Paul Wallbank – Brilliant Communications

Category: Internet of Things

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

  • Cisco expands its innovation centre network to Australia

    Cisco expands its innovation centre network to Australia

    Today Cisco launched their latest Internet of Everything Innovation Centre in Perth, Western Australia. The facility joins the seven existing centres around the globe which includes Rio de Janeiro, Toronto, Songdo, Berlin, Barcelona, Tokyo and London.

    As a joint venture with resources company Woodside and Curtin University, the centre will initially focus on the gas industry and will include a state-of-the-art laboratory, a technological collaboration area, and a dedicated space to show the Internet of Things in action.

    Oil and Gas is one of the key sectors for targeted by Cisco in their Internet of Everything push with Brad Bechtold, the company’s Energy Lead, telling Decoding the New Economy earlier this year how the IoT is expected to deliver an eleven percent reduction of costs for the $1.5 trillion dollar a year industry.

    Bechtold believes remote sensing and operations will be the driver of many of the cost reductions along with detailed analytics enabling more efficient operations.

    Many of these technologies will be tested as part of Woodside’s Plant of the Future gas project with CEO Peter Coleman saying the scheme will link company’s knowledge base with artificial intelligence, data analytics, and advanced sensors and control systems.

    “We are taking a collaborative approach to enhancing our operations as part of our digital transformation journey. This partnership will create a globally competitive centre for excellence that could be leveraged in our LNG operations, as we progress our remote operations capabilities,” Coleman said.

     

    The Perth centre intends to bring together start-up companies, industry experts, developers, researchers and academics in an open collaboration environment to create a “connected community” focused on cloud, analytics, cyber security and IoT network platforms.

    The Australian Commonwealth Science, Innovation and Research Organisation (CSIRO) has also flagged it intend to join the hub as part of its Square Kilometer Array deep space mapping project.

    Another branch of the Australian hub is expected to open in Sydney later this year.

     

     

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  • Liability and the Internet of Things

    Liability and the Internet of Things

    What happens when an internet connected device fails?

    In The Australian today I have a piece discussing the legal risk of the IoT.

    Lawyers warn that manufacturers, distributors and installers all face the possibility of damages should their devices malfunction or not perform as advertised.

    This risk is compounded by the data analysis with Michael Stojanovic of international law firm Bird & Bird citing the example of a gas monitoring device accurately detecting and reporting a surge but a company being liable because they didn’t warn their customer something was amiss.

    Equally there’s a risk with misreported or lost data. This in itself is presents a problem as many of the software vendors currently looking at supplying the IoT have a ‘best effort’ mentality where they don’t accept responsibility for service interruptions.

    While that attitude may have stood up before courts over the last twenty years, it’s unlikely to get much sympathy from judges and juries when critical systems are affected.

    Like everything else in life, the lawyers are coming for the IoT.

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  • How software defines the Industrial Internet

    How software defines the Industrial Internet

    The Internet of Things is a three legged stool of the consumer, enterprise and industrial applications says Vice President of GE’s software division, Bill Ruh.

    “It’s about connecting machines, connecting people and driving a new kind of experience. For the consumer it’s a social experience, for the enterprise it’s a whole new way of how their IT departments running, in the industrial space it’s a revolution where we get to rethink how we operate.”

    Ruh sees the IoT as being worth over 14 trillion dollars to GE over the next two decades, making it bigger than the other two legs combined.

    Eliminating downtime

    Most of that value comes from three areas; improved resource utilisation, operational optimisation and eliminating unscheduled downtime.

    “The fact is downtime is expensive, for airline 41% of all delays and cancellations are due to mechanical errors. If we get rid of those your life gets better, my life gets better and the airline’s lives get better.”

    “Zero unscheduled downtime doesn’t sound sexy but it’s one of the most profitable and sexiest topics ever.” In this Ruh agrees with Salesforce’s Peter Coffee that eliminating outages is a key part of delighting the modern customer.

    Ruhe sees that the industrial sector hasn’t used IT and the internet well in the past, “RFID was going to change the world and it didn’t, we saw smartgrids were going to be the biggest thing and it didn’t achieve a lot of the hype that people saw.”

    “Now the technology is aligned not just with technology for technology’s sake but to an outcome that leads to growth for an industrial sake.”

    An example of the operational efficiencies that Ruh is particularly proud of is GE’s PowerUp technology that promises to improve the output of wind turbines, “it is a series of technologies used to analyse information about every wind turbine on a farm and to dynamically adjust each and every one to optimise the wind speed.”

    “When you do that we’ve found we can generate up to five percent more electricity per wind farm because of software, which adds twenty-five percent more profitability.”

    “In the next generation of wind turbines all this kind of software is going to be embedded in it from the design phase through to the operational phase,” Ruh says. “It’s going to change how our customers are going to operate wind turbines.”

    Building digital twins

    Another aspect Ruh sees with the changes is how machines and data will work together where equipment or parts are shipped with a ‘digital twin’, a software representation of the device that lets the customer test scenarios on their computers.

    “I can now do ‘what if’ analysis on that machine using its data and that’s going to change how things work. That takes everything from 3D modelling, to manufacturing, to maintenance to operations.”

    Building on domain knowledge

    Ultimately Ruh sees GE’s strength with the Industrial Internet being the company’s domain knowledge, “this world is different and you cannot come from outside and pretend you’re going to learn it as you go.”

    “The way people buy equipment is totally different, we have equipment that’s eighty years old and we still support it. That’s totally different from the software world.”

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  • Cisco and the connected stadium

    Cisco and the connected stadium

    One of the challenges facing sports administrators and leagues around the world is that the quality of broadcast coverage has become so good it’s become increasingly harder to get fans out to the games.

    Coupled with the constantly improving television coverage, fans are also expecting more as they go to games with their smartphones and tablets. Part of the solution for venue managers is to roll out smart stadium facilities that enhance spectators’ experience at the games.

    Mike Caponigro, Cisco’s head of Global Solutions Marketing for Sports and Entertainment, sees the smart stadium as complementing the ground experience and Cisco are working with over three hundred venues in thirty countries around the world.

    Improving the live experience

    “Live is always going to be best,” states Caponigro. “You can’t replace that tribal passion of the crowd. No matter how excited I get in my living room or with some friends in a pub you’re never going recreate that enthusiasm.”

    However the expectations of sports fans are changing Caponigro points out citing how HD television and the internet is changing the experience for spectators outside the stadium, “fans don’t want to be removed from that action.”

    Cisco started their Connected Stadium program when the Oakland Athletics were looking at moving home stadiums seven years ago. While Oakland decided to remain at their existing stadium the company realised the market for connected stadiums was potentially huge, “it really pushed our thinking on how could we service an industry sector that hadn’t been well served.”

    Accelerating innovation

    “Arguable you’ve seen more innovation in that last seven years in the sports and live entertainment field than in the five decades prior to that,” says Caponigro who attributes the rate of change to consumer adoption of smartphones. “Now we’re working with three hundred properties in thirty countries around the world.”

    “What fans are saying is that in order to continue to go to events there are things that need to be tweaked around the experience,” Caponigro states. “We did a study two or three years ago that found seventy-five percent of fans bring a smartphone to the venue. In the latest studies we’re finding ninety percent.”

    Those fans are expecting a reliable signal to share information and access data. At last year’s Superbowl the crowd consumed 6Tb of data, half of which was outward traffic. “That just reinforces that fans aren’t just consuming services but it’s also become an increasingly social environment.”

    Improving revenues

    One of the areas Caponigro sees as an opportunity for connected stadium administrators is in seat management citing the Golden State Warriors NBA team that have used BlueTooth beacons to drive their seat upgrade application to generate $300,000 in additional revenue.

    Fans have two frustrations with attending live games says Caponigro, is the convenience of getting to and from the game and not getting a good view of the play from their seats.

    The ‘single seat experience’ as Caponigro describes it, uses the stadium’s smart vision TVs and the apps on spectators’ phones to give fans the same access to replays and stats that viewers watching the game on TV or the internet can access.

    Making transport easier

    Getting to and from the game is another advantage the smart stadium technologies offer both spectators and stadium administrators, by giving real time information on parking and public transport status crowds can be better managed and fans can have a smoother experience travelling into and away from the event.

    In the future, Caponigro sees the next wave of innovation integrating back of house services into the connected stadium giving administrators greater understanding of concession sales and crowd movement.

    Another opportunity lies in bringing player biometrics to the spectators, “you might find out if Ronaldo is really as cool as he looks when he takes a penalty” grins Capringo.

    While it’s still early days for the connected stadium, like many Internet of Things applications businesses are exploring the limits. For sports fans, they can expect a richer experience being delivered to their smartphones and seats.

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  • The IoT undergoes a restructure

    The IoT undergoes a restructure

    Quirky, the well funded Internet of Things startup that came to attention for its connected egg holder, announces a restructure.

    It looks like the IoT isn’t the easy road to riches, regardless of how well funded a business is.

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