Wednesday, August 31, 2016

IoTA 31 - AWS MP3

IoT: The Big Picture 2016, T-Mobile gets into IoT, LPWAN Standards, AWS and IoT.

IoTA 31 - AWS

The Blogger YouTube embed still appears to be broken.  Here is the link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfudduycZ5k

Show Notes:
PRNewswire report that several mobile experts created the most comprehensive analysis of IoT called IoT: The Big Picture 2016 and takes a broad look at 36 technologies and 26 applications. "Multiple IoT suppliers are counting on the same applications for success, and investing heavily without fully understanding the alternative technologies which address the same requirements. Not everybody can win this game," explained Joe Madden, Principal Analyst at Mobile Experts. "Our unbiased analysis looks closely at the investment in each technology, to predict which companies can survive the war. This report can help each vendor avoid stepping on a tripwire." "Mobile Experts has seen the lofty expectations set by the industry: 20 billion devices in 2020," commented Principal Analyst Joe Madden. "Instead of simply accepting these numbers, we have broken down the panoramic market view into bite-size chunks that are more easily understood. In this report, we illustrate how the business model will take shape, and how billions of devices will actually be bought and used." Ethernet
Fieldbus
Power Line Communications: PRIME and G3-PLC
Bluetooth, BLE and Bluetooth V5.0
RFID: Passive and Active
802.15.4: Zigbee, Z-wave, WirelessHART, ISA100.11a, FHSS, Thread, UWB)
Wi-Fi: 802.11ac, 802.11af, and 802.11ah
SIGFOX
LoRa
RPMA (Ingenu)
Weightless
QoWisio
UNB (Telensa)
GSM: GPRS, EDGE, and EC-GSM
LTE: Cat-4, Cat-1, Cat-0, and Cat-M1
NB-IoT (Cat-NB1)
5G IoT (5G NR)
Satellite IoT (Globalstar, Iridium, Inmarsat, etc)
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/mobile-experts-slices-up-the-iot-pie-300319767.html
Yahoo Finance reports Sequans Communications S.A. (SQNS) announced an agreement to deliver Sequans’ LTE Cat 1 technology and products to T-Mobile’s (TMUS) machine-to-machine (M2M) and Internet of Things (IoT) customers. Sequans’ Calliope LTE Cat 1 chipset platform, which uniquely supports VoLTE and enables a wide range of industrial and consumer IoT applications, including asset tracking, alarm systems, telematics devices, retail applications, smart utility meters and more, is now certified and available for use on T-Mobile’s network.

“We are very happy to support T-Mobile’s IoT network strategy as an LTE Cat 1 technology provider,” said Georges Karam, Sequans CEO. “LTE Cat 1 enables 4G solutions to rival 2G/3G in cost while providing much greater longevity. This means T-Mobile’s customers have access to a leading wireless network that is scalable and secure with broad coverage, along with affordable, long-lived connectivity solutions for successful IoT and M2M business models.”
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/sequans-delivers-lte-iot-t-120000648.html
RCRWireless News's Phillip Tracy reports on 3GPP's LPWAN IoT Standards. The 3GPP standardization group has introduced a number of LTE standards aimed at providing a network for the “internet of things”: Narrowband IoT, LTE Cat 1 and LTE Cat-M. These networks add to the mix (and perhaps, confusion) of already existing licensed and unlicensed low-power wide-area network looking to provide reliable, efficient and low-energy data transfer to the billions of expected IoT devices.

The LTE standards will be going up against the likes of Sigfox, LoRa and Ingenu.
https://www.rcrwireless.com/20160830/fundamentals/3gpp-iot-standards-tag31-tag99
Pick of the day - for those of you interested in using AWS as part of your IoT project should check out the article from TechTarget where they go into some detail about what AWS can provide to you.http://searchaws.techtarget.com/definition/AWS-IoT-Amazon-Web-Services-internet-of-things

Monday, August 29, 2016

IoTA 30 - IoT and SEO MP3

Retail and IoT.  VR will need huge data stores.  IIoT will help reduce carbon footprints.  IoT and Agriculture.  6 Predictions about online marketing and SEO.

IoTA 30 - IoT and SEO

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEX-MMo1Igk

(sorry blogspot was having trouble embedding this morning.)

Show Notes:
Tata Consultancy Services' Digital Software & Solutions Group has launched TCS Customer Intelligence & Insights for Retail, a software application that enables retailers to leverage data from in-store sensors or other Internet of Things (IoT) devices to deepen relationships with customers through more personalized customer engagement strategies, writes Leonard Klie in destination CRM.com "The Internet of Things is further blurring the lines between traditional and online retailing, forcing marketers to reconstruct the customer's journey with their brands across both physical and virtual worlds," she says.

Customer Intelligence & Insights for Retail helps them move from hit-or-miss marketing to highly relevant, timely interactions delivered in the right context, Hariharan points out. "With it, retailers can understand their customers better and segment them better," she says. The technology then allows them to "drive very personalized campaigns, drive offers based on the context of the customer and the location of the customer, and then measure the outcome from those campaigns."
http://www.destinationcrm.com/Articles/CRM-News/CRM-Featured-News/TCS-Releases-Customer-Intelligence--Insights-for-Retail-113208.aspx
Tom Couglin reports in Forbes that Big Storage is the new reality in VR. At the recent Intel Developer Forum, Brian Krzanich the CEO of Intel introduced Project Alloy, an all in one VR headset that is wireless and self-contaned with compute and sensors included in the headset. Intel will open source the hardware and software in the second half of 2017. Because of the way that VR works, with multiple data points that are stiched together in order to create a seamless experience, that the storage needs of VR will be enourmous. Estimates of about 230 Exabytes by 2021 would be needed. An exabyte is one billion gigabytes.http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomcoughlin/2016/08/27/big-storage-is-the-new-reality-in-virtual-reality/#779ee3b552ba
Industrial IoT is expected to increase energy efficiecy and slash carbon emissions writes Sumity Paul in readwrite. In our recent history, much of the manufacturing process has been moved out of locations such as the US and Eurore in favor of countries such as India or China. This was done for a number of reasons, lower wages in said countries, but more perhaps for the lax environmental regulations that allow for the pollutants that such industry create. IoT has the promise of better monitoring of resources thus eliminating waste of those resources meaning less pollution and energy usage. IoT can also help make the processess more efficient leading to increased productivity with less resource usage.http://readwrite.com/2016/08/27/industrial-energy-efficiency-helps-reducing-emissions-il1/
Also in readwrite, David Curry asks "Can IoT provide agriculture with an annual bumper crop?" Alvarez Technology group is betting hard on IoT and is working hard to automate agriculture. They plan to have equipment in place within the next 5 years that halfs the number of head-count that farms need to produce the same or more goods. At the same time, they expect that the crops will be able to double their output.http://readwrite.com/2016/08/27/alvarez-iot-agriculture-il4/
Jason DeMers in Forbes gives us 6 Predictions for how IoT will affect online marketing and SEO. 1) Search will become more conversational - Alexa, Siri, etc. 2) Organic click-through rate will fall - able to cut out the middle man, 3) SERP's will transform or disappear - can go directly to the source, 4) Optimization will no longer primarily focus on Google, 5) Personalization will be huge, 6) Residential marketing will increase in importancehttp://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2016/08/27/6-predictions-for-how-iot-tech-will-affect-online-marketing-and-seo/2/#f9cef6b14da5

Friday, August 26, 2016

IoTA 29 - IoT get off my lawn MP3

Network segmentation for IoT.  Open Registry for IoT.  Intel and AT&T team up.  10 cool healthcare IoT uses.  TAG - IoT and We event.

IoTA 29 - IoT get off my lawn


Show Notes:
Ken Briodagh reports in IoT Evolution that Chronicled, a San Francisco based technology company, has launched an Open Registry for IoT. Built on the Ethereum blockchain, the registry stores the identities of physical items, for starters, consumer goods and collectibles embedded with BLE and NFC microchips. In doing so, a secure, interoperable digital identity is established and new, proximity-based consumer engagement opportunities become possible. Chronicled has open sourced the project under the Apache License.

“Chip companies, physical IP creators, and brands can now register and verify their BLE and NFC chips on a public blockchain,” said Ryan Orr, CEO, Chronicled. “These tamperproof chips can be ordered today and are already being deployed in consumer goods.”

“One of the main problems holding back growth in the consumer IoT market is interoperability,” said Daniel Cooley, SVP and General Manager, IoT Products, Silicon Labs. “By putting IoT chip registrations into private databases, today every brand is creating the equivalent of its own private cellular phone network or its own private email system that is not interoperable with any other network. This interoperable back end is a valuable building block and positive step for the entire IoT ecosystem including app developers, brands and consumers alike.”
http://www.iotevolutionworld.com/m2m/articles/424521-off-blockcha-chronicled-launches-open-registry-iot.htm
Cyber experts are recommending Network Segmentation to facilitate IoT Security writes Alex Koma in State Scoop. At the National Association of State Technology Directors’ annual conference Wednesday, public and private security leaders stressed the danger inherent in linking IoT devices to state networks, when many of those devices still aren’t designed with security as a prime concern.

“Systems talking to parts of the network they shouldn't is probably the area of highest risk right now,” said Steven Hurst, director of security services and compliance for AT&T. “But ironically, it’s also one of the easiest ones to solve.” Timothy Brown, executive director for security with Dell Software, agrees that it’s likely a question of “microsegmentation” and the creation of “managed gateways” to control how IoT devices work with the rest of the network.

“It’s more about the collection of data at the gateway,” Brown said. “If the temperature hasn’t changed, why does a smart thermostat need to send it elsewhere? You can set it to report back every hour if you need it. Those types of things exist today.”
http://statescoop.com/cyber-experts-network-segmentation-could-help-minimize-risk-posed-by-iot-devices
Shobhit Seth reports in Investopedia that Intel and AT&T launch a platform for IoT. Based on the concept of software-defined networking (SDN) and network-functions virtualization (NFV), the new network for the digital age will employ low-cost hardware and be open to standard and open source technologies—a departure from the existing network which relies on high-cost, high-end dedicated hardware and proprietary software technology.

This pragmatic shift will support flexibility, scalability and automation; it will also improve the efficiency of emerging services including cloud computing, IoT, mobility, augmented and virtual reality, big data analytics and high-resolution content over networks. AT&T will benefit by adopting Intel’s technology and gaining access to upcoming products and services from a coveted group of public and private cloud providers called "Super 7," which includes the likes of Alibaba, Amazon, Baidu, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Tencent.

Defined by AT&T as ‘A Network Built In Software,’ SDN and NFV will allow AT&T to port existing hardware-dependent networking tasks to software running on standard processors. This initiative will substantially reduce the cost of network services as well as allow open source software to run on standard low-cost hardware, leading to significant savings for service providers. AT&T aims to virtualize 30% of its network by the end of the year and hit the 75% mark by 2020.
http://www.investopedia.com/news/intel-and-att-launch-platform-iot-t-intc/
Linsey O'Donnell reports on 10 Cool ways that companies are innovating in Healthcare. 1) AdhereTech makes smart wireless pill bottles, 2) Stanley Healthcare has the AeroScout realtime locatio system to keep up with patients, staff, and equipment, 3) Qualcomm Life health monitoring solution - blood pressure, weight scale, and tablet to collect biometric data, 4) GE Healthcare - Hospital Operations Managemetn platform, 5) Cisco Systems - allows medical devices to operate interactively, 6) Proteus Digital Health - ingestible sensors, 7) PhysIQ - chest strap to monitor patients remotely, 8) Microsoft Azure IoT - working with hospitals to build automated medical systems, 9) IBM - Watson IoT Platform and Bluemix heart monitoring to hospital data, 10) Honeywell Care Solutions - blood pressure, glucometers and fitness trackershttp://www.crn.com/slide-shows/networking/300081848/10-cool-ways-companies-are-innovating-in-health-care-iot.htm/pgno/0/10

Thursday, August 25, 2016

IoTA 28 - IoT Cordcutters? MP3

IoT is revolutionizing Banking, or is it?  myDevices teams up with Sigfox.  Reaccion and their IoT Disaster Box.  Where are the cable companies in the IoT revolution?

IoTA 28 - IoT Cordcutters?



Show Notes:
A story in Banking Technology discusses how IoT is going to revolutionize Banking. Financial services tend to lag behind technology advancements (similar to Healthcare), but IoT is poised to change that. The nameless author says that retail banks are investing heavily in the space. However, no concrete examples are given as to how or why a local bank would invest in infrastructure needed for IoT and the few examples of secondary idustries needing it just didn't make sense. Just how would IoT revolutionize Banking?http://www.bankingtech.com/511682/iot-and-the-banking-revolution/
Yahoo Finance reports that myDevices has partered with Sigfox. “myDevices is a perfect fit for our ecosystem partners of device makers, systems integrators, semiconductor manufacturers and end-users” said Stuart Lodge, Executive Vice President of Sales and Partners at SIGFOX. “Their agile and easy-to-use IoT project builder and platform enhances our partners’ ability to connect the dots and make IoT a reality for industries including smart city, agriculture, building intelligence, and infrastructure control.”

SIGFOX connects the physical world to the Internet through a simple, reliable, low-cost, energy-efficient seamless connectivity solution. Registering more than 7 million devices in its network with a footprint on all continents, SIGFOX is rapidly establishing one global network that provides simple, ubiquitous, energy-efficient connectivity for billions of connected devices. In the past 12 months alone, SIGFOX has added 15 countries to its global coverage map and plans to be in more than 30 countries by year-end.

“SIGFOX’s rapid network expansion demonstrates their commitment to unlocking the power of IoT and transforming our daily lives,” said Kevin Bromber, CEO of myDevices. “We share in that same vision and look forward to contributing to the SIGFOX Partner Network.”
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/mydevices-selected-sigfox-global-ecosystem-115800904.html
Deepak Puri in Network World reports that IoT can save lives. Reaccion developed a device for use in rural El Salvador that helps to alert other villages in the event of a disaster. Their Early Warning System lets villages alert each other even when power and phone communications have been disrupted in a natural disaster. Villagers alert others through a simple battery-powered device that has color-coded buttons to indicate an impending danger, as well as its severity. Reaccion found that even villagers without formal education could easily use the color-coded buttons.

The device supplements human input with IoT weather sensors and accelerometers to measure tremors. The devices connect villages with a radio-signal powered mesh network. GPRS links are used to connect the mesh network to the cloud for additional data analysis of weather conditions and natural disasters.
http://www.networkworld.com/article/3110545/internet-of-things/iot-early-warning-system-helps-save-people-from-mudslides.html
In the world of IoT - where are the Cable companies. Gary Arlen in MultiChannel News reports that in all of the discussions about IoT, that the cable companies have been invisible and almost nothing has been said about their involvment. This is surprising considering all of the talk about Smart Homes, and Smart Cities, two places where cable companies already dominate. And in an era when more and more people are cutting the proverbial cable in favor of online streaming, the cable companies need something to replace that lost revenue. http://www.multichannel.com/blog/i-was-saying/iot-forecasts-proliferate-cable-invisible/407231

Wednesday, August 24, 2016

IoTA 27 - IoT and Pregnancy MP3

Ava bracelet and pregnancy.  5 influential women in IoT.  Silicon labs sensor puck.  Be ready for IoT customers.  10 steps to make enterprise projects successful.

IoTA - IoT and Pregnancy


Show notes:
Deepak Puri of Network World reports that the Ava IoT Bracelet can make it easier to get pregant. With IoT being all about sensors and data, what better way to help struggling parents find the optimum time to get pregnant. There is only a 12-24 hour window each month when an egg can be fertilized and identifying that accurately can significantly increase a woman's ability to get pregnant. Currently there are 3 methods that have been used, the Calendar Method, Ovulation test kits, and Core Body temperature. All of these have issues with accuracy. The Ava passively monitors Resting pulse rate, skin temperature, heart rate variability, amount of sleep, breathing rate, perfusion (how much blood is supplying the tissues of the body), bioimpedance (electrical resistance), and heat loss to 89% accurately predict a fertile period (an average of 5.3% fertile periods during one cycle). Ava is a Class 1 medical device. Patients are notified via mobile app as to the ideal time for conception. http://www.networkworld.com/article/3109898/internet-of-things/with-the-ava-iot-bracelet-getting-pregnant-becomes-easier.html
Mary Goldspik the CEO of EverOpen writes in readwrite about the 5 women who are changing the IoT world. Tech as a whole tends to be a male dominated industry with approximately 91% of engineers being men, and only about 5% of all VC funding goes to women led startups. And the few that did raise money averaged onloy $36,000 as compared to white male raise averages of $1.3 million. But these 5 women are defying the odds. Alicia Asin is co-founder and CEO of Libelium which is a wireless sensor network platform that delivers open-source, low-power consumpiton devices in use for Smart Cities. Ayah Bdeir is the CEO of littleBits Electronics which is an easy to use electronic building block platform that helps inventors create whatever they want. Anne Lauvergeon is the Chairman of SigFox which provides dedicated cellular connectivity for IoT and M2M communications. Limor Fried is the founder of Adafruit which is a manufacturing company. And lastly, Meredith Perry is the founder and CEO of uBeam which is a wireless power company that transmits power over the air to charge electronic devices.http://readwrite.com/2016/08/22/5-women-changing-iot-world-tl1/
Andrew Prokip in No Jitter writes about the Silicon labs Sensor puck. it's a 1.5 inch diameter circuit board that can measure temperature, relative humidity, ambient light, UV index, and heartrate. Powered by a standard 3 volt CR2032 battery, the Sensor Puck can be used as a standalone telemetry device, or be integrated into larger solutions that use telemetry, but are not necessarily focused on it.

The Puck uses BLE to broadcast real-time data to any interested party. Silicon Labs provides their own mobile apps for Android or iPhone (shown below). Additionally, third parties can develop middleware components that collect data from the sensor while providing a Web services API for systems integrators.
http://www.nojitter.com/post/240171899/giving-a-voice-to-iot
The IoT Customers are Coming, are you Ready? asks Jim MacKay Fortegra in Multichannel news. In the consumer space, IoT is just starting to take off, and as it reaches peak hype, companies need to be prepared for how they deliver. Jim states that you must 1) know your customer - be sure that your target audience matches your marketing, 2) provide flexible solutions, 3) Be prepared to Scale - this is the tough one, as demand can easily outpace supply, and 4) Prepare for price regulations - he expects the FCC to regulate the market, especially around the cost of the conectivity.http://www.multichannel.com/blog/mcn-guest-blog/iot-customers-are-coming-are-you-ready/407173
Janakiram MSV reports in Forbes that it takes 10 Steps to successfully implement Enterprise IoT. Since IoT crosses so many business units in the enterprise, it is important to follow these steps. 1) Define business goals and the expected outcome, 2) Identify the hardware and devices for the solution, 3) Prepare the data points and metrics aligned with the outcome, 4) Define the connectivity and data format, 5) Implement security, governance and policy across each layer, 6) Identify reference datasets required for transforming senor data, 7) factor in machine learning and predictive analytics, 8) define hot path analytics for real time processing, 9) define cold path for long term batch processing, and 10) design an intuitive user experience for business decision makers.http://www.forbes.com/sites/janakirammsv/2016/08/22/10-steps-to-implementing-a-successful-enterprise-iot-strategy/4/#5d97601412c6

Tuesday, August 23, 2016

IoTA 26 - IT leads the way MP3

IoT Ecosystems.  SIMCom #1.  What's in an IoT Chip.  IT the deciding factor to use IoT.  Edimax Smart Socket not very smart at all.

IoTA 26 - IT leads the way


Show Notes:

Patrick Gray in TechRepublic reports that IoT success is more about focusing on strengths, less about creating an ecosystem. For years, most trainers were fairly "dumb" devices that might allow for a resistance adjustment and little else. With cyclists generally being a group with disposable income that appreciates technology, eventually a company called CompuTrainer created a "connected" trainer and associated computer program that allowed the cyclist to integrate the trainer with a personal computer. This allowed the cyclist to create a workout on their PC, and have the computer control the resistance level and monitor the cyclist's performance during the workout. CompuTrainer provided the entire package of hardware and software, achieving a vaunted state that many companies claim they aspire to: that of an ecosystem provider where an entire "experience" or process is designed, delivered, and integrated by a single provider.

The trouble with ecosystems

Ask nearly any executive in a product company about the benefits they see in IoT, and they'll likely cite becoming an ecosystem provider as the consummate position in a market. Apple is the prime example of a successful ecosystem provider, where the company delivers hardware, software, services, integration to other vendors, and even a marketplace for third parties, happily deriving revenue from each element of the ecosystem.

What's not to like? The trouble with ecosystems is that it's amazingly difficult to succeed in each unique discipline required to "own" an ecosystem. Your company may have a storied history of developing well-engineered products, but has minimal competence with the software and integration side. Certainly these services are available from a variety of third parties, but the other major challenge to building an ecosystem is the potential for disruptive alliances.
http://www.techrepublic.com/article/iot-success-is-more-about-focusing-on-strengths-less-about-creating-an-ecosystem/
In a PRNewsWire report, SIMCom becomes the number 1 IoT Module vendor. According to ABI Research SIMCom moved into the number one spot for 2015 module shipments. "SIMCom has engaged in some very high-profile partnerships to develop some of our new products and features," said Mrs. Wendy Wang, general manager of SIMCom wireless solutions. "More and more customers are starting to realize the quality of SIMCom products," she continued. "The module is not only meant to function at the highest level and to push new features into the market, but to be easy to use -- a major demand from the developers and researchers in particular."

About SIMCom:

Founded in 2002, SIMCom Wireless Solutions has been fully committed to providing a variety of wireless modules and IoT applications for customers around the world. With a constant focus on innovation and research, SIMCom has risen to become a globally recognizable brand and a serious contender for the industry.
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/simcom-wireless-solutions-growing-up-to-become-the-world-no1-iot-module-vendor-300316346.html
A favorite type of article is the What's inside type. William Wong of Electronic design outlines the basics of what should be in an IoT Chip. You'll need to read this one on your own.http://electronicdesign.com/iot/what-inside-iot-chip
Nathan Eddy in Information Week reports that IT is leading the charge when it comes to IoT deployments. The top five perceived benefits of IoT adoption include cost savings from operational efficiencies, better streams of data to improve decision-making, staff productivity gains, better visibility and monitoring of assets throughout the organization, and improved customer experiences.

According to the research, the CIO, CTO, or other IT staff are leading the way for most IoT initiatives, though 46% of businesses reported the involvement of the CEO or president, and 31% reported the involvement of business unit leaders such as chief marketing officers (CMOs) or chief operating officers (COOs). However, there are still several risk factors giving organizations pause, according to the report. Factors most likely to inhibit adoption of IoT technologies are upfront cost, lack of skilled workers with the necessary expertise, and ongoing fees and maintenance costs.

Rounding out the top five roadblocks were new cyber-security risks and interoperability with existing systems and devices.

The research also revealed that 57% of companies believe their organization is well-equipped to manage the security component of IoT, which might be surprising considering how little is known about IoT security.
http://www.informationweek.com/iot/iot-revolution-it-leading-the-charge/d/d-id/1326688
David Bisson reports that Smart IoT Socket suffers from dumb security vulnerabilitites. Bitdefender recently came across a serious flaw in the Edimax smart power switch. After successfully connecting to the network, the device registered with its vendor's servers and sent various pieces of information - such as its MAC address, IP address, and firmware version - to the app for storage.

That little communication exchange marked the end of setup. At that point, the researchers could use the smart socket to schedule an electronic device to turn on and off from their smartphone.

Simple enough... but deeply flawed.

Researchers found the setup process suffered from the following vulnerabilities:

The device's hotspot, which the mobile app uses to connect with the socket, is protected by a weak username-password combination.
Users receive no alerts for deciding to stick with the product's default credentials.
The socket transmits the user's Wi-Fi credentials in cleartext.
All device-to-application communication is encrypted but not encoded, meaning an attacker can easily reverse the encoding scheme.
Users can configure the socket to send them notifications to their email, but for some reason, the device requires access to their email username and password to fulfill that functionality. "This type of attack enables a malicious party to leverage the vulnerability from anywhere in the world. Up until now most IoT vulnerabilities could be exploited only in the proximity of the smart home they were serving, however, this flaw allows hackers to control devices over the Internet and bypass the limitations of the network address translation. This is a serious vulnerability, we could see botnets made up of these power outlets."
https://www.grahamcluley.com/2016/08/smart-iot-socket-suffers-dumb-security-vulnerabilities/

Monday, August 22, 2016

IoTA 25 - IoTCeption MP3

Intel tiny chips for fragile packages. UC Berkeley's Smart Dust. Emerson Power Networks, Lenovo, and OSIsoft smart data center standards.  M&A picks up steam.  CompuCom buys Ext-IoT.

IoTA 25 - IoTCeption


Show Notes:
Stephen Lawson of IDG News reports that Intel has a tiny chip that could help monitor fragile packages. The IA-32 "mote" is small enough to get lost in a jar of pepper. The chip gets power from the WiFi network, and can sense motion and temperature. It records everything to a local gateway that is responsible for broadcasting the data to the cloud. http://www.cio.com/article/3109590/are-your-fragile-packages-safe-ask-intels-tiny-iot-chip.html
More small news - Cate Lawrence writes in readwrite that Smart dust may be the IoT vector of the future. Scientists at UC Berkeley have developerd a "neural dust" that can be implanted into the human body and used to monitor internal nerves, muscles, or organs in real time. The sensors are about the size of a grain of sand and contain a piezoelectric crystal that converts ultrasound vibrations into electricty. The voltage spike in the fiber changes the echo detected by the ultrasound receriver which can then be converted to data.http://readwrite.com/2016/08/20/smart-dust-carrier-iot-future-dl4/
A trio of IT companies - Emerson Network Power, Lenovo, and OSlsoft are creating a new standard for data centers that hasten IoT oriented data centers writes Chris Preimesberger in eWeek. While this is not a new idea, the new standard is designed to connect everything inside of the data center so that it can be monitored real time. In effect it is using the premise behind IoT to build smart data centers for IoT. IoTCeption! SNMP and IPMI are outdated and this standard allows for more effective and efficient management.http://www.eweek.com/enterprise-apps/why-redfish-data-center-model-holds-great-promise-for-iot.html
Nathan Eddy reports that IoT and Big Data Analytics are driving M&A in Information Week. There were 28 deals at or above the $1 Billion mark in the second quarter of 2016. The IoT deals were mostly sensors, connected cars, and security firms.http://www.informationweek.com/big-data/big-data-analytics/iot-big-data-analytics-driving-manda-market-/d/d-id/1326682
And to support that last story, CompuCom Systems acquires Extensys IoT Business. CompuCom picked up the EXT-IoT division of Extenssys. “We now have an unmatched opportunity to offer clients innovative IoT services with a robust set of offerings and one of the largest field technician teams in North America,” said CompuCom CEO Don Doctor. “With more than 6.4 billion IoT devices in operation today and that number expected to grow to 20.8 billion by 2020 according to Gartner*, we see a massive opportunity to help support our clients’ operations. As we say, anything with a chip, sensor or plug eventually needs to be supported or optimized, and CompuCom is uniquely qualified to provide that on-demand value to our clients. The addition of Extensys’ IoT business to the CompuCom family further extends that capability.”http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160819005465/en/CompuCom-Systems-Acquires-IoT-Business-Extensys

Friday, August 19, 2016

IoTA 24 - I do not think that means what you think it means MP3

NIST defines NoT.  The 4 V's of data. Intel and SK Telecom.  Cisco cutting 5500 jobs.  Smart Card Alliance and IoTSecurityConnection.com

IoTA 24 - I do not think that means what you think it means


Show Notes:
David Thornton of Federal News Radio reports that NIST is first to ask "What is the Internet of thing anyway." Jeffrey Voas of the National Institute of Standards and Technology set out to find a satisfactory definition of IoT 2 years ago. Jeffrey prefers the term NoT of IoT (Network of Things) and has determined that NoT consists fo 4 fundamentatals: Computation, Communication, Actuation, and Sensing. He goes on to break NoT down into 5 primatives. Sensors – a physical device which collects raw data.
Aggregators – software that converts raw data into meaningful groupings.
Communication channels – how data is transmitted (e.g. USB, wireless, wired).
External utilities – software or hardware products or services that “execute processes or feed data into the overall workflow of a NoT (e.g. databases, mobile devices, clouds, CPUs).”
Decision trigger – a conditional expression that triggers an action.”
http://federalnewsradio.com/federal-drive/2016/08/nist-first-ask-internet-things-anyway/
Computer Weekly carries a story by Rob Bamforth about how IoT is being tailored to the specific business. He warns that many implementations are all about the raw data, often to the detriment of the actual solution, stating that focusing on the volume of data over everything else will lead to problems. He says that all deployments should take the 4 V's into account: velocity, variety, veracity, and value. You need some way to verify the data that you are collecting to be sure that your assumptions are correct. You should also use more than just the default data set, perhaps by comparing to a like data set from another source. And while speed to a decision is important, he cautions that making a decision real-time just because you can, isn't necessarily the correct answer. And finally, is the analysis of all that data going to lead to an actual decision that brings value.http://www.computerweekly.com/blog/Quocirca-Insights/Not-set-in-concrete-tailoring-IoT-to-the-business
​Intel and SK Telecom team up on WebRTC IoT devices. Intel and SK Telecom will jointly develop Internet of Things (IoT) devices that use Web Real-Time Communication (WebRTC) technology that will allow voice and video calls without a phone in the future reports Cho Mu-Hyun in ZDNet. Chip giant Intel and South Korea's largest wireless carrier SK Telecom will co-develop IoT devices that use WebRTC, the companies announced at the sidelines of Intel Developer Forum.

WebRTC is a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standard for the next-generation web browser data transfer for videos and voices.

The firms will jointly develop technology that will allow WebRTC to be applied on Intel's IoT module, the Edison, and develop devices that will support video and voice calls.

Non-phones devices can be custom-made to support video and voice calls depending on the client's need, SK Telecom said.

The companies will provide their respective SDKs for WebRTC for free to lure developers.

SK Telecom in South Korea provides a commercial service version of WebRTC, called PlayRTC, a voice and video call service platform for enterprise clients.
http://www.zdnet.com/article/intel-and-sk-telecom-team-up-on-webrtc-iot-devices/
Martyn Williams in ComputerWorld reports that Cisco is cutting 5500 jobs. The cuts account for about 7% of its global workforce. The layoffs come from some of Cisco's smaller and more mature business where long-term growht prospects are low. The layoffs will correspond to a restructuring as Cisco refocuses on IoT, Security, Collaboration, Next Gen Data centers, and the Cloud.http://www.computerworld.com/article/3109264/networking/cisco-to-cut-5500-workers-in-refocus-on-iot-security-and-cloud.html
Yahoo Finance reports that the Smart Card Alliance launches a new IoT Security and Privacy Information Hub. The Smart Card Alliance today announced a new content portal, IoTSecurityConnection.com, as part of its expanded focus to provide educational resources and guidance for implementing secure Internet of Things (IoT) architectures using embedded security and privacy technology. The portal features relevant news, resources, expert commentary and thought leadership on the security and privacy of IoT for technology and service providers, IT and security experts, integrators, consultants and IoT enthusiasts.

“The IoT market is at a critical turning point for security—with 21 billion connected devices expected to be in the market by 2020, it’s crucial for the industry to secure these devices and the data they generate,” said Randy Vanderhoof, executive director of the Smart Card Alliance. “This new content portal will help to keep stakeholders in the know by featuring security content from all over the web and providing perspectives from industry experts who are delivering secure IoT solutions. The portal will also be a go-to source for Smart Card Alliance IoT resources and current, relevant and insightful commentary on securing the IoT.”
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/smart-card-alliance-launches-iot-120000395.html