Paul Wallbank – Brilliant Communications

Category: Internet of Things

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

  • Microsoft builds its future

    Microsoft builds its future

    A billion devices running Windows 10 was the promise made by Microsoft at the company’s Build Conference in San Francisco yesterday.

    The ambition is based upon delivering the system on devices ranging from desktop computers down to the embedded systems on Internet of Things devices.

     

    As part of the drive to get onto the IoT, Microsoft also announced Windows 10 initiatives for the makers’ community with various programs for Arduino, Raspberry Pi and Intel’s Minnowboard.

    At the same time the company announced how some software will soon be able to run on iPhones and Android devices with an extended Software Developers Kit.

    While this makes Windows more attractive for developers who no longer have to develop different versions for the Microsoft product, it’s also an admission the company’s phone strategy has failed.

    For Microsoft yesterday’s Build Conference was the opportunity for the company to show their vision of the market’s future that involves computers, mobile devices, the cloud and the Internet of Things.

    Whether Microsoft is part of that future is the main concern of CEO Satya Nadella.

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  • Hacking medical devices

    Hacking medical devices

    Security experts have hacked a teleoperated surgical robot Security experts hack medical robot.

    In a recently published paper, a group of academics showed how they had been able to change the instruction sequences, override commands or even take full control of the Raven II medical robot.

    That such a lack of security isn’t in the least bit surprising is a sad commentary on the world of connected devices and the Internet of Things.

    At the root of this problem is the software running this equipment has security added, at best, as an afterthought given the designers work from the assumption operators are in the room with the equipment,

    If we’re going to connect these devices to the public internet then security has to be built into them from the beginning.

    Whether we’re discussing remote medical equipment, driverless cars or the smart home, hardening and securing IoT devices is going to be of today’s industrial challenges.

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  • Dashing to the shops with the internet of things

    Dashing to the shops with the internet of things

    Amazon this week showed off their Dash Button, a device that lets brands set up a one press ordering system for customers.

    The idea is that a brand, say a laundry detergent, gives out buttons that when pressed will automatically deliver washing powder or whatever product is preprogrammed into the device.

    While its safe to say Amazon’s Dash button is a gimmick, it’s not hard to see washing machines, coffee makers or industrial equipment that comes preprogrammed to automatically order supplies when it detects reserves are running low.

    So the Dash Button could be showing us how the Internet of Things will help us shop with smart devices automatically organising deliveries for us.

    On it’s own the Amazon Dash Button won’t be changing the way we shop but the future of retail is going to be very different as the IoT rolls out.

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  • How Google could be about to disrupt the telco industry

    How Google could be about to disrupt the telco industry

    Google are in talks with Hutchison Whampoa for the Hong Kong based conglomerate to provide global roaming for Google’s proposed mobile phone network reports the London Telegraph.

    Hutchison, who recently agreed to buy UK operator O2 for £10.2 billion from Spain’s Telefonica, are one of the quiet global telecommunications players with services in East Asia, Europe and Australia. An international roaming agreement with Hutchison would give Google a substantial global headstart.

    While the mobile phone angle is the obvious service for a global cellular network, another attraction for both Google and Hutchison is the Internet of Things. Being able to offer a worldwide machine to machine (M2M) data service fits very well into Google’s aspirations with products like Nest.

    For the mobile phone operators, the prospect of Google entering their market can’t be comforting with the search engine giant having three times the stock market capitalisation of the world’s biggest telco, China Mobile.

    It may well be however communications companies have little choice as the software companies start to take the telcos’ profits just as they have done with many other industries.

    Should the story be true about Hutchison and Google being in talks it will probably be the start of a massive shift in the global communications industry and one that will see many national champions threatened.

    Google’s global network ambitions could change the future of the Internet of Things industry.

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  • Who owns a smartcar’s smarts?

    Who owns a smartcar’s smarts?

    Automakers Say You Don’t Really Own Your Car states the Electronic Frontiers Foundation.

    In their campaign to amend the US Digital Millenium Copyright Act to give vehicle owners the right to access and modify their automobiles’ software the EFF raises an important point.

    Should the software licensing model be applied to these devices then purchasers don’t really own them but rather have a license to use them until the vendor deems overwise.

    Cars, of course, are not the only devices where this problem arises. The core of the entire Internet of Things lies in the software running intelligent equipment, not the hardware. If that software is proprietary and closed then no purchaser of a smart device truly owns it.

    Locking down the smarthome

    This raises problems in smarthomes, offices and businesses where the devices people come to depend upon are ‘black boxes’ that they aren’t allowed to peer into. It’s not hard to see how in industrial or agricultural applications that arrangement will often be at best unworkable.

    Four years ago tech industry leader Marc Andreessen pointed out how software is eating the world; that most of the value in an information rich economy lies in the computer programs that processes the data, not the hardware which collects and distributes it.

    That shift was flagged decades ago when the initial fights over software patents occurred in the 1980s and 90s and today we’re facing the consequences of poorly thought out laws, court decisions and patent approvals that now challenge the concepts of ownership as we know it.

    Is ownership outdated?

    However it may well be that ‘ownership’ itself is an outdated concept. We could be entering a period where most of our possessions are leased rather than owned.

    If we are in a period where ownership is an antiquated concept then does it matter that our cars, fitness bands, kettles, smoke alarms and phones are in effect owned by a corporation incorporated in Delaware that pays most of its tax in the Dutch Antilles?

    Who owns the smartcar’s data?

    The next question of course is if the software in our smart devices is secret and untouchable then who owns the data they generate?

    Ownership of a smartcar’s data could well be the biggest issue of all in the internet of things and the collection of Big Data. That promises to be a substantial battle.

    In the meantime, it may not be a good idea to tinker too much with your car’s software or the data it generates.

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