs, open APIs and root access will become a selling point.
Either enough customers (especially business customers) will want them badly enough, or smart hardware will become enough of a commodity that startups will start selling "repluggable" Smart Things, which buyers can root and configure to speak to the server(s) of their choice.
More interesting to me, though, is the possibility of a decentralized IoT; smart things which don't communicate with any central server, but rather with a peer-to-peer (P2P), perhaps blockchain-based network.
Consider the way FireChat is being used in Hong Kong, so that protestors can communicate despite the authorities' control of the mobile networks. You don't always actually need a central server, especially if you have a distributed-consensus algorithm — like a blockchain — for longer-term data storage and algorithmic coordination.
I concede this is a hand-wavey vaporware notion, but, well, I believe it's an important hand-wavey vaporware notion. Similarly, a la Overstock or Reddit:
As someone who often argues that capitalism needs to evolve as technology remakes our societies and economies, I'm not necessarily opposed to a subtle redefinition of "ownership."
But I don't want it to come to mean "transferring de facto control over every interesting thing in my possession to distant corporations." Bring on an open, decentralized IoT, eventually. The Stacks control quite enough already.
Cloud Computing Is Forcing a Reconsideration of IP
Excerpted from NY Times Report by Quentin Hardy
Almost overnight, our technology revolution is shaking up entire industries and remaking society. Don't get caught up in the small stuff, though: Tech really is changing how we think about our ideas.
We've used ideas to sculpt the globe since the Industrial Revolution, thanks largely to the way we handle intellectual property. When machines, and machines to make identical machines, mass-produced reliably identical goods, it was because people understood the same set of instructions.
Mass-produced books, music and movies were possible, too. Like machine-making instructions, these items were made reliable and protected with laws of copyright, patent and trademark.
Now, according to people involved in the business of protecting ideas, all of that is set to change.
Software, lashing together thousands of computer servers into fast and flexible cloud-computing systems, is the reason. Clouds, wirelessly connected to more software in just about everything, make it possible to shift, remix and borrow from once separate industrial categories.
"Products are taking on a lot more functionality, like cars that have touch screens, streaming video, and Wi-Fi antennas," said Russell E. Levine, a Chicago-based partner at the law firm Kirkland & Ellis who specializes in patent infringement and licensing. "Carmakers are used to thinking about the I.P. around brakes and exhaust systems. Now they need to think about who owns what technology in all kinds of products."
Mr. Levine works with a lot of smartphone companies. In that business, it's not just that an app-rich, cloud-connected phone may be at one moment a chessboard, then an Internet browser. Smartphones are an example of connected products that are intended to sell by the hundred million, standardized across a hundred countries. The cross-licensing of ideas across that many borders is almost as complicated as the global cloud itself.
"These are things we never thought about, as industries get connected to each other," said Pamela Demain, president of the Licensing Executives Society, an intellectual property trade group. "There is a huge amount of complexity in software-driven converged devices, with I.P. at the center of the development. You add in wireless and globalization, that just adds more complexity."
So far, this sounds like full employment for the lawyers, and an intensification of business as usual. Looking at the long-term direction of tech, however, it could spell the opposite.
There are over one million servers in each of the big clouds of Google, Microsoft, and Amazon, executives at those companies say. For new entrants, one limit is that capital spending costs more than $1 billion a year. Another is engineering know-how; how the future works will be in just a couple of thousand heads, at most.
Everything, be it software and networking or power, is different when so many computers are spread across the globe. The pace of innovation is so quick, and the number of players so small, that in some cases, the players elect not to patent inventions, wary of what they'd disclose about themselves in the application.
A number of other big players are still trying to come at the proprietary hold of these giants, and to do it, they're using open-source software, a license-free method of creating a product, fast, by distributing the work as widely as possible.
"Open source isn't just a way to give back to the community. It's a way to blow up the other guy," said Bill Hilf, who oversees Hewlett-Packard's work on OpenStack, a kind of open-source, cloud-computing software.
Hoping to build a product better than Amazon's cloud, HP has over 400 paid engineers working full time to help a community of thousands create this free software. It has also donated enormous amounts of valuable software, like networking and automation tools. It even indemnifies its OpenStack customers against patent lawsuits.
"That gives our lawyers ulcers," Mr. Hilf said. "They have to protect a product that is being changed all the time by people who don't work for HP."
Still, the corporate donations to cloud-based open source seem unstoppable. Mr. Hilf noted that Linux, an open-source operating system "took 15.8 years to get 180 companies contributing. OpenStack took 1.6 years to get 160 companies. It's insane."
Last month, Facebook, Google, Walmart's online operation and others announced a consortium with a goal of enabling new versions of software to be released multiple times a day. They used to come out every few years.
Hoping to move even faster against his competitors, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's chief executive, three years ago took the unusual strategy of open-sourcing not software, but computer hardware. In June, this produced a networking switch, or a gear that helps direct data traffic over large computer networks.
Hardware and software of all kinds may further change with 3-D printing. Designs there can be widely shared and modified in a computer, to an extent that originals are hard to recognize, let alone protect.
In a provocative article published in March, Mark Lemley, a professor at Stanford Law, projected a similar copy-paste-change fate for the information of synthetic biology.
"How will our economy function in a world where most of the things we produce are cheap or free?" he asked. "It is hard even to begin to think about the transition."
Coming Events of Interest
IEEE International Conference on Cloud Computing for Emerging Markets — October 15th-17th in Bangalore, India. The third annual CCEM, will address the unique challenges and opportunities of cloud computing for emerging markets in a high quality event that brings together industry, government, and academic leaders in cloud computing.
CloudComp 2014 — October 19th-21st in Guilin, China. The fifth annual international conference on cloud computing. The event is endorsed by the European Alliance for Innovation, a leading community-based organization devoted to the advancement of innovation in the field of ICT.
International Conference on Cloud Computing Research & Innovation — October 29th-30th in Singapore. ICCRI:2014 covers a wide range of research interests and innovative applications in cloud computing and related topics. The unique mix of R&D, end-user, and industry audience members promises interesting discussion, networking, and business opportunities in translational research & development.
GOTO Berlin 2014 Conference — November 5th–7th in Berlin, Germany. GOTO Berlin is the enterprise software development conference designed for team leads, architects, and project management and is organized "for developers by developers". New technology and trends in a non-vendor forum.
PDCAT 2014 — December 9th-11th in Hong Kong. The 16th International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Computing, Applications and Technologies (PDCAT 2014) is a major forum for scientists, engineers, and practitioners throughout the world to present their latest research, results, ideas, developments and applications in all areas of parallel and distributed computing.
Storage Visions Conference — January 4th-5th in Las Vegas, NV. The fourteenth annual conference theme is: Storage with Intense Network Growth (SWING). Storage Visions Awards presented there cover significant products, services, and companies in many digital storage markets.
International CES — January 6th-9th in Las Vegas, NV. The International CES is the world’s gathering place for all who thrive on the business of consumer technologies. Held in Las Vegas every year, it has served as the proving ground for innovators and breakthrough technologies for more than 40 years — the global stage where next-generation innovations are introduced to the marketplace.
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