Mobile infrastructure must catch up with user needs and demands. Ubiquitous mobile computing is all around us. Some time in the next six months, the number of smartphones on earth will pass the number of PCs. As the power and capability of many mobile devices increases, the increased demand on networks. We watch more videos, and listen to music on our phones. Mobile Data Traffic To Grow 300% Globally By 2017 Led By Video, Web Use. Mobile network operators would have had an easier life if it wasn’t for smartphones and the flood of data traffic they initiated, and soon there will be also very many Internet of Things devices. Businesses and consumers want more bandwidth for less money.
More and more network bandwidth is being used by video: Netflix And YouTube Account For Over 50% Of Peak Fixed Network Data In North America. Netflix remains the biggest pig in the broadband python, representing 31.6% of all downstream Internet traffic in North America during primetime. In other parts of the world, YouTube is the biggest consumer of bandwidth. In Europe, YouTube represented of 28.7% of downstream traffic.
Gartner: Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends For 2014 expects that Software Defined Anything is a new mega-trend in data centers. Software-defined anything (SDx) is defined by “improved standards for infrastructure programmability and data center interoperability driven by automation inherent to cloud computing, DevOps and fast infrastructure provisioning.” Dominant vendors in a given sector of an infrastructure-type may elect not to follow standards that increase competition and lower margins, but end-customer will benefit from simplicity, cost reduction opportunities, and the possibility for consolidation. More hype around Software-Defined-Everything will keep the marketeers and the marchitecture specialists well employed for the next twelve months but don’t expect anything radical.
Software defined technologies are coming quickly to telecom operator networks with Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV). Intel and rather a lot of telcos want networks to operate like data centres. Today’s networks are mostly based around proprietary boxes designed to do very specific jobs. It used to be that way in the server business too until cheap generic x86 boxes took most of the market. The idea in NFV is that low-cost x86 servers can successfully many of those those pricey proprietary boxes currently attached to base-stations and other parts of the network. This scents a shift in the mood of the telcos themselves. This change is one that they want, and rather a lot of them are working together to make it happen. So the future mobile network will have more and more x86 and ARM based generic computing boxes running on Linux.
With the introduction of Network Functions Virtualisation base stations will have new functions built into them. For example NSN has announced a mobile edge computing platform that enables mobile base stations to host data and run apps. Think of this as an internet cloud server that’s really close to the customer.
Hybrid Cloud and IT as Service Broker are talked about. Telecom companies and cloud service providers are selling together service packages that have both connectivity and cloud storage sold as single service. Gartner suggests that bringing together personal clouds and external private cloud services is essential.
The type of device one has will be less important, as the personal or public cloud takes over some of the role. The push for more personal cloud technologies will lead to a shift toward services and away from devices, but there are also cases where where there is a great incentive to exploit the intelligence and storage of the client device. Gartner suggests that now through 2018, a variety of devices, user contexts, and interaction paradigms will make “everything everywhere” strategies unachievable, although many would like to see this working.
“Internet of Things” gets more push. The Internet is expanding into enterprise assets and consumer items such as cars and televisions. The concept of “Internet of Things” will evolve a step toward The Internet of Everything. Gartner identifies four basic usage models that are emerging: Manage, Monetize, Operate, Extend. The Internet of Things (IoT) will evolve into the Web of Things, increasing the coordination between things in the real world and their counterparts on the Web. The Industrial Internet of Things will be talked about. IoT takes advantage of mobile devices’ and sensors’ ability to observe and monitor their environments
Car of the future is M2M-ready and has Ethernet. Many manufacturers taking an additional step to develop vehicle connectivity. One such example is the European Commission’s emergency eCall system, which is on target for installation in every new car by 2015.
Smart Home Systems Are on the Rise article tells that most automated technology is found in commercial buildings that feature automated lighting that changes in intensity depending on the amount of sunlight present. Some of these buildings have WiFi incorporated into their lighting systems. There will be new and affordable technology on the market, but people today are still reluctant to bring automation to their homes.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Global mobile roaming network a HOTBED of vulnerabilities
KPN researchers find more than 5k vulnerable hosts
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/03/global_mobile_roaming_network_a_hotbed_of_vulnerabilities/
Security experts for Dutch telco KPN have swung the baseball bat at telcos, with research suggesting mobile roaming networks are so insecure you’d hardly need the NSA to break in and start capturing user traffic.
They find the GRX – GPRS Roaming Exchange – network, which links the roaming traffic of 25 carriers worldwide, has more than 5,000 vulnerable hosts visible to the Internet.
That roaming network is the same as the UK’s GCHQ targeted, via Belgacom engineers, to capture traffic.
They found that of the 25 operators, 15 have machines visible to the Internet, with many misconfigurations and unnecessary services, and a lack of ingress filtering to protect the hosts.
In the case of GRX, the issue is that roaming is a concept that existed long before carriers started offering mobile Internet services.
What the research found was that out of 42,000 GRX hosts, around 5,500 are visible from the Internet, and many of these are running services with known vulnerabilities, including various old Sendmail versions with known root exploits, and vulnerable ftpd daemons in OpenBSD, VxWorks, and other FTP implementations.
Tomi Engdahl says:
DIY vs. Hiring a pro: Installing Home Security Systems
Before purchasing equipment, find out if this is a good project to do yourself or not.
http://advice.porch.com/diy-vs-hiring-pro-security-alarm-home-automation-projects/
Wireless security systems, involving cameras and computer monitoring, are a DIY project. It just requires mounting cameras and running recharging lines.
When you are configuring either an audible or silent alarm system, it is best to leave this to the professionals. The main reason being is that there is more intricate wiring required for this type of project. Keypads also need to be programmed with codes.
To ensure that all sequences are correct, a professional should always complete home automation. Setting up lighting to turn on and off as you enter or leave a room is tricky.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Facebook acquires mobile data plan firm Pryte
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/03/us-facebook-pryte-idUSKBN0EE1DG20140603
Facebook Inc is acquiring Pryte, a Finnish company that aims to make it easier for mobile phone users in under-developed parts of the world to use wireless Internet apps.
Facebook did not disclose financial terms of the deal, which spokeswoman Vanessa Chan said is expected to close later this month.
Pryte’s service, which has not publicly launched yet, seeks to make it easier for consumers without wireless data plans to use online services by selling short-term passes that would provide access to particular mobile apps, such as Facebook or Foursquare.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Facebook Acquires Pryte to Help With Internet.org
http://mashable.com/2014/06/03/facebook-acquires-pryte/
Facebook has agreed to acquire Pryte, a mobile data plan firm based in Finland, to help with its Internet.org effort. Terms of the deal were not immediately disclosed.
Pryte was founded in 2013 with the goal of working with wireless operators to offer mobile data plans to users on a per app basis rather than forcing people to buy it in bulk.
In a blog post, Pryte’s team wrote that it will be working with Facebook to help with its Internet.org project to bring the entire world online by making Internet access more affordable and available to everyone.
“Since we launched Pryte we have worked to reimagine the way mobile data works in an app-driven world, by enabling partnerships between app and content providers, and mobile operators,
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google Loon balloon crashes near Yakima
http://blogs.seattletimes.com/brierdudley/2014/05/30/google-loon-balloon-crashes-near-yakima/
According to the Yakima-Herald Republic, Google gave the FAA a warning on Wednesday that one of its balloons was coming down.
it looks like part of the search giant’s Loon project that’s looking into using solar-powered balloons to deliver wireless Internet connectivity to underserved regions
The company began testing Loon in New Zealand last year.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google balloon that fell to Earth Thursday hit power lines
http://www.yakimaherald.com/home/2221403-8/google-balloon-hit-power-lines-in-harrah-area
Authorities said Friday that a high-tech, high-altitude balloon belonging to Google became entangled in power lines when it fell to Earth near a mint field about 2 miles south of Harrah early Thursday.
It knocked out power to a small number of homes
According to a Google website, each balloon is equipped with a parachute to slow its descent in case of an unexpected landing.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Telstra asks users to be its next backhaul network
All aboard the WiFi offload bandwagon
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/05/20/telstra_woos_users_to_be_next_backhaul_network/
With a single announcement, Telstra has accidentally skewered the argument that fixed networks are obsolete: the carrier plans to rollout a $AUD100 million cities-and-towns WiFi offload network, which will shift traffic from smartphones and tablets off the 4G network and onto the nearest bit of copper oxide* it can find.
Telstra says it’ll be rolling 8,000 of its own hotspots into its network, but to get as much coverage as possible. It’s also asking its customers to help out. For $210 (or subsidised into a contract), they’ll be able to buy a suitably-equipped WiFi router, so that passing punters can get their Twitter fix without loading up the mobile network or devastating their paltry monthly allowances.
Tomi Engdahl says:
DeSENSORtised: Why the ‘Internet of Things’ will FAIL without IPv6
What’s stopping a tinyputer invasion? An IP address shortage, says Cisco
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/04/24/ipv6_iot/
For more than 20 years, it has been clear that the internet will eventually run out of public IPv4 addresses. Despite that limit, online businesses have been slow to adopt IPv6, which has an abundance of addresses by comparison.
Now that tech companies are eager to use the phrase “Internet of Things” (IoT) or the “Internet of Everything” (IoE), IPv6 lobbyists are keen to stress the dangers if the IT world does nothing about the looming address shortage.
Sadly, switching from IPv4 to IPv6 isn’t as trivial as you may think, even though modern operating systems and networking kit support both protocols
The Internet of Things – a world of ultra-low-power embedded sensors, motors, and similar gadgets, all connected up like billions of tiny tentacles to data-crunching computers – seems, at present, a faddish marketing ploy by networking outfits that are keen to flog more kit.
The likes of Cisco, which this year pumped $100m into IoT, see it differently, however. The corporation is convinced that 50 billion devices can be linked directly to the internet by 2020, even though adoption of IPv6 remains sluggish and IPv4 can’t support that many publicly addressable things.
“Yes, within the existing IPv4 infrastructure you can do things such as network address translation (NAT), but in terms of scalability and sustainability and actually being able to support the capability we’re talking about – some 50 billion devices by the year 2020 – that’s going to be really difficult to do on a IPv4 environment.”
“I think the adoption of IPv6 will be key. The ability for the UK in particular to start to more heavily deploy it at a consumer level is also important.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Out in the Open: The Little-Known Open Source OS That Rules the Internet of Things
http://www.wired.com/2014/06/contiki/
You can connect almost anything to a computer network. Light bulbs. Thermostats. Coffee makers. Even badgers. Yes, badgers.
Like many other scientists, they turned to open source to avoid having to rebuild fundamental components from scratch. One building block they used is an open source operating system called Contiki.
“Contiki was a real enabler as it allowed us to do rapid prototyping and easily shift between different hardware platforms,” says Markham, now an associate professor at the University of Oxford.
Contiki isn’t nearly so well-known as Windows or OS X or even Linux, but for more than a decade, it has been the go-to operating system for hackers, academics, and companies building network-connected devices like sensors, trackers, and web-based automation systems. Developers love it because it’s lightweight, it’s free, and it’s mature. It provides a foundation for developers and entrepreneurs eager to bring us all the internet-connected gadgets the internet of things promises, without having to develop the underlying operating system those gadgets will need.
Perhaps the biggest thing Contiki has going for it is that it’s small. Really small. While Linux requires one megabyte of RAM, Contiki needs just a few kilobytes to run. Its inventor, Adam Dunkels, has managed to fit an entire operating system, including a graphical user interface, networking software, and a web browser into less than 30 kilobytes of space. That makes it much easier to run on small, low powered chips–exactly the sort of things used for connected devices–but it’s also been ported to many older systems like the Apple IIe and the Commodore 64.
Contiki will soon face competition from the likes of Microsoft, which recently announced Windows for the Internet of Things.
While Nest, the web connected thermostat company Google acquired for $3.2 billion in January, has come to define the Internet of Things, Dunkels notes that many companies have been using network-connected devices for years in applications including industrial and building automation. “With something like CES you see all the consumer stuff, but there are just so many different aspects of this,” Dunkel says.
But consumer technology companies are beginning to embrace Contiki as well. The LiFX “smart light bulb” is using the operating system, for example, as is the Nest competitor Tado.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Contiki: The Open Source OS for the Internet of Things
http://www.contiki-os.org/
Contiki is designed for tiny systems, having only a few kilobytes of memory available.
Contiki provides a full IP network stack, with standard IP protocols such as UDP, TCP, and HTTP, in addition to the new low-power standards like 6lowpan, RPL, and CoAP.
Contiki supports the recently standardized IETF protocols for low-power IPv6 networking, including the 6lowpan adaptation layer, the RPL IPv6 multi-hop routing protocol, and the CoAP RESTful application-layer protocol.
Contiki provides an optional command-line shell with a set of commands that are useful during development and debugging of Contiki systems. With Unix-style pipelines, shell commands can be combined in powerful ways.
Contiki is designed to operate in extremely low-power systems: systems that may need to run for years on a pair of AA batteries.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Telstra kills ZOMBIE BOXES all over Australia
Redundant kit revealed by Warrnambool auto-da-fé
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/04/telstra_kills_zombie_boxes_all_over_australia/
The fire that took out a major regional exchange last year has inspired Telstra to start building bigger mobile exchanges for future emergencies – and it’s also revealed that there’s a bunch of redundant hardware still consuming carbon around the country.
The 2012 fire in the Warrnambool exchange showed up various holes in the incumbent carrier’s disaster recovery plans.
Now, David Plitz, who conducted the original review, has posted an update on what the carrier has learned since the fire – and one of the big surprises is that there’s lots of redundant equipment that remains merely because nobody realised it was no longer needed.
He writes: “one of the biggest surprises actually came after we had restored the Warrnambool Exchange to full working order. In the months following the restoration we noticed a significant drop in the consumption of power at the site which was something that we had not been expecting.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
China’s Huawei has snatched pole position in the race for wireless networks speed record. The new ME- values are recorded currently in figures 10.53 Gbps. Huawei Shenzhen laboratory achieved in the speed record was 5 GHz frequency range.
Huawei According to representatives products based on this technology are expected in 2018. Before that next step in WLAN speeds is 802.11ac standard with speeds go up to 7 gigabits per second that is expected to be taken into use in 2015.
Source: http://www.tietoviikko.fi/uutisia/quotwlan+steroideillaquot++huawei+kiristi+nopeuden+10+gigabittiin+sekunnissa/a991570
Tomi Engdahl says:
After John Oliver’s Net Neutrality Rant: 22,000 Comments and Site Overload
http://mashable.com/2014/06/03/fcc-site-down-john-oliver-net-nuetrality-rant/
John Oliver called for his viewers to rise up against the Federal Communications Commission’s proposed net neutrality rules at the end of an epic, 13-minute rant on Sunday — and commenters responded en masse.
The FCC’s online commenting system went down on Monday for “a few hours” due to “unusually heavy traffic,” the FCC’s press secretary Kim Hart confirmed to Mashable. The system received 22,257 comments over the last two days, almost as many as the FCC had previously received — before the weekend, the total was around 25,000, Hart said.
It’s impossible to know whether the site went down because netizens swarmed it to support net neutrality and protest against a potential rule change that critics say would allow for the creation of so-called fast lanes for those with deep pockets. But, if the comment surge wasn’t due to Oliver, it would be an awfully big coincidence.
“The new net neutrality rules will destroy openness and give an unfair advantage to corporations with the biggest bankroll. Please don’t let this happen. Please don’t kill the Internet,” read one of the comments.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google wants to put ads on car dashboards and refrigerators
http://www.electronicproducts.com/Computer_Systems/Standalone_Mobile/Google_wants_to_put_ads_on_car_dashboards_and_refrigerators.aspx
Just last week, Google sent a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission revealing its hopes to place marketing messages in ad-free objects. The company, which is just one of many who are swooping into the Internet of Things, revealed that its expectation is to have its users viewing ads on an increasingly wide diversity of devices in the future.
Google already started placing its Android mobile operating system into cars through partnerships with automakers, and is also pushing it on smartwatches through an optimized OS called Android Wear. In January the company announced the Open Automotive Alliance with Audi, GM, and Honda, all of which are committed to developing Android-powered dashboards
Google bought Nest, the smart thermostat
The company is even pushing its software on people’s bodies. Google Glass
According to Cisco, there were 13 billion wireless devices connected to the Internet in 2013, and it’s predicted that by 2020, there will be 50 billion. Some experts believe smart homes will become common in as little as five years.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ericsson: There’ll be over 9 BILLION mobe subscribers by 2019
And yes, that means more subs than humans on the planet
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/04/ericsson_mobility_report_2014/
Smartphones accounted for 65 per cent of the phones which sold in 2014 so far, and by 2016 the number of smartphones in use will overtake the number of basic feature phones. Of the 6.8 billion mobile phone connections in the world, 2.6 billion are mobile broadband.
While the GSMA claims that the number of mobile subscriptions will exceed the number of people on the planet this year, Ericsson says that’s more likely to happen in 2015
The greatest growth is coming from Asia. In the last quarter the world added 120m subscribers and over half of these came from these came from India (28m), China (19m), Indonesia (7m), Thailand (6m) and Bangladesh (4m) . There is a slight increase in the rate of growth, too, but this is heavily influenced by regulation and cannot be pinned down as a trend.
What can be seen as trends Ericsson turns into forecasts and the company predict that there will be 9.2 billion subscriptions by 2019, over 80 per cent of those will be for data. Data subs will overtake voice subs in 2016.
Wealthier customers means more data usage. Mobile data traffic grew 65 per cent in the last year, and like EE, Ericsson sees 10x data growth between 2013 and 2019, despite categorising VoLTE as data. Voice isn’t dead – it’s growing – but slowly and only as a result of subscription growth. HD voice is too small to measure.
The growth comes from there being more video capable devices as people move to 4K video which will use 10-15MB/second on a big screen
Today about 60 per cent of the world’s population can get a 3G signal. Ericsson believes that by 2019 it will be 90 per cent of the population – and by then 60 per cent of the world will be on 4G anyway.
Indeed Ericsson sees Machine to Machine (M2M) applications – the report refreshingly avoids the term Internet of Things – as insignificant in current data consumption, accounting for 0.1 per cent of traffic, but a huge source of growth, growing up to 400 per cent by 2019 with 3G and 4G dominant.
What will drive applications in M2M will be video billboards, connected cars and cameras. This can be used for load smoothing – billboards downloading video when the networks are quiet. M2M is, however, over-represented in roaming traffic -15 per cent of roamed data is M2M, a with big trucks doing telematics and moving around Europe.
Tomi Engdahl says:
AT&T promises big fiber expansion—but only if feds let it buy DirecTV
2 million locations will be deprived of “GigaPower” if AT&T doesn’t get its way.
http://arstechnica.com/business/2014/06/att-promises-big-fiber-expansion-but-only-if-feds-let-it-buy-directv/
AT&T recently named 100 municipalities in 21 metropolitan areas where it might bring its fiber-to-the-home network, without actually saying how many customers would get the GigaPower service, which offers up to 1Gbps download speeds.
That fiber announcement came a few weeks before AT&T announced a deal to buy satellite provider DirecTV for $48.5 billion. Yet it seems the two are intertwined: AT&T told the Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday that it needs approval of the DirecTV merger in order to bring fiber to 2 million locations.
The expansions would happen within four years, AT&T said
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hundreds of Cities Are Wired With Fiber—But Telecom Lobbying Keeps It Unused
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/hundreds-of-cities-are-wired-with-fiberbut-telecom-lobbying-keeps-it-unused
In light of the ongoing net neutrality battle, many people have begun looking to Google and its promise of high-speed fiber as a potential saving grace from companies that want to create an “internet fast lane.” Well, the fact is, even without Google, many communities and cities throughout the country are already wired with fiber—they just don’t let their residents use it.
The reasons vary by city, but in many cases, the reason you can’t get gigabit internet speeds—without the threat of that service being provided by a company that wants to discriminate against certain types of traffic—is because of the giant telecom businesses that want to kill net neutrality in the first place.
Throughout the country, companies like Comcast, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, and Verizon have signed agreements with cities that prohibit local governments from becoming internet service providers and prohibit municipalities from selling or leasing their fiber to local startups who would compete with these huge corporations.
Because ISPs often double as cable and telephone companies, during contract negotiations with governments, they’ll often offer incentives to the government—such as better or faster service, earlier access to (their company’s) cable internet for residents, and the like—in exchange for a non-compete clause.
In Washington DC, for instance, the country’s first 100 Gbps fiber network has been available to nonprofit organizations since 2006—but not to any of the city’s residents.
What happens then are so-called “middle-mile” projects, where government buildings, schools, and nonprofit groups can be wired up, but expanded access to consumers is met with stiff lobbying opposition and threats from larger ISPs.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Just Like Comcast Did, Verizon Says Netflix Is Slowing Its Own Streams
http://recode.net/2014/06/04/just-like-comcast-did-verizon-says-netflix-is-slowing-its-own-streams/
Verizon, responding to complaints from Netflix about its broadband service, says Netflix is slowing down its own video streams to the telco’s providers.
If that sounds confusing, that’s because it is. And if that sounds familiar, there’s a reason for that, too: In April, Comcast made a similar claim about Netflix. And like Comcast, Verizon has signed a deal with Netflix that’s supposed to alleviate Web traffic headaches.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Stanford Gets Blessed With High-Speed Fiber, How About The Rest of Us?
http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/draft-stanford-blessed-with-high-speed-google-fiber-what-about-the-rest-of-us?trk_source=recommended
Like some sort of archangel descended from internet heaven, Google has bathed Stanford University in glorious high-speed goodness as part of the beta test of their new gigabit fiber network. Since the program was announced, the service, which is now being provided free to students and faculty in the Palo Alto area, has caused a lot of people to ask (sometimes beg) that their city be next on Big G’s list for communication salvation. But can Google save us all from crappy internet? And more importantly, is it a good idea to let them?
Google’s mission is different: Instead of working to reform the American duopoly system, they’re building their own network of high-speed fiberoptics—technology that is several times faster than regular old copper networks. But before you get too hung up on dreams of liberation, remember that Google is calling this “an experiment.” They want to find out how these networks can be deployed and how they can empower the next generation of web apps. And while it’s possible this might expand into a kind of 3rd choice for American broadband users, letting Google have the reins may or may not be a great idea.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sprint, T-Mobile Move Closer to a $32 Billion Deal
Sprint Would Buy T-Mobile for Around $40 a Share in Merger That Likely Would Face Regulator Scrutiny
http://online.wsj.com/news/article_email/sprint-t-mobile-generally-agree-on-merger-terms-1401919219-lMyQjAxMTA0MDAwNDEwNDQyWj
Sprint Corp. S -1.05% and T-Mobile TMUS +0.23% US Inc. have agreed on the broad outlines of a merger valuing T-Mobile at around $32 billion, as recent regulatory developments convinced executives at both telecommunications companies that they have an opening to get a deal approved, according to people familiar with the matter.
A deal between Sprint and T-Mobile would extend a wave of consolidation that is uniting some of the biggest companies in the telecom and media industries, and is expected to face strong opposition from regulators and a lengthy antitrust review.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Overcoming Challenges of Connecting Intelligent Nodes to the Internet of Things
http://www.silabs.com/Support%20Documents/TechnicalDocs/bringing-the-internet-of-things-to-life.pdf
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft Announces New Tools Bringing The Cloud To The Internet Of Things, Uniting Hadoop And SQL
Posted Apr 15, 2014
http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/15/microsoft-announces-new-tools-bringing-the-cloud-to-the-internet-of-things-uniting-hadoop-and-sql/
This morning in San Francisco, Microsoft announced several new data-focused tools in front of a cadre of customers and partners, not to mention a decent-sized grouping of press. The two new tools worth noting are Azure Intelligent Systems Service and Analytics Platform System.
Azure Intelligent Systems Services is an attempt to unite the cloud and the Internet of Things. According to Microsoft, the service collects data from “line-of-business assets” and gets that information into the cloud safely.
This matters as it is widely expected that the number of sensors that we have, both in technology and non-technology products, will grow. The Internet of Things, though no one really seems to know what it is, appears to be arcing towards some sort of broad connectivity of previously unintelligent objects that have long been part of our daily lives.
Microsoft would like to power that new data storage, processing, and transfer with its cloud services. Hence, Azure Intelligent Systems Services, which was launched today into preview. Microsoft continues its cross-platform efforts here, noting in a blog post that the new tool will accept data from “systems regardless of OS platform.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bringing the Internet of Things Underground in London
http://www.m2mevolution.com/topics/m2mevolution/articles/377179-bringing-internet-things-underground-london.htm
Smart cities are among of the biggest opportunities in the Internet of Things (IoT). Included in these cities are the transportation systems, such as taxi companies, bus systems and railways. The abundance of connected sensors, gateways and devices make these transportation systems smarter and more proactive in failure detection and prevention.
There’s more that goes into powering underground railway than trains. Security cameras and feeds, escalators, information displays, elevators, communication networks and more all contribute to an effective railway system, and as the Internet of Things starts to integrate more connected endpoints into operating systems, these underground railways are also becoming more connected.
Telent, CGI and Microsoft all work to bring the IoT to the London Underground to power systems that monitor critical assets.
Microsoft recently expanded its Windows Embedded division, and it recently unveiled its Windows on Devices segment that focuses on the IoT.
The company also enhanced its Azure cloud service with Microsoft Azure Intelligent Systems Service, which is an M2M version of Azure that lets users manage data generated by sensors and devices.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft Targets Internet of Things with Windows on Devices
http://www.m2mevolution.com/topics/m2mevolution/articles/375184-microsoft-targets-internet-things-with-windows-devices.htm
A new Windows on Devices website explains the company’s plan to bring Windows to a whole new class of small devices – smart coffee mugs, talking bears and robots. Sounds a lot like the Internet of Things.
“Whether you are an experienced Windows developer looking to jump into the Internet of Things or you are new to Windows development and want to build the next big thing—we’re excited to see what you can do,” the website reads. “Development hardware like the Intel Galileo board allows you to read temperature sensors, power robot servos, check for intruders, blink a bunch of LED lights, or even make a little music.”
The Galileo is a Raspberry Pi-type of development board powered by Intel’s Quark chip and is compatible with Arduino’s open-source microcontroller boards. Microsoft plans to release its first SDK in spring 2014, which will include new software and API surface.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The next big thing is small
https://www.windowsondevices.com/
Development hardware like the Intel Galileo board allows you to read temperature sensors, power robot servos, check for intruders, blink a bunch of LED lights, or even make a little music. Whether you are an experienced Windows developer looking to jump into the Internet of Things or you are new to Windows development and want to build the next big thing—we’re excited to see what you can do.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Video:
Bringing the Internet of Things to the London Underground
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYpdNGl1hco
Tomi Engdahl says:
Oracle uses Imagination to bring Internet of Things to MIPS
Java now running on MIPS32 and MIPS64
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2346315/oracle-uses-imagination-to-bring-internet-of-things-to-mips
ORACLE AND IMAGINATION TECHNOLOGIES have announced a joint venture to bring Java to the Internet of Things.
As a result of the collaboration, Oracle’s Java Development (JDK) and Oracle Java SE Embedded have been made available for 32-bit and 64-bit MIPS chip architecture.
Nandini Ramani, VP of Oracle’s Java and Internet of Things department said, “The MIPS architecture is widely used in networking, embedded and other key markets. We are excited to see the differentiated feature set that Imagination has laid out in its roadmap for MIPS, and we are seeing increasing demand for optimized Java support for MIPS.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
An Easy Interface for the Internet of Things
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/526006/an-easy-interface-for-the-internet-of-things/
Amid a wide range of new platforms to manage streams of data from the Internet of things, a simple version emerges that anyone can use.
With the advent of the Internet of things, potentially billions of devices will report data about themselves, making it possible to create new applications in areas as diverse as factory optimization, car maintenance, or simply keeping track of your stuff online. But doing this today requires at least some degree of programming knowledge. Now Bug Labs, a New York City company, is trying to make it as easy to create an Internet of things application as it is to put a file into Dropbox.
With a new service called Freeboard, Bug Labs is giving people a simple one-click way to publish data from a “thing” to its own Web page (Bug Labs calls this “dweeting”). To get a sense of this, visit Dweet.io with your computer or mobile phone, click “try it now,” and you’ll see raw data from your device itself: its GPS coordinates and even the position of your computer mouse. The data is now on a public Web page and available for analysis and aggregation; another click stops this sharing.
Freeboard, expected to be launched Tuesday, makes sense of such streams of data. A few more clicks create quick graphical displays of the shared information, such as location, temperature, motor speed, or simply whether a device is on or off. “We are trying to make the Internet of things far simpler, and far more accessible, to anybody,”
Freeboard is not the most technically sophisticated Internet of things application platform. Many others are emerging, including Axeda, Etherios, and OpenRemote (see “Free Software Ties the Internet of Things Together”), with different business models and levels of complexity. Big companies like General Electric are developing factory-monitoring software platforms.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Londoners urged to cut landlines and take up wireless broadband
Pfft! Copper is SO last century, says Honkers-backed Relish
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/05/londoners_urged_to_cut_landlines_and_take_up_wireless_broadband/
A wireless broadband provider is punting a landline-free package to Londoners living in the heart of the city.
UK Broadband, which is owned by Hong Kong’s telco PCCW Group, has grown a new tentacle in Blighty’s capital to offer what it described as “fibre-fast speeds without any hassle”.
its networks run over LTE 4G and Wi-Fi.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Verizon slams Netflix ‘PR stunt’ that blamed ISPs for bad streaming quality
http://www.theverge.com/2014/6/4/5780006/verizon-slams-netflix-pr-stunt-that-told-users-their-isps-were
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Verizon has struck back at what it calls a Netflix “PR stunt” that blames its network for poor video quality. In May, Netflix began testing an error message telling users that congestion with their ISP was hurting their service quality. “The Verizon network is crowded right now,” said one message shown during buffering. But “this claim is not only inaccurate, it is deliberately misleading,” says Verizon, suggesting that the choice was a political move meant to score points in the net neutrality fight. “It is sad that Netflix is willing to deliberately mislead its customers so they can be used as pawns in business negotiations and regulatory proceedings,” it says. Here’s its reasoning
“The source of the problem is almost certainly NOT congestion in Verizon’s network. Instead, the problem is most likely congestion on the connection that Netflix has chosen to use to reach Verizon’s network. Of course, Netflix is solely responsible for choosing how their traffic is routed into any ISP’s network.”
The issue in question isn’t that a network was crowded, it’s which one was crowded. While Netflix’s statement implies that the problem lies with the “last mile” of Verizon service, Verizon says the issue is really Netflix’s connection to that last mile.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ayla IoT Design Kit with MuRata WiFi
http://www.eeweb.com/company-news/mouser/ayla-iot-design-kit-with-murata-wifi/
Mouser Electronics, Inc announce the new Ayla Design Kit with MuRata Wireless WiFi connectivity. The new DevKit and design allows designers and developers to securely connect their devices to the internet anywhere with an internet connection.
The new Ayla Design Kit with Murata WiFi Connectivity, available exclusively from Mouser Electronics, allows developers to easily connect their projects to Ayla’s cloud service. Wireless connectivity is supported by a powerful Murata Type-YD 2.4GHz 802.11b/g/n radio module supporting WEP, WPA-PSK, and WPA2-PSK encryption. The Murata Type-YD module includes a TCP/IP stack, security firmware, and other network application features. Murata’s Wi-Fi module mounted on Ayla’s design kit allows devices to be securely controlled using OAuth-based authentication from anywhere in the world.
“The rapidly expanding IoT market offers significant opportunities, particularly when it comes to Cloud connectivity,”
“The Internet of Things will expand the boundaries of today’s business and social systems, changing the way we live, work, and innovate,” said Dr. Tom Lee, professor of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University. “Ayla’s transformational Agile IoT Platform enables the rapid growth of the IoT ecosystem, and making its Design Kits readily available through a global distribution leader like Mouser Electronics will accelerate connected product developments using the Agile IoT framework.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Lantronix xPico WiFi Shield for Arduino
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1322636&
The xPico WiFi embedded wireless device server from Lantronix has a chip-sized footprint of only 24 x 16.5 mm. With 256-bit AES encryption and an extended temperature range of -40 to +85°C, the xPico boasts a complete device server application with a full IP stack and web server. The xPico also offers simultaneous software-enabled access point (SoftAP) and Client mode, thereby facilitation ease of access access while maintaining a secure network connection.
The xPico can be used to add wireless access to embedded systems. This includes the ability to access data from any mobile device, including smartphones and tablets. Lantronix offers a variety of xPico-enabled solutions, including a Freescale Tower System Module. Now the xPico is available on an Arduino shield.
The xPico WiFi shield — along with a demo sketch — allows engineers and designers to add WiFi client and soft access point capabilities quickly to their Arduino-based systems. The shield makes it easy to connect securely to an Arduino using web-based tools and interactive applications on smartphones or tablets.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Verizon sends Netflix cease and desist over streaming quality warnings
http://www.theverge.com/2014/6/5/5783338/verizon-sends-netflix-cease-and-desist-over-congestion-warnings
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Verizon has sent Netflix a cease and desist order demanding that it stop presenting its subscribers with messages that blame Verizon’s network for poor streaming performance. Netflix’s messages are actively meant to knock Verizon — among other service providers — that it alleges have been hurting streaming quality, either actively or through failing to properly maintain their networks.
Verizon has vehemently disagreed that it’s at fault for dips in performance
“There is no basis for Netflix to assert that issues … are attributable solely to the Verizon network.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Netflix’s Network Congestion Message Rolling Out On All ISPs, Not Just Verizon
http://blog.streamingmedia.com/2014/06/netflixs-network-congestion-message-rolling-networks-just-verizon.html
Netflix says their methodology is if you are streaming from an ISP/Designated Market Area pair where (1) the average bitrate is poor (SD), (2) there is high congestion (the ratio between peak and trough traffic is abnormally compressed), and (3) they see a high percentage of sessions with a rebuffer, then the player displays the warning during the initial buffering at play start.
Tomi Engdahl says:
innovation over the last 30 years has been in digitization of things, and now the most interesting aspect is that of networking. “The new big players are the ones who will be providing infrastructure,”
Desai’s fellow panelist, Doug Cutting of Cloudera, said it’s hard to find an industry that’s not adopting digital technology. There are two concurrent revolutions, according to Cutting, the open-source revolution and the data revolution. Both are becoming mandates, using open-source software and harnessing the data.
Source: http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1322629&
Tomi Engdahl says:
IBM teams up with mbed for IoT kit
https://mbed.org/blog/entry/IBM-teams-up-with-mbed-for-IoT-kit/
first prototypes of the IoT starter kit we have been working on with IBM. Due to be released later this year, the kit includes an mbed enabled cellular platform and access to IBM IoT cloud, plus all necessary parts needed to run the first example programs right out of the box.
A MQTT team has also been sprung up and they’re porting the official MQTT C library to mbed from Eclipse Paho. This is still a work in progress but HelloMQTT and other examples should be ready by the time kits are available. Development is happening now so anyone interested in getting started with it, contributing or providing feedback can drop a line in the teams development forum.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Your driverless car isn’t going to kidnap you
There is nothing to fear from IPv6, says Ripe NCC
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2348579/your-driverless-car-isnt-going-to-kidnap-you
CAR MAKERS have been dealing with the new realities of an age where cars will be connected to the internet.
With Google having announced production of its driverless, steering wheel free cars, this has presented privacy campaigners with a thorny problem.
Supplies of IPv4 internet addresses are nearly exhausted, and car makers are being alloted blocks of IPv6 addresses for vehicles.
Because every car will have a unique identifier linked to GPS, cell towers and internet of things (IoT) devices, every car will be identifiable.
So what if you’re in your driverless car, and a hacker decides to take control of your car and use it to lock the doors and kidnap you, or drive you into a convenient lake?
It might sound like the stuff of low-rent 1970s science fiction, but theoretically it could happen.
“IPv6 is actually a good thing”, he said. “Of course, being German, I am very aware that there is much suspicion around the area of privacy right now, but in actual fact, IPv6 allows us to ditch NAT solutions, which are the worst thing in the world.”
Network Address Translation (NAT) has been used by internet service provides (ISPs) for a while in order eke out the last of the IPv4 addresses by running multiple clients from different ports of a router. However, this will only work for so long and runs the risk that, if a single IP address goes wrong, it can affect a large number of people.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ericsson has helped Taiwan’s FarEasTone operator to open up the LTE network in 700 MHz frequency range. According to Ericsson, the network is the first of its kind in the world.
FarEasTone gained access to APT700 and 1800 MHz ranges.
APT700 area (700 MHz) is one of the standardized LTE frequency bands. Globally, it can be used in Asia and Latin America to build as many as 2.1 billion people serving LTE networks.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1477:ericsson-vei-lte-n-700-megahertsiin&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nokia and National Instruments will tell the expansion of its research cooperation with the fifth-generation mobile networks development. The aim is to increase both 5g networks, data transmission speed and high data capacity and speed at the cell edges.
The companies tell us that the top speed of data in order to gain more than 10 Gbps. Cells, each edge should be getting more than a hundred megabit links.
The development is based on National Instruments integrated iron and software platform. On the basis of the Nokia examines the millimeter-wave use in 5g radio technology as an option.
NI recently introduced software-based radio-based platform for developing prototypes for future multi-channel radio systems (based on popular RIO architecture and Xilinx platform Kinetis-7 series FPGA chip). In particular, it is aiming to five generations of the MIMO radio solutions. NI RIO usrp of the platform (Universal Software Radio Peripheral) are already being used very widely in research institutes.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1453:nokia-ja-ni-kiihdyttavat-5g-dataa&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
England promises for 5G networks
According to reports from UK the UK’s largest mobile phone operator, EE, or Everything Everywhere plans to bring the fifth-generation networks for commercial use by 2022.
Last December, the European Commission set up under the leadership of 5GPPP Community to organize future 5g networks research. Current knowledge 5G is going to be a combination of 4G and other networking technologies. Research in this area is still beginning.
EE’s network architect Andy Sutton has been told that’s 5G 4G compared to a thousand fold increased network capacity.
At best, 5G brings subscribers up to more than 10 GB mobile data rates, Sutton envisions.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1423:englannissa-luvataan-jo-5g-verkkoja&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nokia created the Security Service
Nokia is increasingly their equipment to computer security. today the company announced the creation of a new security unit. Its job is to make sure that the base stations and other safety products is at the required level.
Security unit will also develop business models for communications security around it. The new unit will be operational in early June and it belongs to the company’s Mobile Broadband organization.
- Importance of information security becomes critical when the mobile broadband networks evolve to take advantage of cloud services
Nokia’s report shows that 75 percent of consumers believe the security part of the operator’s responsibility. Security problems arise, a significant proportion of subscribers to respond by changing the operator. Reliable data security, users are willing to pay more.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1419:nokia-perusti-turvallisuusyksikon&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
9 billion wireless ICs
A range of wireless chips consumption shows no signs of slowing down. ABI Research, in 2019, sold for nearly nine billion Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, NFC, GPS and ZigBee chipsets.
Research indicates that this figure would be even higher, but entered the market a combination of different chipsets to be reduced to it. In 2010-2014 the market will in any case no less than 21 billion wireless circuit.
The next five years, ie between 2015-2019 deliveries will increase almost doubled to 39 billion chipset.
In Cell Phones majority of the chips is are so called combination of chipsets.
In WLAN markets majority of the products use separate wireless chips.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1422:9-miljardia-langatonta-piiria&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Vodafone reveals existence of secret wires that allow state surveillance
Wires allow agencies to listen to or record live conversations, in what privacy campaigners are calling a ‘nightmare scenario’
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/jun/06/vodafone-reveals-secret-wires-allowing-state-surveillance
Vodafone, one of the world’s largest mobile phone groups, has revealed the existence of secret wires that allow government agencies to listen to all conversations on its networks, saying they are widely used in some of the 29 countries in which it operates in Europe and beyond.
The company has broken its silence on government surveillance in order to push back against the increasingly widespread use of phone and broadband networks to spy on citizens, and will publish its first Law Enforcement Disclosure Report on Friday . At 40,000 words, it is the most comprehensive survey yet of how governments monitor the conversations and whereabouts of their people.
The company said wires had been connected directly to its network and those of other telecoms groups, allowing agencies to listen to or record live conversations and, in certain cases, track the whereabouts of a customer. Privacy campaigners said the revelations were a “nightmare scenario” that confirmed their worst fears on the extent of snooping.
“For governments to access phone calls at the flick of a switch is unprecedented and terrifying,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
F-bombs and death threats: Americans rip the FCC on net neutrality
http://www.theverge.com/2014/6/4/5776202/net-neutrality-comments
Nothing unites Americans more than crappy download speeds. Add in cronyism, old white guys dictating laws, and a taste of class war and you’ve got the really stupid proposal to abandon net neutrality currently moving its way through the FCC’s hallowed chambers.
rampant protest to the FCC has been nibbling away at the foregone conclusion that the internet’s proletariat would soon all become serfs to the telecommunications industry
To continue that fight for good, John Oliver asked not just those used to being outspoken in the face of corporate greed to speak up, but those outspoken in the face of memes to use their powerful tools of trolling, comments, to get the FCC’s attention. All of those comments are public on the FCC’s site
Tomi Engdahl says:
The internet is fucked (but we can fix it)
http://www.theverge.com/2014/2/25/5431382/the-internet-is-fucked
Here’s a simple truth: the internet has radically changed the world. Over the course of the past 20 years, the idea of networking all the world’s computers has gone from a research science pipe dream to a necessary condition of economic and social development, from government and university labs to kitchen tables and city streets. We are all travelers now, desperate souls searching for a signal to connect us all. It is awesome.
And we’re fucking everything up.
Massive companies like AT&T and Comcast have spent the first two months of 2014 boldly announcing plans to close and control the internet through additional fees, pay-to-play schemes, and sheer brutal size — all while the legal rules designed to protect against these kinds of abuses were struck down in court for basically making too much sense.
We can do it. Let’s start.
THE INTERNET IS A UTILITY, JUST LIKE WATER AND ELECTRICITY
Go ahead, say it out loud. The internet is a utility.
“Common carrier rules are basically free speech.”
THERE IS ZERO COMPETITION FOR INTERNET ACCESS
None. Zero. Nothing. It is a wasteland. You are standing in the desert and the only thing that grows is higher prices.
Cablevsphone2
70 percent of American households have but one or two choices for high-speed internet access: cable broadband from a cable provider or DSL from a telephone provider. And since DSL isn’t nearly as fast as cable, and the cable companies are aggressive in bundling TV and internet packages together, it’s really only one choice.
Despite the innovation in phones, the same is true for mobile internet. There are only four major national carriers, most of whom run incompatible networks and all of which are stronger in various regions
NO INTERNET PROVIDER DESERVES SPECIAL TREATMENT
Mobile carriers like AT&T and Verizon love to pretend they are special flowers, the magicians who managed to fill our thin, empty air with the magic of wireless broadband. Mobile is so difficult, they argue, and spectrum so scarce, that any sort of check or oversight on their behavior would crater their delicate business and derail the entire industry.
This is nonsense, of course.
Wireless executives will tell you they need to own as much wireless airspace as they possibly can, going on about a so-called “spectrum crunch” that has never really materialized: networks haven’t been brought to their knees by an apocalyptic wave of iPads with a voracious appetite for streaming video.
THE FCC IS WEAK AND INEFFECTIVE
The Federal Communications Commission is ostensibly in charge of managing broadband deployment and regulating companies like AT&T and Comcast, but it’s shown no actual ability to do so in a focused and effective way — and when it tries, it does so in such a half-assed way that it gets smacked around in court and loses.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Here’s How Microsoft Imagined the Smart Home of the Future In 1999
http://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/heres-how-microsoft-imagined-the-smart-home-of-the-futu-1584771861
Early rumors may have hinted that Apple had a fully integrated smart home up its sleeve. But after today’s WWDC, we know that’s not the case. And it’s unclear what developers are going to do with Apple’s HomeKit, a piecemeal tease that implies you’ll soon be able to control your smart toaster with your iPhone.
But in the meantime, we have this Microsoft concept video from circa 1999, showing the amazing interconnected smart home of tomorrow
Many of these technologies actually have come to pass, in one way or another
But again, it’s a far cry from the fully integrated smart home INTERNET OF THINGS OMG THIS IS THE FUTURE OF THE HOUSE we’ve been promised for so very long.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Executive Insight: Simon Segars
http://semiengineering.com/executive-insight-simon-segars/
ARM’s CEO talks about the next five years, the opportunities surrounding the IoT, security, interconnects, and microservers.
SE: What concerns you most?
Segars: In the context of design and where chip design is going, ARM is a long-term business. We’re doing stuff now that is going to ship in five years’ time. Obviously, for everyone in this space, Moore’s Law has been a fantastic thing. It’s enabled us to achieve really fantastic scaling of transistors, and everyone knows that is getting harder and harder. There’s a bit of denial: ‘I’ve been hearing this my entire career.’ But in the long term, what happens there? It’s an issue.
SE: Let’s talk about the IoT. What will be the effect on chips, complexity and kind of technology in use?
Segars: It’s very smart sensors gathering data, processing some locally and then passing it up to the cloud. It’s not just for pure consumerism. It’s not toys. There are real products to monitor vital signs about your state of well being, partnering with hospitals to make sense of that data and use it to present your physician with a much more accurate view of your health. There’s huge potential for IoT in medical grade data collection. And that’s just one market.
SE: Mobile ties all of that together, right?
Segars: Yes. There are so many screens that you don’t always need another one. The mobile device is the interface with many IoT devices. It’s hand in hand. Even in industrial settings where you’re tracking how factories are operating or goods moving through the supply chain, these devices will be the window into that.
SE: You also can build security into every step of that, too, right?
Segars: Yes, and Trust Zone does extend into that—signals in the interface to be enabled when you’re secure space versus not when you’re in the untrusted space. So you can use that to have peripherals on chip or off chip that are only enabled when you’re in the trusted mode.
SE: So do you build full platforms out of this?
Segars: We are providing all the components so people can build their own, and mix and match what they want.
SE: Any new markets that will crop up?
Segars: In general, it’s mobile, servers, and the network that links it all together in between. The volume of data that needs to be processed will go up and up and up. The growth of IoT creates a new challenge for networks that isn’t immediately obvious. On a cellular network you’re looking at a video or making a call or looking at a Web page. You create a connection, download a chunk of data. With an IoT device, it wakes up every period, there’s a really small amount of data it needs to transmit, and then it shuts down again. So you have very high-frequency on and off connections that have very different profiles than what you do on a smart phone. That creates a new set of challenges for the infrastructure, which will drive change and innovation. And that, coupled with the demand for higher bandwidth and lower latency, will drive innovation in the network infrastructure, which is in itself a really interesting and valuable market.
Tomi Engdahl says:
What the Finns do in the summer? Well, watch videos online, of course,
In Finland, the mobile data traffic doubled in one year. Elisa has announced it expects consumption to grow more during the summer, when people consider moving moving images.
2013 Finnish mobile networks amounted to 191 000 terabytes of data
Source: http://www.tietoviikko.fi/uutisia/mita+suomalaiset+tekevat+kesalla+no+katsovat+videoita+verkossa+tietenkin/a992426
Tomi Engdahl says:
Exclusive: Google Will Soon Introduce ‘Nearby’ To Let Other ‘People, Places, And Things’ Know When You’re Around
http://www.androidpolice.com/2014/06/06/exclusive-google-will-soon-introduce-nearby-to-let-other-people-places-and-things-know-when-youre-around/
a new feature in Android called Nearby, which will allow new interactions between you and nearby people, places, and things.
“Nearby lets you connect, share, and do more with people, places, and things near you.
When Nearby is turned on for your account, Google can periodically turn on the mic, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and similar features on all your current and future devices. Google+ and other Google services need this access to help you connect, share, and more.”
This is especially interesting in light of Apple’s recent announcement of Continuity, an iOS and OS X feature that allows Apple-made devices to interact with each other in really smart ways automatically, based on proximity.
It’s early, but Nearby is definitely a functionality to keep an eye out for. Besides the obvious applications like the previously rumored contact-based reminders, the feature could have huge potential for other areas.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cable Companies Are Astroturfing Fake Consumer Support to End Net Neutrality
http://www.vice.com/read/cables-companies-are-astroturfing-fake-consumer-support-to-end-net-neutrality
Consumer advocates everywhere are demanding that the Federal Communication Commission continue down its current path for shelving net neutrality and allowing a two-tiered internet. That is, if cable company-created front groups and other industry-funded organizations are to be believed.
To the surprise of probably no one, ISPs are enraged at the prospect of being classified as a utility and are fighting back. But the attacks are not fully transparent. Many of the organizations protesting a move toward classifying ISPs as a utility, which is the only likely option for enacting net neutrality, are funded by the ISP lobby.
Notably, Broadband for America’s most recent tax filing shows that it retained the DCI Group, an infamous lobbying firm that specializes in creating fake citizen groups on behalf of corporate campaigns.
Why would a self-professed consumer advocacy group not only oppose moving toward net neutrality but claim that America’s broadband market—one of the slowest, most expensive in the industrialized world with fewer than three choices in many parts of the country—is so great?
Perhaps because ACI, like Broadband for America, is financed by an ISP lobby group.