Paul Wallbank – Brilliant Communications

Category: Internet of Things

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

  • Skipping the trough of disillusionment

    Skipping the trough of disillusionment

    When consulting group Gartner placed the Internet of Things at the peak of their hype cycle last month it raised concerns that the technologies might be about to take a tumble.

    Speaking to Networked Globe this week in San Jose; Maciej Kranz, VP and GM of Cisco’s technology group described how he believes the IoT’s evolution from the top of the hype cycle to the plateau of acceptance will be quick.

    “We’re happy that Gartner put IoT on top as it means there’s awareness,” said Kranz. “We hope to prove Gartner wrong, that in IoT we don’t go through the classic hype cycle we go from hype into reality.”

    Kranz’s reasoning while the IoT will suffer a short spell, if any at all, in Gartner’s ‘trough of disillusionment’ is because the major industry players are working closely together to build the sector and its standards.

    “Where we think it’s a little bit different from some of the other hype cycles than some of the other hype cycles is that we continue to work very close at the industry,” Kranz explained.

    “Because we’re all working as an industry to make it real it will go through the disillusionment and quickly into a reality.”

    This may well turn out to be true if the big players like Cisco and GE in the industrial space along with companies such as Google and Apple in the consumer sector stay committed to the concept. If the major vendors stay the course, then it’s likely IoT technologies won’t suffer much at all.

    Another aspect in the IoT’s favour is that it isn’t really a specific technology or product at all, instead being more of a concept bought about by various technologies such as home automation, industrial controls and cloud computing all reaching maturity.

    Rather than one separate item on the Gartner hype cycle, the IoT is really made of dozens of different technologies that are mostly on the ‘plateau of acceptance’ themselves.

    Kranz sees Gartner’s listing of the company as being on the top of the hype cycle as being a vindication for how the IoT has been adopted by industry and the community, “it is remarkable how we’ve gone in the last nine months from people saying it’s a vision to n

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  • Apple’s security challenge

    Apple’s security challenge

    This week’s news about celebrities’ personal photos being stolen from their iCloud accounts would be irritating Apple ahead of their September 9 media event.

    Unfortunately for Apple they seemed to have walked into this by making things convenient for users rather than enforcing strong security measures.

    As Arik Hesseldahl in Re/Code describes, this breach was probably due to Apple not encouraging two factor authentication and not limiting the number of password guesses.

    The latter is particularly irritating as it shouldn’t be hard for a system to pick when a brute force attack — a computer guessing a password millions of times a second — is being staged against a user.

    It’s also trivial to limit the number of guesses as most other services do.

    For users, the best protection is to have complex passwords which reduces the effectiveness of brute force attacks. It’s also worthwhile being careful with your personal nudie photos.

    The consequences of having your iCloud account compromised are more than just losing your embarrassing photos, Wired’s Mat Honan had his entire digital life hijacked through this method two years ago.

    With Apple aspiring to control the smarthome and smartcar markets, the consequences of accounts being breached becomes exponentially greater. These are issues Apple and the rest of the internet of things industry need to take seriously.

    Hopefully at Apple’s big media event next week, some brave journalist will stand out of the assembled masses of sycophant hacks and ask CEO Tim Cook some hard questions about security on the shiny new iDevices.

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  • Can the Internet of Things survive a tumble?

    Can the Internet of Things survive a tumble?

    That the Internet of Things is posed to fall into the depths of the trough of disillusionment according to Gartner’s latest Hype Cycle should come as no surprise to those following the industry.

    For the industry, such a fall might not be a bad thing. During the upswing to the Peak of Heightened Expectations technologies attract the hot, dumb money along with the motley collection of shysters and opportunists a gold rush always lured in by the prospect of easy returns.

    When a product, technology or industry falls into what Gartner calls the trough of disillusionment it’s usually the time when its real value is discovered. Without the distractions of hype or dumb money distorting the market, the industry finds a way of using a product that’s become somewhat passe.

    For the Internet of Things, it won’t be a bad thing if the sector tumbles into the abyss. The sooner it happens, the faster industry will figure out where the real value and benefits lie.

    The only damage might be to some of the more prominent boosters’ egos and the hip pockets of some of the more over eager investors.

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  • Stages of hype – the Gartner Hype Cycle turns twenty

    Stages of hype – the Gartner Hype Cycle turns twenty

    Gartner’s Hype Cycle has been a favourite of this blog as it’s been pretty accurate at describing where various technologies are in the tech media’s eye.

    This year is the twentieth edition and the most notable aspect is the Internet of Things is shown as being right on the peak of industry hype.

    Other sectors struggling on the cycle are cloud computing, big data and machine-to-machine technologies; all of them are tumbling into the trough of disillusionment.

    gartner-hype-cycle-2014

    In itself this isn’t a bad thing for these technologies as the ‘trough of disillusionment’ is where the true business cases are found, certainly for the Internet of Things this will not be bad for a sector that’s clearly overhyped.

    There’s also the thought that not all troughs of disillusionment are the same as some concepts – such as Big Data – are actually trends which means they aren’t subject to the whims of corporate marketing departments.

    How the hype cycle will look in five years will be fascinating as things like brain-computing interfaces and the quantified self start to take form. When they reach the peak of the hype cycle we can expect many of today’s disillusioned technologies will be on the plateau of productivity.

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  • Reaching Peak Tablet as iPad and android sales begin to plateau

    Reaching Peak Tablet as iPad and android sales begin to plateau

    Today Australian electronics retailer JB Hi Fi released its annual results. They confirm what’s been becoming apparent over the last year that tablet computer sales seem to have peaked.

    A plateauing of tablet sales is bad news for retailers like JB whose stock price fell by 8% on the news.

    It’s not surprising that tablet computer sales have peaked as the growth had been spectacular and, unlike PCs of a decade ago, there isn’t an obvious five year replacement cycle.

    That the old PC industry business model doesn’t apply to tablets is why Apple is focusing on other revenue sources like the App Store and internet of things plays such as HomeKit and HealthKit.

    Once again, the industry leaders are finding they have to pivot to stay up with a rapidly evolving market.

    The other notable point from JB’s management was that Australian consumer confidence is tanking, which might indicate the economy is entering its first recession in twenty years.

    If it is true that the Aussie economy is entering a recession, then it might be time for the adults to take charge in a very immature government. Some of the Liberal Party’s pampered princelings may have to start earning their salaries soon.

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