Paul Wallbank – Brilliant Communications

Tag: big data

  • The Australian Internet of Things Forum

    The Australian Internet of Things Forum

    The first Australian Internet of Things was held in Newcastle today which I MC’d and managed to give a quick presentation on my Geek’s Tour of Barcelona.

    Big Data was the big message from all the day’s sessions with every speaker touching on the challenge of understanding and securing the vast amounts of data collected.

    It’s interesting how the technologists — and most of the material was quite high level — have identified this as the main problem facing management with the Internet of Things.

    A key take away from the forum is that the clear opportunity for entrepreneurs with the IoT lies in giving businesses the tools to understand the data.

    One of the reasons for the event was to launch the Kaooma Project that aims to link local businesses to the Internet of Things. The local business angle is something that needs to be explored in more depth.

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  • Privacy by design

    Privacy by design

    “Know your data” is the key tip for businesses concerned about privacy says Michelle Dennedy, Chief Privacy Officer for Intel Security, formerly McAfee.

    “It’s really important to go back to basics,” says Michelle. “We’re trying to do bolt-on privacy, just like we did with security years ago. I think it’s time to take a good look at the policy side, which id called Privacy By Design, thinking about it at early states and being consumer-centric.”

    “We at McAfee call it ‘Privacy Engineering’; looking at the tools. methodologies and standards from the past, adding current legislative requirements and business rules then turning them into functional requirement.”

    Michelle, who is also co-author of the Privacy Engineering Manifesto, was speaking to Decoding The New Economy as part of Privacy Awareness Week.

    A key part of the interview is how Michelle sees privacy evolving in a global environment, “if you’d asked me in 2000 where we’d be today I’d have told you it would be like the 1500s when we were dealing with shipping lanes. We would have treaties, it would harmonised and we’d understand that global trade is a hundred percent based upon sharing.”

    “We have instead decided to become a set of Balkanized nations.”

    For individual businesses “know thy data,” is Michelle’s main advice. “Know what brings you risk, know what brings you opportunity.”

    In Michelle’s view, businesses need to balance the opportunities against the risks and treat customers data with respect as the monetisation policies of many online platforms don’t recognise users’ costs in time and data sold.

    As businesses find themselves being flooded with data, protecting it and respecting the privacy of customers, users and staff is going become an increasing important responsibility for managers.

    It’s worthwhile understanding the privacy laws as they apply to you and making sure your systems and staff comply with them.

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  • Dropping off the grid

    Dropping off the grid

    Just how hard is it to hide from big data? ABC Newcastle’s Carol Duncan and I will be discussing this from 2.40 this afternoon.

    Princeton University assistant professor of sociology Janet Vertesi decided she’d find out by trying to conceal her pregnancy from the internet.

    She describes her experiences to Think Progress and the lessons are startling on how difficult it is to drop off the Internet and business databases.

    While it’s easy to tritely say ‘don’t use the internet’, Janet found that using cash to avoid being picked up by bank databases raises suspicions while not using discount voucher or store cards meant she missed out on valuable savings.

    For many people though dropping off the internet is not an option – not having a LinkedIn profile hurts most job hunters’ chances of finding work while if you want to participate in communities, it’s often essential to join the group’s Facebook page.

    The amazing part of all is that Janet herself became a Google conscientious objector two years ago after deciding the company’s data collection methods were too intrusive. Yet she still found it hard to keep the news of her baby off the internet.

    Ultimately her friends were the greatest risk and she had to beg them not to mention her pregnancy on Facebook and other social media channels lest the algorithms pick that up.

    For Janet, it proved possible but it was really hard work;

    Experience has shown that it is possible, but it’s really not easy, and it comes with a lot of sacrifices. And it requires some technical skill. So to that end, it’s my concern about the opt-out idea. I don’t actually think it’s feasible for everyone to do this.

    So can you drop off the net? Do you know if you’re on it at all. Join us on ABC Newcastle with Carol Duncan from 2.40 to discuss these issues and more.

    Filing cabinet image by ralev_com through SXC.HU

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  • Microsoft and the Internet of Your Things

    Microsoft and the Internet of Your Things

    Microsoft has come late to the Internet of Things party, but it is has a good angle with it’s ‘Internet of Your Things’ tagline.

    General Manager of Microsoft’s embedded systems division, Barb Edson, spoke with Decoding The New Economy about the company’s strategy with the Internet of Things.

    For Microsoft, the emphasis is on the enterprise side of the business with Edson describing their strategy of “B2B2C” where the value in the IoT lies in managing the data for the businesses providing consumer services.

    Most notable is the company’s IoT tagline, as Edson says; “from Microsoft’s perspective we view the Internet of Things as ‘the internet of your things.”

    “Lots of companies out there talking about the Internet of Everything that there’s 212 billion devices, why do you care as business executive. You care about your things.”

    Microsoft’s strategy is based on leveraging their own assets such as Azure cloud services, SQL Server and Dynamics along their customers’ existing infrastructure.

    This retrofitting the internet of things to existing infrastructure is illustrated by Microsoft’s using the London Underground as its main reference site.

    Connecting all 270 stations of London’s 150 year old Tube network to the IoT is a massive undertaking and one that can only be done by retrofitting existing monitoring and SCADA systems.

    Interestingly the case study only look at Phase One of what appears to be pilot project in selected locations, the Microsoft spokespeople were a little unclear on this when asked.

    The London Underground is only one example of millions of organisations that will grapple with adding existing equipment to the internet of things in coming years; it’s an opportunity that Microsoft has been smart to identify.

    Edson however is clear on how Microsoft intends to help companies deal with the information overload facing managers, “I think the most exciting thing is we’re seeing real business problems being solved.”

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  • Smarthomes come of age

    Smarthomes come of age

    “After four decades the smartphone comes of age,” proclaims Micheal Wolf in Forbes Magazine.

    Wolf is right to a point but he misses the key reason why the smarthome, or the entire internet of things, has become accessible – the technology has simply become affordable.

    It was possible to build a smarthome two decades ago, but it was fiendishly expensive and only a few rich people could afford the technology. Today that technology is cheap and easy to install.

    This is the common factor with all aspect of the Internet of Things, connecting devices has been possible since before the internet became common but it was expensive and cumbersome so only the highest value equipment – such as oil rigs – was connected.

    Now it’s inexpensive and simple to connect things, people are doing it more and that is why there’s a range of security and privacy issues which weren’t so pressing when it was only a few obscure industrial devices that were wired up.

    We aren’t inventing the wheel with technologies like the internet of things or big data, they already existed – they are just more accessible and that’s what’s changing business.

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