Paul Wallbank – Brilliant Communications

Category: Internet of Things

Posts relating to the internet of things, IoT and M2M technologies

  • Security, smartcars and Microsoft Windows – ABC Nightlife July 2015

    Security, smartcars and Microsoft Windows – ABC Nightlife July 2015

    Security problems with smartcars and dating sites along with asking if a new version of Microsoft Windows matters any more are the topics for July’s Nightlife tech spot.

    Paul Wallbank regularly joins Tony Delroy on ABC Nightlife on to discuss how technology affects your business and life.

    If you missed this month’s show, you can listen to the program through the ABC website.

    July’s Nightlife

    A decade ago people lined up all night for a new version of the Windows operating system. Next week Microsoft will be launching Windows 10 to an indifferent market place, does what was once the world’s biggest software company matter anymore in a world of smartphones, connected cars and cloud computing?

    Some of the questions we’ll be answering include.

    • So what are Microsoft announcing next week?
    • What happened to Windows 9?
    • Does Windows really matter any more?
    • The internet has changed things but not always for the better. What about connected cars being hacked?
    • Is this a bigger problem than just connected cars when we’re seeing things like kettles being wired up to the internet?
    • Of course it’s not just cars suffering problems on the Internet, adult dating site Ashley Madison has had potentially 37 million customers’ details leaked online.
    • Could this happen to any business? How do we protect ourselves?

    Listeners’ questions

    A few of the questions from listeners couldn’t be answered on air.

    Running Flash of iPhones and iPads: Steve Jobs’ hatred of Adobe Flash was legendary and as consequence iOS devices like the iPhone and iPad don’t come with the ability to run the software. That’s a problem for those who need Flash for some packages.

    The Puffin web browser gives iPad and iPhone users the ability to use Flash on their devices and is available from the iTunes store.

    Securing Android: While smartphones are less prone to viruses and malware than personal computers, they still are at risk. For Android users there is no shortage of choice for security packages, some of which include;

    Android power hogs: A downside with smartphone apps is they can drain battery life. One excellent feature on Android phones is the ability to easily check what’s using your juice.

    • Open device settings
    • Scroll to “about phone”
    • Click on “battery use”

    Join us

    Tune in on your local ABC radio station from 10pm Australian Eastern Summer time or listen online at www.abc.net.au/nightlife.

    We’d love to hear your views so join the conversation with your on-air questions, ideas or comments; phone in on 1300 800 222 within Australia or +61 2 8333 1000 from outside Australia.

    You can SMS Nightlife’s talkback on 19922702, or through twitter to@paulwallbank using the #abcnightlife hashtag or visit the Nightlife Facebook page.

     

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  • Management embraces M2M tech

    Management embraces M2M tech

    Companies are increasingly embracing machine to machine technologies, the 2015 Vodafone M2M Barometer reports.

    Interviewing  over 650 executives across 16 countries and seven industries, Vodafone’s report looks at how companies are using M2M technologies in their organisations.

    The most enthusiastic industry adopting M2M is the energy and utilities sector with 37% of respondents claiming they’ve implemented machine to machine projects followed by the automobile and retail sectors.

    Slightly behind the leading three sectors is the consumer industry and we can expect to see that grow as wearable technologies become more common and more household devices come with connectivity built in.

    Globally, the Asian region is driving M2M adoption with governments in China, South Korea and Singapore in particular driving the market growth as they mandate more connected technologies.

    Vodafone concludes the report by stating the question for businesses is not whether to adopt M2M, but how best the technologies can be used to drive business. As organisations find new ways to gather data and apply the insights they find from that information, the business case for adopting machine to machine technologies will get stronger.

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  • How long can Intel continue to beat the street?

    How long can Intel continue to beat the street?

    Earlier today chip maker Intel beat analysts’ estimates with an earnings report showing  the company’s income hadn’t fallen as much as expected in the previous quarter.

    As Business Insider explained before the earnings call, Intel’s numbers aren’t look good ahead of the rollout of Windows 10.

    In the past, a new version of Windows has been the time many customers upgraded their PCs with Intel and other computer component makers being the beneficiaries.

    With this version of Windows Microsoft are giving it away free to users of Windows 7 and 8 which means the rush of upgrading customers is going to be subdued compared to previous occasions.

    For Intel, the Internet of Things should be the big opportunity in the post PC world but smart devices require low powered chips rather than the more power hungry chips the company excelled in supplying for desktop computers.

    At the moment Intel seems to be focusing on the data centre market that may well be a suitable market for power hungry CPUs but is still very much leaving the company isolated from the bulk of the industry which will increasingly demand ultra low powered chips.

    For Intel, like Microsoft, the struggle for now is to keep relevant in a dramatically shifted marketplace.

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  • Sony hopes mobile phones are an IoT Trojan horse

    Sony hopes mobile phones are an IoT Trojan horse

    “We will never ever sell or exit from the current mobile business,” defiantly states CEO and president of Sony Mobile, Hiroki Totoki, in an interview with Arabian Business.

    “Smartphones are completely connected to other devices, also connected to people’s lives — deeply.” Totoki continues, “and the opportunity for diversification is huge. We’re heading to the IoT (Internet of Things) era and have to produce a number of new categories of products in this world, otherwise we could lose out on a very important business domain.”

    The smartphone has become the remote control for the smarthouse and connected car and that doesn’t appear to be changing as Totoki acknowledges.

    For companies like Sony it’s difficult to see the advantage of running their own hardware as it’s the software stack that matters in controlling the platforms with that battle long being settled as a contest between Google Android and Apple iOS for the user market.

    For Sony, the challenge is to find a niche to join players like BlackBerry’s QNX, Windows 10 and the other systems carving lucrative, but less visible, market sectors.

    Should Sony find a niche, it’s unlikely to based upon hardware unless they can find a modern equivalent of the 1970s Walkman.

    Whenever a corporation’s executives make a declaration like Totoki’s, it’s probably worthwhile for staff members in the affected divisions start brushing up their resumes. It’s not a good sign.

    Regardless of Totoki’s fighting words, it’s difficult to see how Sony’s mobile division can survive as a consumer vendor.

    It’s likely Sony will have to find something other than smartphones to be a Trojan horse into the Internet of Things.

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  • Towards the zero defect economy

    Towards the zero defect economy

    At 2.03 in the morning of July 11, 2012, a Norfolk Southern Railway Company freight train derailed just inside the city limits of Columbus, Ohio.

    The resulting crash and fire caused over a hundred people to be evacuated, resulted in over a million dollars in damages and created massive disruption throughout the US rail network.

    Could accidents like this be avoided by the Internet of Things? Sham Chotai, the Chief Technical Officer of GE Software, believes applying sensor technology to locomotives can detect conditions like defective rails and save US railway operators around a billion dollars a year in costs.

    “We decided to put the technology directly on the locomotive,” says Chotai in describing the problem facing railroad operators in scheduling track inspections. “We found we were mapping the entire railway network, and we were mapping anything that touched the track such as insulated joins and wayside equipment.”

    This improvement in reliability and its benefits to business is something flagged by then Salesforce Vice President Peter Coffee in an interview with Decoding the New Economy in 2013.

    “You can proactively reach out to a customer and say ‘you probably haven’t noticed anything but we’d like to come around and do a little calibration on your device any time in the next three days at your convenience.’”

    “That’s not service, that’s customer care. That’s positive brand equity creation,” Coffee says.

    Reducing defects isn’t just good for brands, it also promises to save lives as Cisco illustrated at an Australian event focused on road safety.

    Transport for New South Wales engineer John Wall explained how smarter car technologies, intelligent user interfaces and roadside communications all bring the potential of dramatically reducing, if not eliminating, the road toll.

    Should it turn out the IoT can radically reduce defects and accidents it won’t be good news for all industries as John Rice, GE’s Global Head of Operations, pointed out last year in observing how intelligent machines will eliminate the break-fix model of business.

    “We grew up in companies with a break fix mentality,” Rice says. “We sold you equipment and if it broke, you paid us more money to come and fix it.”

    “Your dilemma was our profit opportunity,” Rice pointed out. Now, he says engineering industry shares risks with their customers and the break-fix business is no longer the profit centre it was.

    A zero defect economy is good news for customers and people, but for suppliers and service industries based upon fixing problems it means a massive change to business.

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