Internet of Things | Paul Wallbank - Communications Professional

Volkwagen shows the IoT’s data weakness

The Volkswagen emissions scandal shows the data weakness in the internet of things

The Volkswagen emissions scandal has rocked the company and cost its CEO his job, but the implications of the company falsifying data to past regulators’ test has serious implications for the Internet of Things.

As the Los Angeles Times explains, Volkswagen designed software to detect when its cars were being tested. During test the software would modify the car’s performance to give a false result.

This is similar to the Stuxnet worm which sent Iranian operators false information indicating the uranium enrichment centrifuges were operating normally when in truth they were running at speeds well outside their design.

Both the Volkswagen fraud and the Stuxnet worm show how software can be used to tell lies about data. For processes and businesses relying on that data, it’s critical to know that information is reliable and correct.

Data is the raw material of the internet of things and all the value derived comes from analysing that information. If the information is false, then there’s no value in the IoT. Designing systems that guarantee the integrity of data is going to be essential as devices become more connected.

Analysing the value of IoT data

Startup Orion shows the value in mining IoT data

How do companies analyse the data coming off wearable devices? At the Las Vegas Splunk.Conf, the developers of wearable communications device Onyx showed off how they use data to enhance their business.

A lightweight push to talk device that can be clipped to a shirt, jacket or bag strap the Onyx is designed for teams to easily communicate. The device has a microphone, speaker and GPS that tethers with a smartphone, which in turn connects to Orion’s cloud network and communicates with groups defined by the user.

“Our goal and mission at Orion is to make this as easy and seamless at possible,” says Dan Phung, the company’s software engineer. “Technology is something you shouldn’t have to deal with.”

Some of the data Orion collects are the battery levels in the devices, time spent on conversations and volume levels that gives the company insights into useage patterns. One of the big benefits they’ve found as a startup is in tracking what operating systems are being used, enabling them to carry out what Phung calls “data driven engineering decisions”

As a startup with a team of 35, they managed to get the Onyx to market in a year, having that ‘operational intelligence’ has allowed the startup to focus its scarce resources in the areas where the device is being used and not waste time developing for systems that are less popular.

The Orion Onyx is a good example of how a business can get valuable information from a limited data set from a relatively simple device, their use of Splunk also shows the value of being able to analyse that data quickly.

Paul travelled to Splunk.conf in Las Vegas as a guest of Splunk

Splunk and the marathon to make IT sexy again

Can Splunk use data analytics to make IT sexy again?

“We’re early in the marathon but making good progress”, opened Godfrey Sullivan, the CEO of Splunk, as he opened the company’s annual conference in Las Vegas today.

Helping businesses understand their data has proved lucrative for Splunk with the analytics company seeing a 46% increase in year on year revenue to $148 million for the last quarter with the organisation narrowing its losses over the same period.

As with all tech conferences, the focus in the opening keynote is on new product announcements. For Splunk, the main release is its latest enterprise version of Splunk Enterprise 6.3 billed as delivering faster results, better analytics and tying into the masses of machine data being collected from the Internet of Things.

Machine data as a cornerstone

That IoT data is a key part of Sullivan’s strategy of “making machine data more accessible usable and valuable to everyone.” The company also highlights their alliances with IoT data consolidator services such as Xively and Octoblu.

Security is another focus of Splunk with the launch of Splunk User Behavior Analytics (UBA) that analyses usage patterns on networks to identify risky or suspicious activity and a version upgrade of their their Enterprise Security.

The original business of Splunk was to monitor server log files and that IT focus remains with their new IT Service Intelligence (ITSI), an improved IT monitoring and analytics service.

Sullivan’s key message was that IT departments can be offering ‘operational intelligence’ as they gather and analyse data from all aspects of a business. “IT departments have to earn a seat at the table”, as Splunk’s CTO Snehal Antani says and providing rich data analytics, in his view, enable this.

Surprising a bank

Antani cited one of his previous clients, a bank which would ordinarily would deal with ten million dollars of deposits a day so an alarm had been set for when less than half of that had been received by midday.

One day that alarm sounded, and the IT department assumed there was a problem with the bank’s systems. After checking, they found everything was running normally so flagged deposits were unusually low to senior management.

It turned out to be a competitor had launched a successful campaign to open new accounts which had caught the bank by surprise. “The CMO acted as if he’d been hacked,” Antani recalls.

Antani’s anecdote illustrates how business data is no longer just the concern of the IT department and a small group of geeky business analysts, with real time information every part of an organisation can improve its performance.

For Splunk, using data to improve all aspects of business its key message to the market and one it hopes to drive its business forward although it’s highly unlikely they’ll achieve Antani’s hopes of “making IT sexy again.” That would take much more than a marathon.

Paul travelled to the Splunk.conf in Las Vegas as a guest of Splunk

The future of wearables

Salesforce head of wearables Lindsey Irvine lays out the future of wearable technologies

One of the most interesting aspects of is that we are entering an age of what designer Gadi Amit calls an era of unlimited screens.

This is coming about because almost everything is becoming a computer including everything we wear.

At last week’s Dreamforce 2015, I caught up with the head of Salesforce Wear, Lindsey Irvine, to discuss the future of wearables.

“There’s a whole big connected world out there, it’s daunting.” says Irvine. “We’re going to help companies how to use these technologies in new and different ways in this space.”

Irvine sees industries where it’s easy to show a business case, like retail and sales, being the earliest business adopters of wearable technologies.

Earlier this year Salesforce launched their Putting Wearables To Work that surveyed how enterprises are using wearable technology. Which gave the company the pointers for the direction of their business strategy.

“We did a few things, one is we connected a range of different devices. Not all, but the ones gaining the most traction,” Irvine says. “We connected these devices to the platforms so that no company would no longer have to build one off apps for each device.”

Irvine sees sectors like real estate and health care being big areas off opportunity and in the longer term she sees smart materials and biometrics becoming more common.

The key with the future of wearables are that devices will become smaller and less intrusive, “you aren’t going to see people wearing five devices on their wrists or two sets of glasses.”

Paul travelled to Dreamworld as a guest of Salesforce

Samsung pins its hopes on the Internet of Things

Samsung’s launch of a Smart Things home hub is a step forward for the company looking to pivot from the smartphone market

South Korean industrial giant Samsung is struggling, in the last year its smartphone division reported a 75% drop in revenues while their handsets, while still the world’s most popular, lost ten percentage points of market share.

The company’s smartphone division is stuck because mobile carriers in the western world are abandoning subsidies for handsets, with most developed markets now at saturation point for cellphone adoption there’s little point in chasing market growth for all but the most desperate telco.

For Samsung that’s been a problem as their premium model strategy has been based upon western consumers ordering a new phone every 18 to 24 months as their mobile contracts were renewed, now those deals are not so common a key sales channel for the Korean conglomerate has been lost.

This leaves Samsung looking for the next market and at this week’s IFA consumer technology event in Berlin, the company unveiled its Smart Things hub, a cylindrical device that connects with your TV, air conditioning, music system, and other home appliances.

Smart Things was an acquisition Samsung made last year to improve its IoT product line and the company has an open platform for connecting household devices with over 200 already certified.

For Samsung with its range of domestic equipment this may well mark the future for the business. The interesting thing though is the smartphone is still integral in today’s vision of the connected home, so we won’t see Samsung leaving the handset market soon.

Developing the world of trustworthy data

Recent security problems start focusing the minds of those designing the Internet of Things and connected cars

Last month’s remote hacking of Jeeps through their entertainment systems was a wake up call to the technology industry as it underscored the risks of connected devices and now a series of initiatives are looking at improving the security landscape.

One of the benefits of the new top level domain regime, despite its reeking of rent seeking by the ICANN names agency, is larger companies and industry groups can improve management of their online identities and those of the services and devices their operations rely upon.

Top level security

Having their own top level domains and being able to issue security certificates for devices and services within their own walled gardens means financial institutions, hardware vendors and service providers can have more confidence in the identities of those they are dealing with.

Bloomberg Business examines how corporations are applying for domains to enhance and while the focus is on guaranteeing the veracity of their websites, the scope in having done that expands to a range of other application, particularly that of ensuring everything from bank point of sale equipment through to connected cars and kettles are authenticated.

A top level domain is only part of the answer though and for the systems to work effectively there has to be more sophisticated ways for systems to ensure they are talking to trusted parties. This need becomes particularly acute with automated systems making business decisions in milliseconds where corrupt or incorrect data can cause havoc with financial markets or supply chains.

Blockchain’s potential

Some of the work being done around Bitcoin, particularly with the use of Blockchain technology to ensure transactions are valid, is one intriguing area where researchers are looking at ensuring all parties in a connected society are genuine and trustworthy.

It’s early days yet in the development of these services and there will be many mistakes as businesses and consumers adopt services where security hasn’t been properly thought through or implemented.

As Chrysler found with the Jeep hack, the risks of getting it wrong are real and potentially fatal and it’s notable Uber has hired the researchers who discovered that vulnerability to design security for their driverless car project.

Trustworthy data

With autonomous vehicles authentication is essential, not just for the passengers or operator starting the car but for all the devices and services communicating from outside and within. As the Jeep hack showed, the braking system needs to have confidence the instructions its receiving are genuine and not coming from a malicious outsider.

Outside the car other services will be communicating, the vehicle’s navigation system needs to be confident the mapping information it’s receiving is reliable and from the genuine provider. Similarly plans to reduce the road toll using roadside devices and other cars needs to ascertain the data being transmitted about highway conditions is trustworthy.

It’s often said computers are only as smart as the data going into them – garbage in, garbage out is the classic saying of the computer industry. As we move into a world where more decisions are being made by machines, those systems are going to become more demanding that information is trustworthy.

Taking the pain out of sporting venues

Smart stadiums should make attending sports events more fun says the CEO of VenueNext

“We’re trying to take the pain out of visiting a stadium,” says John Paul, CEO of smart stadium service provider Venue Next in an interview with Robert Scoble.

Scoble as usual gets the better stories than we do as this site’s visit to a smart stadium was somewhat underwhelming. Compared to the Sydney Cricket Ground, Santa Clara’s Levi Stadium is several degrees more advanced – one might suggest a generation ahead.

The Santa Clara stadium has a comprehensive offering with everything from parking, where guests can purchase spaces through the app, and transport integrated and right down to ushers monitoring the restroom queues.

Having one app to control the various feature is a benefit, “we can’t expect people to use multiple apps at a venue.” Paul says and adds the observation that venues can use the gathered intelligence enables the stadium management and concession holders to more efficiently deploy resources.

This is a problem at the SCG where a plethora of agencies and outsourcing deals puts barriers in the way of introducing smart apps, at present a user who wants to check seat availability or buy parking has to deal with different service providers.

One of the big problems facing Australian stadiums are the ticketing agencies where the two major operators – Ticketmaster and Ticketeck – have exclusive deals with the venues that dynamic pricing and upselling is difficult.

Upselling tickets was one of the benefits of the smart stadium cited by Mike Caponigro, Cisco’s head of Global Solutions Marketing for Sports and Entertainment when Decoding the New Economy interviewed him last year.

Having multiple providers with mismatching or inaccessible data sets is going to be a barrier for businesses trying to implement apps like VenueNext and information access is going to be an essential part of subcontracts and outsourcing agreements.

Ultimately this is about making things as easy as possible for the fans. By adding features they are able to spend more money and have an enjoyable time.

What’s notable with the VenueNext applications is the focus on the fans’ experience. By making the services more accessible and reducing the hassles of attending a major event, it’s more likely to attract more spectators.

The sports industry is leading the way on using apps to enhance customers’ experiences, something other industries such as the restaurant or conference sectors can learn from.

Subscribing to disruption – Zuora founder Tien Tzuo

The shift to a subscription economy promises to change many businesses says Zuora’s Tien Tzuo

“This is a customer driven revolution,” says Zuora co-founder and CEO, Tien Tzuo, of the business shift to a subscription payment model.

While the cloud computing business has been one of the leaders in the shift to the subscription model, the move is happening in industries as diverse as jet engines, agricultural machinery and music.

Zuora is one of the businesses providing the tools to manage customer subscriptions and Tien Tzuo shares with Decoding the New Economy how he sees the subscription economy changing industries.

Tien, who was an early Salesforce employee, describes some of the forces he sees driving this shift and where the opportunities lie for business owners, managers and entrepreneurs.

“We looked at companies like Netflix which at the time it was DVD rental service and Zipcar and saw the same payment challenges we had at Salesforce,” says Tien. “The leap for us was looking at the transformation of companies like Zipcar into a subscription model.”

There are few industries that won’t be affected to the shift to a subscription model, Tien believes, and he sees this radically changing many sectors with Internet of Things providing a huge push towards pay-as-you-go services.

Diversifying South East Queensland

Is being designated a ‘smart region’ enough to diversify South East Queensland’s economy?

Australia is one of the world’s most urbanised countries with the bulk of the nation’s population clustering in half a dozen centres mainly strung along the east coast of the continent.

The northernmost of Australia’s population centres is South East Queensland, a sprawling collection of suburbs extending from the upper class enclave of Noosa Heads down to the Gold Coast and the New South Wales state border.

Cisco believe this sprawling region of three million people can become a ‘Smart Region’ with the use of technologies such as intelligent lighting and parking, citizen applications, and smart power metering could add up to 30,000 jobs and $10 billion of value to the community over coming years.

“The residents of South East Queensland told us they want to experience greater convenience and integration of public transport, greater digital engagement and intimacy in their cities, more reliable local government services, and new digital ways to further reduce the cost of red tape,” said Cisco Australia & New Zealand Vice President Ken Boal in releasing the South East Queensland: A Smart Region report.

Local civic leaders in the cities making up the South East Queensland conurbation see this as an opportunity to grow their economies. “The future of cities and regions and their ability to create enduring employment opportunities are entirely linked to their digital capabilities,” says Sunshine Coast Mayor Cr Mark Jamieson while Ipswich Mayor Paul Pisasale said Ipswich was already preparing for a strong future as a digital city.

“We have recognized that building and taking advantage of digital highways now will set Ipswich on a secure and successful path to capitalise on the ballooning digital economy,” said Cr Pisasale.

For South East Queensland, the challenge in creating new industries and jobs is becoming acute. The Australian miracle economy has left the region – like most of the nation – hopelessly uncompetitive and the bulk of employment is in domestically facing service industries underpinned by property prices.

In fact, the residential construction industry has been the mainstay of the SE Queensland economy and the region remains probably the most economically volatile of the Australian conurbations given its high dependence upon the building sector.

The digital economy does hold out hope for diversifying South East Queensland’s economy from building and domestic tourism, but the work is just beginning. Cisco’s smart region initiative is a first step, but there’s much more work to be done by business and civic leaders.

Brisbane image, “Brisbane CBDandSB” by Stuart Edwards. – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brisbane_CBDandSB.jpg#/media/File:Brisbane_CBDandSB.jpg

Google’s Android problems point the way for the Internet of Things

How Google handle ongoing Android security issues will be a pointer for protecting the Internet of Things

As regular security problems are being exposed in the Android operating system, Google and Samsung have announced regular updates to their devices and software.

For long timers in the IT industry this is a return to the Microsoft days of Patch Tuesdays, the monthly bundle of updates for Windows and Office the company used to issue on the first Tuesday of each month.

While Android has nothing the like the problems Microsoft did in the early 2000s with the explosion of malware that crippled millions of users, the risks to the Google system are real with some predicting a security armageddon.

For users, there’s a serious question in the problems facing Android system in that unlike the Windows systems the rollout of updates is controlled by the telcos or handset vendors rather than the software developers.

As a consequence many older devices simply aren’t being updated leaving millions of smartphone users exposed to malware and having no way of fixing known security problems.

The problems facing Android are common across the entire Internet of Things, how Google respond the current smartphone security problems is going to be a pointer for the rest of the IoT sector.

The need for an IoT manifesto

As the internet of things rolls out, more care in the design of products and services will be needed

Last May at the ThingsCon conference in Berlin a group of European designers came together to form the IoT Manifesto.

Now vendors have the ability to put a chip into almost anything companies and designers are tempted to add connectivity simply for the sake of doing so.

In many cases this is opens up a range of security risks ranging from the screaming baby monitor to the hackable jeep.

Coupled with the security risks of your intimate devices being hacked there’s the related privacy risks as millions of devices collect data ranging from how hard you press your car’s brake pedal through to last time you burned your breakfast toast.

In an era where governments and businesses are seeking to amass even more information about us, there are genuine concerns about what that data is going to be used for and why it is being collected in the first place.

The IoT manifesto looks to manage these problems facing the sector through ten guiding design principles;

Don’t believe the hype around the IoT
Only design useful things
Deliver benefits to all stakeholders
Keep everything secure
Promote a culture of privacy
Gather only a minimal amount of data
Be transparent about who that data will be shared with
Give users control over their data
Design durable products
Use the IoT and its design to help people

All of the principles are laudable and it’s not hard to think that meeting the guidelines would make devices and services that aren’t just useful and safe but also simpler, cheaper and more effective.

There’s many ethical, business and safety issues facing the Internet of Things as connected devices rollout across almost every industry. The IoT Manifesto may well be a good framework in which to design them and the cloud services they’ll depend upon.

Marketing and the Internet of Things

We’re only just beginning to understand the marketing potential of the Internet of Things says Bosch’s Jim Fish

“There is no perfect product,” says Jim Fish, “but the Internet of Things makes it possible to deliver a close to perfect message.”

Fish, the Chief Innovation Officer & VP Global Automotive Diagnostics at Bosch North America, was speaking to Decoding the New Economy ahead of his visit to Sydney to speak at the 2015 ADMA Global Forum.

For marketers, the connected car and the Internet of Things presents a unique set of opportunities, particularly when overlaid with today’s social media tools.

“If you think about your ability to message with today’s Facebook and the ability for marketers to micro-target messages so you could push a message to people according to things they’ve shown preference for or things that they have liked.”

“The next leap frog ahead from an automotive perspective is in vehicle advertising specific to vehicle and location,” says Fish. “There is a battle for the real estate in vehicle’s infotainment systems. The automakers are placing a lot of effort in delivering the experience the mobile user desires.”

In the auto industry this has seen a battle between software vendors to stake a position on the smartcar’s dashboard. Fish sees Google with its mapping, search and advertising technologies as being the best placed in that field but doesn’t think there will be one single winner in the automobile space.

Smart Connected Living

One of the biggest opportunities beyond marketi Fish sees is in combining the smarthome with the connected car. “We see this exploding,” he says of Bosch’s future plans. “We see it as perfectly integrating,”

Fish sees how the connected home integrates with other technologies to provide seamless connectivity for people. Even if people lose their smartphones the smart house will be able to inform and communicate with them.

Again, combining the information gathered by social media and other services presents opportunities for businesses and governments.

Networking the smart city

For the smart city, Fish sees connected cars providing a key part in managing and planning the towns of the future citing how the Michigan Department of Transportation sees how equipping vehicles with road monitoring sensors could save the state 11 million dollars a year in inspection costs.

Fish also cites how cities are experimenting with monitoring how taxis and public vehicles are using their windshield wipers to determine weather conditions. The US Department of Transportation flags the smartcar as the mobile weather station.

Again Fish sees Google as having an advantage in applying these technologies with their acquisition of Israeli traffic crowdsourcing service Wayze.

“Crowdsourcing is in its infancy. There are many things computers can do but there are some things they will never be able to do. There are some human elements still required.”

Fish sees much of our understanding of what we can do with the internet of things and the data we generate from it as being in its infancy. The real value lies in extracting the value from it. For marketers the journey is only just beginning.