Category: Internet of Things

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

Can diversity defeat vendor lock in?

Ericsson’s Esmeralda Swartz believes device diversity will beat vendor’s attempts to lock customers onto their IoT plaforms

Does the sheer range of vendors selling connected products mean the Internet of Things cannot be siloed? Esmeralda Swartz, VP of Marketing Enterprise and Cloud at Ericsson, believes the flood of devices entering the market place will keep IoT standards open.

Swartz spoke to Decoding the New Economy during her Sydney visit last month where she laid out Ericsson’s vision of the connected city.

One of the aspects marking Swartz’s and Ericsson’s view of the smartcity evolution is that for a connected community to succeed is that there needs to be a mix of large corporations, startups, community groups and government agencies working together.

That view is different from most smartcity advocates’ views which are either top down with the technologies being implemented by governments or bottom up with adoption being driven by startups.

Community groups are usually overlooked in the smartcity discussion so it’s refreshing, and possibly more democratic, to hear them being included in the conversation.

One area that isn’t missed in the smartcity discussion is security, something Swartz agrees with.

“With the IoT the attack surface expands exponentially,” Swartz says. “Security needs to be built into every layer at both the application and device levels.”

Along with privacy, standards are the other issue challenging the smartcities movement and Swartz is more relaxed saying, “the diversity of devices means it is hard to achieve vendor lock-in.”

“The nature of all these things that can be connected means you can’t connect all the layers without the connections being open.”

As we’re seeing in everything from cars to smart rice cookers, the race is on to lock consumers, businesses and communities into platforms. Many of the vendors are creating their own platforms to lock customers into their walled gardens.

If Swartz is right, then the market will defeat the vendors’ attempts to lock users onto their platform. That does seem though to be high risk for customers who may find themselves stuck in the grip of one standard or company.

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Building the internet of rice cookers

Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi hopes an Internet of Things ecosystem can drive the company’s growth

Are domestic appliances the next wave of connected devices? Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi hopes so.

Xiaomi is best known for its cheap smartphones aimed at third world markets and the company’s move into connected kitchen devices marks an expansion into broader areas.

Smartphones being the centre of Xiaomi’s product offerings seems to be the common factor in the expanded range of devices, with the company hoping their ecosystem will be a compelling point of difference in a crowded market.

The idea the smartphone will be the centre of people’s connected lifestyles isn’t new but Xiaomi’s bet on low margin home appliances to drive smartphone sales and subscriptions to cloud services seems a brave move.

It may work however, the business models of tomorrow look improbable today.

 

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The sensor in your pocket

Wayze brings together crowdsourcing, cloud and smartphone GPS services to create a useful product.

Very soon your smartphone will be able to warn you if you’re driving too fast reports VentureBeat.

Israeli founded and Google owned traffic application Wayze will soon give alerts to users in certain countries if they’re over the speed limit, the service announced yesterday.

Wayze is unique in that it’s one of the first genuine crowdsourcing programs where users contributed information on traffic conditions and it’s doing the same thing in gathering speed limit information.

The fascinating thing about Wayze is how it brings together crowdsourcing, cloud and smartphone GPS services to create a useful product.

Wayze also shows how the smartphone is the ultimate personal Internet of Things sensor, that’s something which shouldn’t be overlooked.

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Breaking the APIs

Access to APIs is going to be critical in the connected world, but what if a service closes down?

One of the truisms of modern business is we live in an API economy where open Application Programming Interfaces allow software companies to connect their platforms that builds an ecosystem of developers and extends the functionality of their products.

But what happens when an API shuts down or a company starts applying the web2.0 principles of draconian legal terms and conditions to its data feeds? Pinboard, “the social bookmarking application for introverts” is illustrating how serious legalese can be for developers.

Maciej Cegowski, Pinboard’s founder, decided the terms and conditions imposed by popular automation site If That Then This (IFTTT) were too demanding and pulled his service from the platform.

In a blog post he lays out exactly why, citing IFTTT’s demands for rights over his service along with the option of  the plaftorm being able to assign those rights to third parties.

For developers, IFTTT’s terms are almost impossible as the platform strips them of their intellectual property rights and restrains their trade. It’s a classic case of legal over-reach which is all too common in the control obsessed tech industry.

As we’re seeing software vendors releasing platforms to manage IoT devices through APIs and cloud services making their plethora of APIs a selling point, access to these becomes a serious matter for the software industry.

There is a worrying aspect for users in this as well, as those relying on Pinboard services driven through IFTTT are now effectively stranded and have to look for another site that provides similar functions.

While Pinboard is quite small, a larger service shutting down its APSs could have dramatic effects. This is even truer with Internet of Things devices that could use a service like IFTTT to run key functions.

Designing devices and services to cater for the possibility an API or web service may become unavailable needs to be priority for IoT vendors while for developers and users, the risk a service may stop is something that should never be far from their minds and factored into the business and purchasing decisions they make.

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Trade offs in the smart city

Smart cities are a trade off between privacy and utility, what is the balance residents are prepared to accept?

What are the trade offs in the connected city? Last week we had an opportunity to talk with Esmeralda Swartz, Ericsson’s Vice President of Marketing Enterprise and Cloud last week about what policy makers and citizens need to consider.

One of the important issues is security in both the data being collected, “what are the benefits and what is not acceptable?” Esmeralda asks.

In all the conversations this site has had with smart city advocates the topic of open data has been essential, but this raises the issue of security. Something lacking in the Internet of Things.

“Security has to be built into every level,” says Esmeralda who flags that the IoT adds a whole range of new risks.

Along with security, a critical part of a successful connected city is having open data, Esmeralda believes.

“if you start looking at the all the layers that need to be connected then they have to be open,” she says.

Open data is a critical point for smart cities and connected communities, if information isn’t open then it’s hard for an ecosystem to develop or for residents to have confidence their data is being used for their benefit.

For companies like Ericsson, who are trying to establish themselves outside of the traditional telco model, gaining the confidence of communities and their leaders is essential to their smart city strategies.

Much of the smart city movement is based upon solutions looking for problems – a common trait of the IT industry – for vendors like Ericsson to succeed in selling their products it’s essential to prove value to their customers and gain the confidence of communities as they trade off utility for privacy.

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Warning against the connected car

The FBI and US Department of Transport warn of risks in the connected car.

A year after hackers demonstrated the risks of connected cars, the FBI and the US Department of Transportation have warned consumers of the risks in internet connected vehicles.

This warning comes as automobile manufacturers are pushing their new breed of motor cars as being software platforms rather than vehicles and calls into question how well security and safety are being designed into their products.

One of the recurrent features of these sort of warnings is how regulators, manufacturers and software designers try to push the risks back onto consumers rather than the companies designing these systems.

Officials said that while not all car hacking incidents result in safety risks, consumers should take the appropriate steps to minimize their own risks.

It’s hard to see what consumers can really do, as most of these systems are ‘black boxes’ protected by strict terms preventing users from seeing, let alone understanding, the software running the vehicles. Customers have to trust the manufacturers to do the right thing.

For the Internet of Things, and connected cars, to be successful they have to deliver value to consumers and have the confidence of the market. Right now many of these features seem to do neither.

 

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Bringing cybersecurity into the mainstream

The corporate world is taking security seriously says Cisco’s Chief Security and Trust Officer, John Stewart

“Cybersecurity is out of the dungeon and now selling itself as a business service,” says Cisco’s Chief Security and Trust Officer, John Stewart.

Stewart was discussing his company’s security challenges at a Cisco Live briefing at their Melbourne conference yesterday.

The shift to security as a business service follows the pattern of computerisation in business believes Stewart, “at first businesses said you can’t keep important documents on computers, then they said you could only keep important data on computers”

For Stewart, the fact c-level execs recognise the importance of cybersecurity is a positive sign that indicates organisations are taking IT and communications security seriously.

When asked what keeps him up at night, Stewart said it was worries about infrastructure security, the Ukrainian power network’s experience after an attack from a seriously motivated group of hackers indicates just how serious this is.

Interestingly Stewart remains focused on the risks of security breaches, as the Internet of Things rolls out it may well be the integrity of data streams becomes a far greater focus for system administrators and security officers.

Paul travelled to Cisco Live in Melbourne as a guest of Cisco

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