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:
Disposable fiber cleaver uses diamond wire rather than blade
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2014/06/3m-easycleaver.html?cmpid=EnlCIMJune302014
“The tool helps enable service providers and contractors to meet the increasing subscriber demand for fiber even faster.”
After 120 cleaves, users can dispose of the tool per their own company practice.
“We believe the Easy Cleaver will revolutionize installation of fiber to the home.”
“This new tool allows telecommunications service providers to put more cleavers in the hands of installers with no specialized training required, thereby increasing overall installation speed and breadth.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Millions of dynamic DNS users suffer after Microsoft seizes No-IP domains
Legitimate users caught in legal fire designed to take down botnets.
http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/06/millions-of-dymanic-dns-users-suffer-after-microsoft-seizes-no-ip-domains/
Millions of legitimate servers that rely on dynamic domain name services from No-IP.com suffered outages on Monday after Microsoft seized 22 domain names it said were being abused in malware-related crimes against Windows users.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The dark side of .io: How the U.K. is making web domain profits from a shady Cold War land deal
http://gigaom.com/2014/06/30/the-dark-side-of-io-how-the-u-k-is-making-web-domain-profits-from-a-shady-cold-war-land-deal/
The .io country code top-level domain is pretty popular right now, particularly among tech startups that want to take advantage of the snappy input/output reference and the relative availability of names — Fusion.io, Wise.io and Import.io are just a few examples. But who benefits from the sale of .io domains? Sadly, not the people who ultimately should.
While .tv brings in millions of dollars each year for the tiny South Pacific island nation of Tuvalu, and .me benefits Montenegro, the people of the British Indian Ocean Territory, or the Chagos Islands, have no such luck. Indeed, profits from the sale of each .io domain flow to the very force that expelled the Chagossian or Ilois people from their equatorial land just a generation or two ago: the British government.
Tomi Engdahl says:
HighTech: Garden Irrigation 2.0
Two Israeli start-up companies are developing the next wave of smart irrigation systems
http://www.i24news.tv/en/news/technology/35896-140630-hightech-garden-irrigation-2-0
From a country where every drop of water is precious and water conservation is a way of life, come two innovative start-ups that want to help you not only save money on your water bills, but also make your garden smarter and easier to maintain.
Since the 1960′s, drip irrigation has combined with the electronics and computer revolution to create computerized irrigation systems which are now sold and operated in commercial farms and millions of homes around the world.
Anybody who has ever used any irrigation controller, such as you can buy at almost any local hardware store and use to water your garden at specific time intervals, knows that setting those units up and changing them is a hassle. In an age where almost anything can be done using a simple app on your mobile device, most existing irrigation controllers looks like dinosaurs.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Data Centre > Data Networking
Microsoft, Google et al form club to push 25/50 Gbps Ethernet
New consortium plans faster Ethernet delivered faster than rival standard groups
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/07/02/ms_google_et_al_to_push_2550_gbps_ethernet/
A new consortium of vendors is firing up to give 25 Gbps and 50 Gbps Ethernet a push, in an effort to get the kind of performance demanded in cloud data centres.
While lab demonstrations have shown that Ethernet will one day be able to reach 400 Gbps, you need standards to turn speed into systems, and that’s what Microsoft, Mellanox, Arista Networks, Broadcom and Google want to achieve with their 25G Ethernet Consortium.
The consortium is putting forward “a specification optimized to allow data center networks to run over a 25 or 50 Gigabit per second (Gbps) Ethernet link protocol”, the group’s statement says.
Ethernet specification that boosts the performance and slashes the interconnect cost per Gbps between the server Network Interface Controller (NIC) and Top-of-Rack (ToR) switch”.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sydney wallows in cesspit of WiFi obsolescence and ignorance
World of Warbiking WiFi sniffing peloton finds lots of unsecured connections
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/07/02/sydney_wallowing_in_cesspit_of_wifi_obsolescence/
Sophos has brought its Raspberry-Pi-powered World of Warbiking WiFi-sniffing peloton to Sydney and found, as it does everywhere around the world, that some people just can’t be bothered with WiFi security.
In London, the penetrative peloton found 29.5 per cent were using either the dud Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) algorithm, or nothing.
Sydney fared a little better, with just 3.98 per cent running WEP and 23.85 running naked. Wi-Fi Protected Access II (WPA 2) was the most prevalent protocol, with 44.02 per cent of the 34.476 networks found along a 4.2 km route
Sophos’ peloton has, to date, visited London, Hanoi, Las Vegas and San Francisco. Results from all cities are quite similar: there’s a fair bit of WEP around the world, less WPA-2 and HTTPs than is sensible and a lot of people who either don’t care or don’t know to care about doing better.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Telecom Managed Services Vendors Ericsson and Huawei Locked in an Epic Struggle, Each With 30% of the US$ 13B Market
https://www.abiresearch.com/press/telecom-managed-services-vendors-ericsson-and-huaw
ABI Research finds that “slow and steady” describes the overall 2013 Telecom Network Managed Services market, but notes fierce competition among the vendors.Based on full-year reporting and analysis, ABI Research finds the leading vendors have reaped the benefits from an industry in rationalization turmoil.The top three vendors continue to improve their execution skills and now account for 85% of total Telecom Managed Services revenues.
“Managed Services is an industry where scale and execution are everything,” says Joe Hoffman, mobile networks practice director, “and we expect the The Rule of Three and Four will continue to sculpt the landscape.”
The vendors are not simply competing on price, though cost-effective performance is a key metric. Rather, they are expanding their portfolio of services for which operators gladly off-load.
Tomi Engdahl says:
BCG Classics Revisited: The Rule of Three and Four
https://www.bcgperspectives.com/content/articles/business_unit_strategy_the_rule_of_three_and_four_bcg_classics_revisited/
To mark The Boston Consulting Group’s fiftieth anniversary, BCG’s Strategy Institute is taking a fresh look at some of BCG’s classic thinking on strategy to gauge its relevance to today’s business environment. This first in a planned series of articles examines “The Rule of Three and Four,” a Perspective written by BCG founder, Bruce Henderson, in 1976.
“stable, competitive” industry will never have more than three significant competitors. Moreover, that industry structure will find equilibrium when the market shares of the three companies reach a ratio of approximately 4:2:1.
For corporate decision-makers, the rule of three and four has important implications. First, an understanding of the industry environment is critical. Is the industry one in which classical “rules” of strategy, such as the rule of three and four, apply, or does it demand an alternative—for example, an adaptive—approach?
As we have seen, the rule of three and four remains relevant more than three decades after its conception—in a business environment that is, in many respects, profoundly different—and its implications continue to provide guidance for decision makers working in environments where classical business strategies hold. For companies in increasingly unstable environments, a new set of rules applies, calling for more adaptive approaches to strategy.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Time Warner Cable customers beg regulators to block sale to Comcast
Fears of monopoly power, data caps, and price hikes raised in public comments.
http://arstechnica.com/business/2014/07/time-warner-cable-customers-beg-regulators-to-block-sale-to-comcast/
New York is shaping up as a major battleground for Comcast’s proposed acquisition of Time Warner Cable (TWC). While the $45.2 billion merger will be scrutinized by federal officials, it also needs approval at the state level.
TWC has 2.2 million cable TV, Internet, and phone customers in 1,150 New York communities, and hundreds of them have called on the New York Public Service Commission (PSC) to block the sale to Comcast.
“Both Time Warner Cable and Comcast already have monopolies in each and every territory in which they do business today, and combining the companies will reinforce those individual territorial monopolies under a single corporate umbrella, with NBC-Universal thrown in to boot,” resident Frank Brice argued in a comment to the PSC posted yesterday.
Tomi Engdahl says:
US sues T-Mobile, says carrier made millions off “bogus” cramming fees
FTC: T-Mobile buried SMS charges in 50-page bills, should pay back victims.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/07/us-sues-t-mobile-says-carrier-made-millions-off-bogus-cramming-fees/
The Federal Trade Commission today accused T-Mobile US of issuing “bogus charges” to mobile phone customers and making hundreds of millions of dollars in the process.
The charges, which T-Moibile disputes, concern “premium” SMS subscriptions that in many cases were not authorized by customers, the FTC said in an announcement.
“In a process known as ‘third-party billing,’ a phone company places charges on a consumer’s bill for services offered by another company, often receiving a substantial percentage of the amount charged,” the FTC said. “When the charges are placed on the bill without the consumer’s authorization, it is known as ‘cramming.’”
T-Mobile is accused of billing customers for “services” offered by alleged mobile cramming operations including Jesta Digital, Wise Media, and Tatto Inc.
According to today’s complaint, T-Mobile “earned hundreds of millions of dollars from Third-Party Subscriptions” and “T-Mobile’s practices have caused consumers millions of dollars of injury.”
“T-Mobile claimed that consumers had authorized the charges despite having no proof of consumers doing so,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Virgin Media struck dumb by NATIONWIDE DNS outage
Customers fume: ‘Basic infrastructure – get a grip’
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/07/02/virgin_media_nationwide_dns_outage/
Virgin Media customers were kicked offline last night, after a DNS blunder from the cable company disrupted its network on Tuesday.
It comes after rival BT suffered a similar, widespread technical cockup over the weekend.
Virgin Media, which is owned by US telecoms giant Liberty Global, coughed to a “nationwide DNS outage” on its Twitter account this morning when quizzed by irate subscribers.
“I flipped to Google’s DNS and that’s working fine, so it appears to only be the DNS service,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Open Rights Group finds that one in five websites is blocked by an ISP filter
Overzealousness on a censor list
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2353174/open-rights-group-finds-that-one-in-five-websites-is-blocked-by-an-isp-s-filter
AN INTERNET STUDY performed by the Open Rights Group (ORG) has found that one in every five websites that it looked at is blocked by one ISP censorship system or another.
ORG looked at some 100,000 websites and found that around 20,000 of them are unavailable through some service providers. This one in five figure is high, and the group found that some seemingly innocuous webpages are filtered.
“The government is promoting filters to prevent children and young people from seeing content that is supposed to be for over 18s. This includes pornography and sites that talk about alcohol, smoking, anorexia and hate speech,” said the Open Rights Group.
“In practice, filters block many sites that are not harmful to children. Sometimes, they are blocked by mistake. Sometimes, they are blocked deliberately. For example, many blogs and forums are blocked by default.”
“Different ISPs are blocking different sites and the result is that many people, from businesses to bloggers, are being affected because people can’t access their websites.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
The automotive and mobile industries have been drawn together by the unstoppable rise of the Connected Car.
Industry forecasts are impossible to ignore. By 2022 there will be 1.8 billion automotive M2M connections. This will comprise 700 million Connected Cars and 1.1 billion aftermarket devices for services such as navigation, usage-based insurance, stolen vehicle recovery (SVR) and infotainment.
The next ten years will see connectivity become the norm in vehicles. Today, this market comprises primarily aftermarket devices. However, the next few years will see a significant market shift, as the number of cars with built-in connectivity platforms increases significantly. In fact, Machina Research predicts that by 2020, 90% of new cars will feature such a platform, growing from less than 10% today.
Overall, the M2M market in the automotive sector will generate a staggering $422 billion in 2022, up from $22 billion in 2012. Today, 59% of this revenue is accounted for by services, including both the connectivity and the applications supported by it. By 2022 that will grow to 88%.
The success of the Connected Car requires mobile network operators (MNOs), and automotive OEMs to work in harmony. However, the two have radically different heritages and different approaches.
The structures of the sectors are very different.
Over the last twelve months, MNOs’ M2M teams have become sharply focused on meeting the requirements (particularly from automotive OEMs) for global coverage.
All MNOs can nominally serve any device in any country in the world through roaming or the slightly more sophisticated MCC-901 global SIM. This was acceptable for roaming handset users, but is not sufficient for the demands of the Connected Car.
Existing roaming rates are simply incompatible with the high-bandwidth applications envisaged for the Connected Car
Rather than being an adjunct to a national or regional offering, they have had to rethink their approach and consider how their solution can be applied and delivered on a global scale.
In most cases this also goes hand-in-hand with the second element they have introduced; remote OTA (over the air) provisioning. This will facilitate connection to a local network and IMSI swapping (for multiple MNO accounts) where necessary.
One of the major challenges with built-in connectivity in cars is future-proofing the radio access network (RAN) technology.
Firstly, automotive OEMs want to be up to date and upgrade cycles are rapid for RANs.
Secondly, automotive OEMs do not want to rely on a technology that may be switched off.
So what are the solutions to this problem of redundancy? There is no simple cure but a blend of tactics can help automotive OEMs: adopting multi-mode techniques and using a range of technologies; ensuring devices are OTA provision-able and will switch; or adopting LTE early to future proof for 5-10 years.
Another possibility is upgradeable licensing.
A significant proportion of the cost of adding 3G and even LTE into a device is licensing cost
Source: http://websrvc.net/2013/telefonica/Telefonica%20Digital_Connected_Car_Machina_Overview_English.pdf
Tomi Engdahl says:
ITU began work on a real-time flight data
International Telecommunications Union, ITU has undertaken to work in a real-time flight data to improve the system. Now, the organization has established a working group flight data for the development of cloud computing applications.
The project was initiated Maleysia Airlines MH370 aircraft loss on March 8. Maleas Communications Ahmad Shabery Cheek of April ITU to develop better technology for the flights could be constantly monitored.
Work will be performed in close cooperation with the International Civil Aviation Organization, ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization), ICT suppliers, aircraft manufacturers, airlines and other standardization organizations.
The group will explore the next stage of cloud computing new developments and data analytics to enable powerful real-time flight data recovery would be possible. The working group produced technical reports and presentations prepared on the basis of flight data to a cloud service standard.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1547:itu-aloitti-reaaliaikaisen-lentodatan-tyostamisen&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
5G – 5 gigabits a new frequency
Ericsson says it has demoed fifth generation of mobile technology, which is already in the bank achieved a five-gigabit data rates. The demo was used in the new 15 GHz frequency.
5g technology pre-standardizing will start as early as next year. The actual standardization work will start in 2017. Standardization work is done in 3GPP Release 12 under the new working group.
Frequency question will be one of 5g-development of the main problems. It is estimated that by the year 2020, you need at least 500 MHz of new spectrum. Since the spectrum of production has been discontinued, this is likely to mean that the mobile networks need to take over six gigahertz range.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1554:5g-5-gigabittia-uudella-taajuudella&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ubiquiti Networks Launches mFi In-Wall Manageable Devices
by Ganesh T S on July 2, 2014 3:49 PM EST
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8233/ubiquiti-networks-launches-mfi-inwall-manageable-devices
With the Internet of Things (IoT) revolution underway, consumers want the ability to control devices in an automated and easy manner. The home automation market has also received a fillip recently, thanks to efforts from some high-profile vendors. Ubiquiti Networks is tackling the IoT market from the enterprise / SMB side. Due to the nature of that market segment, Ubiquiti’s building automation product line (mFi) is loaded with features, and is quite flexible too.
The mFi-MPW is similar to the mFi mPower in terms of providing electrical outlets with remote switching (over Wi-Fi) and energy monitoring capabilities. The only difference is its in-wall design which allows users to replace the existing wall outlets while gaining automation aspects.
The second device provides new functionality by acting as a switch / dimmer.
While basic control and monitoring can be achieved via the web-interface, the usage of the mFi Controller Software allows for setting up scenes and other home automation aspects. SSH access is available
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft Backs Open Source For the Internet of Things
http://news.slashdot.org/story/14/07/02/224207/microsoft-backs-open-source-for-the-internet-of-things
Microsoft has joined a Linux Foundation effort to create an open platform for the Internet of Things. The AllSeen Alliance is an effort to standardize device communications. The code that it champions, called AllJoyn, was initially developed by Qualcomm but was subsequently made open source. Big vendors have been recruited to support it, and the AllSeen Alliance now includes LG, Panasonic, Sharp and Haier, among others. Its Xbox gaming platform is seen as a potential hub or control center for home devices
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft backs open source for the Internet of Things
Joining the AllSeen Alliance could help turn Xbox into a home control hub
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9249530/Microsoft_backs_open_source_for_the_Internet_of_Things
The Linux Foundation, a nonprofit consortium that promotes Linux adoption, late last year announced the creation of the AllSeen Alliance to promote an open source code framework to enable devices to discover one another and then connect and interact.
Many big vendors are separately building their own platforms for device-to-device communications, and the lack of a standardized approach could hinder the development of the Internet of Things.
The AllSeen Alliance is an effort to standardize device communications.
There are now 51 organizations in the alliance, with Microsoft the latest.
“The addition of Microsoft to the alliance is certainly a boost to the growing array of companies joining the AllSeen effort,” said Andy Castonguay, an analyst at Machina Research, a Reading, England-based research firm focusing on machine-to-machine (M2M) communications and the Internet of Things.
Microsoft’s leadership in computing “and its significant Xbox business make it a potentially important contributor to the AllSeen ecosystem,” said Castonguay.
Microsoft is interested in home automation and recently announced an agreement to work with an insurance company on home automation technology. Its Xbox gaming platform is seen as a potential hub or control center for home devices.
With Apple, Samsung and others “still developing their own independent strategies, the industry is yet again poised to create a Tower of Babel situation in terms of interdevice communications,” said Castonguay.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Qualcomm buys Wilocity to put gigabit wireless connections in smartphones
http://gigaom.com/2014/07/02/qualcomm-buys-wilocity-to-put-gigabit-wireless-connections-in-smartphones/
Wilocity makes super-fast WiGig chips that can support 4K video streaming and instantaneous transfer of huge media files. With this acquisition, Qualcomm is moving the technology into mobile phones and tablets.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft, Google form Ethernet consortium for datacenter networks
http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-google-form-ethernet-consortium-for-datacenter-networks-7000031154/
Summary: Microsoft, Google and other firms have come together to form the 25 Gigabit Ethernet Consortium with the aim of improving cloud datacenter networks.
Announced this week, the new 25 Gigabit Ethernet Consortium’s members include Arista Networks, Broadcom, Google, Mellanox Technologies and Microsoft. The aim of the consortium is to create standards for both 25 Gigabit Ethernet and 50 Gigabit Ethernet, which are necessary in order to convert speed into systems. This kind of performance is becoming increasingly important due to the expansion of cloud technology, and in particular, to optimize datacenters.
The consortium was formed after plans to create official Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) specifications stalled at a meeting last March, due to a perceived lack of support.
The consortium members predict that technology based on these standards could hit the market within the next 12 to 18 months.
Tomi Engdahl says:
HDMI, thy end is near: Qualcomm’s Wilocity gobble will let mobes, tabs beam 4K vid to TVs
WiGig-Wi-Fi crossover to knock your SoCs off
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/07/03/qualcomm_swallows_wilocity_promises_wigigwifi_crossover_chip/
Qualcomm has snapped up WiGig pioneer Wilocity so it combine traditional Wi-Fi and super-fast 802.11ad on a single chunk of Snapdragon silicon for mobile gadgets.
“WiGig will play an important role in Qualcomm’s strategy to address consumers’ increasingly sophisticated smartphone, tablet and computing requirements,” said Amir Faintuch, president of Qualcomm Atheros, in a canned statement.
“A little-known fact is that WiGig began during a meeting on Microsoft’s campus with several other companies, including Wilocity,”
802.11ad, or WiGig is capable of shifting multiple gigabits of data per second, up to 7Gbps in fact, albeit only within a range of a few feet, thanks to the 60GHz spectrum it uses.
This makes the combination Snapdragon 810 SoC Qualcomm is touting a very handy addition – you can use regular 802.11ac Wi-Fi when you’re away from the router and then get blistering speeds close up.
This is also handy for beaming hi-res video, such as 4K material, from, say, your tablet to your TV, thus dooming HDMI ports to oblivion … perhaps.
Tomi Engdahl says:
DOH! Google’s internet of things vision is powered by… Mac OS
This dogfood tastes of Apple
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/26/google_mac_powered_vision/
presentation on the Internet of Things, wearable tech and smart machines at last week’s Cloud World Forum.
Where were the Chromebooks? Or did someone blow a fruit-shaped hole in the cover of the presenter’s laptop?
Which raises two questions: has peace broken out in the valley?
Tomi Engdahl says:
FCC Proposal To Limit Access To 5725-5850 MHz Band
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/14/07/03/1755255/fcc-proposal-to-limit-access-to-5725-5850-mhz-band
New rules adopted by the FCC will greatly limit the amount of bandwidth available in the unlicensed U-NII band used to deliver internet to rural areas
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hayley Tsukayama / Washington Post:
Pew study: biggest threats to internet in next 20 years are government and online corporations
Researchers asked 1,400 experts to describe the biggest threats to the Web. Here’s what they said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/07/03/researchers-asked-1400-experts-to-describe-the-biggest-threats-to-the-web-heres-what-they-said/
What are the biggest threats to the Internet in the next 20 years? According to experts canvassed by Pew, the biggest threats aren’t a rise in hacking attacks or new waves of Internet crime. They’re government and big online corporations.
Control and consolidation were the top threats for experts canvassed by Pew’s Internet and American Life Project in a study published Thursday.
The majority pointed to government surveillance, restrictive regulation and corporate greed as the things most likely to kill the idea that the Web is a free-flowing network of information. Plenty expressed concern that the Internet will fracture due to government policies, such as those that limit access to the Web as some governments did during the Arab Spring, aggressive intellectual property laws or even well-meaning policies in Canada and Australia that aggressively filter all Internet traffic to combat child pornography. These efforts, experts said, cross the line — or at least flirt with it.
“Because of governance issues (and the international implications of the NSA reveals), data sharing will get geographically fragmented in challenging ways. The next few years are going to be about control,”
“It is very possible we will see the principle of net neutrality undermined,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
TI’s New Family Of WiFi Chips
http://hackaday.com/2014/07/04/tis-new-family-of-wifi-chips/
Texas Instruments’ CC3000 WiFi chip is the darling of everyone producing the latest and greatest Internet of Thing, and it’s not much of a surprise: In quantity, these chips are only $10 a piece. That’s a lot less expensive than the WiFi options a year ago. Now, TI is coming out with a few new modules to their WiFi module family, including one that includes an ARM micro.
The CC3000 has found a home in booster packs, breakout boards for the Arduino, and Spark
CC3100Boost board and was pleased to find all the files for the webserver can be completely replaced. Here’s your Internet of Things, people.
The CC3200 is even better, with a built-in ARM Cortex M4 with ADCs, a ton of GPIOs
you can get an eval module from TI
Tomi Engdahl says:
New building materials reduce the mobile phone signal in both new and renovated old houses.
Over the past year, for example, the Helsinki fishing harbor in new residential buildings, several residents have complained of poor or non-existent coverage indoors. According to the Office Communications quick solutions to the problem does not exist. What to do?
Some of the frustrated and resorts to signal that strengthens their own, illegal mobile repeater.
Mobile phone repeaters in Finland are subject to authorization but permits shall be allocated only to telecom operators. Individuals therefore can not install a repeater in any situation. Yet mobile repeater has been in the consumer market as long as there have been mobile networks. Today, repeaters find, among other things Finnish online stores.
Low quality repeater hardware can leave the repeater to oscillate due to various reasons, and will then cause a signal interference, which can impact both on their own and in other mobile communication networks. In addition to low-quality disturbance signal repeaters may be due to incorrect installation. Typically, the maintenance of the repeater illegal punishable by a penalty fine.
Source: http://www.digitoday.fi/mobiili/2014/07/04/uudessa-talossa-kannykkamotti-la-odota-nopeaa-apua/20149403/66?rss=6
Tomi Engdahl says:
UK.gov: Forget Google and those other chaps… Use THIS open Internet of Stuff specification
‘HyperCat has a strong security model; it’s the same one the web uses’
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/26/hypercat_internet_of_things/
The Internet of Things is all a question of semantics, according to a government-backed consortium that includes mega tech players like BT, IBM and ARM.
IoT is a “hype term” that within 10 years will simply be referred to as the internet, the boss of start-up 1248 Pilgrim Beart claimed during a presser at the House of Lords on Thursday.
He also said that too many proprietary devices were being developed that had created “vertical silos” with APIs being coded differently. Beart said that clusters of companies got together supported by £6.4m funded by the taxpayer to address that issue.
The end goal is to make machine-to-machine gadgets talk to each other much more easily by opening up data access.
“The first thing everyone said was: well, interoperability is easy, just look at our platforms,”
Eventually, the consortium – which is made up of more than 40 Blighty-based tech firms – came up with a new open IoT specification, dubbed HyperCat.
The specification can browse machines, searches by metadata and uses standards such as HTTPS, Restful APIs and JSON as a data format.
“What HyperCat does is it unlocks the ability to ‘Google’ IoT data effectively. You can now crawl it, you can index it, you can do all the things that machines might do,” said Beart.
“HyperCat does not solve every possible IoT interoperability problem by design, it’s a very thin layer. All it does is solve the discovery problem,” he added.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The government’s consortium, which includes 40 tech firms from IBM to ARM, reckon the open specification should help IoT devices to find each other in the world, using metadata and standards like HTTPS, Restful APIs and JSON. HyperCat mouthpiece and boss of start-up 1248 Pilgrim Beart told a presser:
What HyperCat does is it unlocks the ability to ‘Google’ IoT data effectively. You can now crawl it, you can index it, you can do all the things that machines might do. HyperCat does not solve every possible IoT interoperability problem by design, it’s a very thin layer. All it does is solve the discovery problem.
So, it’s awesome and Tim Berners-Lee-inspired, but is it safe? Beart thinks so:
HyperCat has a very strong security model; it’s a very simple one. It’s the same one the web uses.
Ah. Right you are then. Anything else?
But privacy is a much more complex problem because that is about humans deciding who sees what under certain circumstances.
John Styles reckoned the idea that HyperCat might be using the same security as the web could be a late April’s Fool and many others agreed.
As secure as HTTP. Woohoo.
Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/07/04/quotw_ending_july_4/
Tomi Engdahl says:
A GSM Base Station With Software Defined Radio
http://hackaday.com/2014/07/05/a-gsm-base-station-with-software-defined-radio/
It’s a GSM base station made with a BeagleBone Black and a not too expensive software defined radio board.
The key component of this build is obviously the software defined radio. [Julian] is using a USRP B200 radio for this project. It’s not cheap, but it is a very nice piece of hardware capable of doing just about anything with GNU Radio. This board is controlled by a BeagleBone Black, a pretty cheap solution that puts the total cost of the hardware somewhere around $750.
The software side of the build is mostly handled by OpenBTS, the open source project for the software part of a cell station.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google gently tells users to blame ISPs for poor YouTube performance
http://www.theverge.com/2014/7/6/5874945/google-gently-tells-users-to-blame-isps-for-poor-youtube-performance
Google is now gently suggesting who users should blame when YouTube videos fail to stream smoothly. A new pop-up bar that reads “Experiencing interruptions? Find out why” is now showing under some YouTube videos when playback gets choppy. Clicking on the bar takes users to Google’s relatively new Video Quality Report page, which provides information on internet service providers, including details on video streaming performance.
Tomi Engdahl says:
YouTube reveals which US internet providers are best and worst at streaming
http://www.theverge.com/2014/5/29/5761404/youtube-brings-video-quality-report-to-united-states
117
inShare
Starting today, internet providers in the United States will finally be held to account for lackluster YouTube streaming speeds. Google has brought its Video Quality Report — first launched in Canada at the start of this year — to the US, and is now ranking ISPs like Cablevision and Verizon FiOS based on the fidelity of their YouTube streams. If you’ve been experiencing buffering issues or playback interruptions despite paying for a speedy internet connection, this monthly report could help answer the lingering question of why.
You’ll know which ISPs are faring best because they’re labeled as “HD Verified.” This means that customers can expect reliable streams of at least 720p; apparently setting the bar at 1080p was too great of a challenge for these companies to meet.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Methodology
How we verify that an Internet Provider can consistently serve YouTube in HD.
http://www.google.com/get/videoqualityreport/#methodology
Tomi Engdahl says:
Smart LED light bulbs leak wi-fi passwords
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28208905
Security experts have demonstrated how easy it is to hack network-enabled LED light bulbs.
Context Security released details about how it was able to hack into the wi-fi network of one brand of network-enabled bulb, and control the lights remotely.
The LIFX light bulb, which is available to buy in the UK, has network connectivity to let people turn it on and off with their smartphones.
The firm behind the bulbs has since fixed the vulnerability.
“We were able to steal credentials for the wireless network, which in turn meant we could control the lights.”
The LIFX project started off on crowd-funding website Kickstarter. Billing itself as the “light bulb reinvented”, it brought in over 13 times its original funding target.
The master bulb receives commands from the smartphone applications and broadcasts them to all the other bulbs over a wireless mesh network
Tomi Engdahl says:
Alcatel-Lucent’s XG-FAST Pushes 10,000Mbps Over Copper Phone Lines
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/14/07/09/1522243/alcatel-lucents-xg-fast-pushes-10000mbps-over-copper-phone-lines
The Bell Labs R&D division of telecoms giant Alcatel-Lucent has today claimed to set a new world record after they successfully pushed “ultra-broadband” speeds of 10,000 Megabits per second (Mbps) down a traditional copper telephone line using XG-FAST technology, which is an extension of G.fast (ITU G.9700).
G.fast is a hybrid-fiber technology, which is designed to deliver Internet speeds of up to 1000Mbps over runs of copper cable (up to around 250 meters via 106MHz+ radio spectrum).
Tomi Engdahl says:
World Record as Alcatel-Lucent Push 10Gbps Broadband Down Copper Lines
Posted Wednesday, July 9th, 2014 (9:43 am) by Mark Jackson (Score 723)
http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2014/07/world-record-alcatel-lucent-push-10gbps-broadband-via-copper-phone-lines.html
The prototype XG-FAST tech, which also demonstrated how existing copper access networks could be used to deliver symmetrical speeds of 1Gbps (Gigabits per second) or 1000Mbps if you prefer, is described as being an “extension” of G.fast (aka – FTTC2 / ITU G.9700) technology that can provide Internet connection speeds which are “indistinguishable” from fibre optic Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) services.
Currently BT uses Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC) technology in the United Kingdom to deliver speeds of up to 80Mbps, which works by replacing the existing copper cable between street cabinets and your local telephone exchange with a fibre optic line.
By comparison G.fast adopts a similar approach but it’s designed to take even better advantage of the latest advancements (e.g. Vectoring 2.0 to reduce crosstalk interference), which would allow it to operate at speeds of up to 1Gbps, albeit only by using higher frequencies (106MHz+) and over even shorter runs of copper cable (up to 250 metres).
XG-FAST goes a lot further than G.fast in the sense that it uses an increased frequency range up to 500MHz in order to achieve higher speeds, but crucially this would be over even shorter distances
Bell Labs achieved 1Gbps symmetrical over just 70 meters on a single copper pair and 10Gbps was achieved over a distance of 30 meters by using two pairs of lines (bonding).
Tomi Engdahl says:
Medical Devices Require Radiation-Tolerant Memory
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1323022&
One of the biggest subsets of the Internet of Things is wearables, and within that segment are devices that monitor health and physical activity. While many of these applications are aimed at consumers who want to track fitness and other measurements of the quantified self, there are also specialized medical applications that are more focused and complex.
Flash memory, such as NOR flash and SPI flash memory, has found use in portable medical devices that include heart-rate monitors, blood analyzers, digital thermometers, and portable defibrillators. A great deal of focus is put on form factor and power consumption of memory — how do you provide enough computing power in a small device and extend battery life?
But in the case of medical devices, there’s also the issue of safety, especially with the advent of smarter devices that are worn close to or can be implanted in the human body. Many of these devices include wireless communication, so standards have been developed to ensure the safety of those wearing devices. The IEEE 802.15.6-2012 standard, for example, addresses security, reliability, power, quality of service, data rate, and interference protection so these wireless devices and sensors can be used for medical purposes.
Radiation has always been a threat to memory technologies
Adesto CEO Narbeh Derhacobian said there is no memory technology today that can survive sterilization through radiation, and this has been a barrier to putting more intelligence into medical devices.
Craven said CBRAM’s tolerance to radiation opens up the medical device world for a whole set of new possibilities
Tomi Engdahl says:
The new EU Directive on the number of co-operators – network construction costs down
High-speed communications is desired to reduce construction costs through the introduction of broadband co-construction of the Directive. The Directive applies to all infrastructure-support networks, explains in a recent release.
The construction joint, the Directive is to promote a variety of infrastructure for maintaining network infrastructure sharing and construction. The aim is also simpler and more coherent approach to the authorization process when the high-speed broadband networks installed in new buildings and redevelopment.
Networks, as a general rule, the Directive gives the right to take advantage of other network operators’ infrastructure on reasonable terms. Other network operators have an obligation to accept requests for broadband operators.
Approved in the EU Directive in Finland to bring into force by the beginning of 2016.
Source: http://www.tivi.fi/kaikki_uutiset/uusi+eudirektiivi+maaraa+operaattorit+yhteistyohon++verkon+rakentamiskustannukset+alas/a997503
Tomi Engdahl says:
Spark Labs Raises $4.9 Million For An Internet Of Things OS
http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/08/spark-io-raises-4-9-million-series-for-an-internet-of-things-os/?ncid=rss&cps=gravity
Spark Labs, the same folks who made this open-source Nest-like thermostat, has raised $4.9 million in Series A funding
Spark Labs develops two main products, the $39 Spark Core (which is a tiny development kit for creating IoT devices) and the SparkCloud (a platform that allows these Internet-connected devices to connect to each other and communicate). Today, the company has announced a third product called Spark OS, which allows developers to integrate their projects with an open-source OS, compatible with iOS and Android.
The company has already shipped around 25,000 units of the Spark Core, and Spark Labs also offers a more intensive maker kit complete with the Spark Core, breadboard, jumper wires, resistors, capacitors, sensors, buttons, LEDs, and more for $99.
See, the key to Spark’s products is that they’re easy enough for a n00b to enjoy, but sophisticated enough for even enterprise customers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
BlackBerry Reveals Project Ion, Its QNX-Powered Effort To Underpin The Internet Of Things
http://techcrunch.com/2014/05/21/blackberry-reveals-project-ion-its-qnx-powered-effort-to-underpin-the-internet-of-things/
BlackBerry is mostly discussed in terms of its slow decline in the global smartphone market, which it once pioneered. But it acquired QNX in 2010, and that would provide the basis not only for its BlackBerry 10 smartphone operating system, but also for the platform underlying a huge percentage of in-car infotainment systems. BlackBerry envisioned QNX extending to a still-wider range of devices to underpin the growth of the Internet of Things, and now it’s formalizing those efforts under its newly announced Project Ion.
Project Ion consists of multiple efforts designed to promote Internet of Things development, including a secure application platform based on QNX designed to gather data from across a range of devices and operating environments; relationship building between partners, carriers and app developers; and strategic partnership with industry organizations including the Industrial Internet Consortium and the Application Developers Alliance.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Deutsche Telekom’s Incubator Launches IoT Bootcamp. Because Hardware.
http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/11/hubraum-iot-bootcamp/
A whole host of connected hardware accelerators have cropped up in the last year in Europe and beyond, and now, Deutsche Telekom’s incubator, wants in on the action. It’s running a three-day Internet of Things (IoT) “bootcamp” in Berlin next month and is currently inviting hopeful IoT startups from anywhere in the world to apply.
Tomi Engdahl says:
AT&T Slowly Expanding “Toll-Free” Data Trial, but Still No Big-Name Customers
http://recode.net/2014/07/10/att-slowly-expanding-toll-free-data-trial-but-still-no-big-name-customers/
AT&T grabbed a lot of attention back in January when it announced plans to offer companies the option to pay for data used by their customers.
Since then? Crickets.
However, AT&T has been gradually adding a few smaller names to the pilot program launched earlier this year.
So-called sponsored data is designed to work like a toll-free number did in the landline days. In this case, the sponsor foots the bill for the consumer to use certain services without having the resulting data use count against his or her monthly limit.
Seattle-area startup Syntonic Wireless is announcing on Thursday that it is now a part of the AT&T effort and plans to launch a sponsored content marketplace that will allow smartphone owners to see a range of available content that won’t count against their monthly data cap.
Tomi Engdahl says:
[Matt] from Electric Imp put together a very short demo of a sample THP entry. It’s a ‘HACKING’ light, kind of like an ‘on air’ light you’d find in a TV or Radio studio
Do Not Disturb Widget
https://community.electricimp.com/blog/do-not-disturb-widget/
Let’s get the ball rolling! The hardware on this project is dirt simple – an LED and a button. The button will toggle the state of the LED, as well as send messages to it’s agent. The hardware in this project is intentionally simple..
Electric Imp code is always split into two parts: device code (code that runs locally on the imp), and agent code (code that runs on Electric Imp’s servers). The device code will configure our GPIO pins, and setup the callback/behaviour for our button.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How Internet Providers Get Around War Zones
Internet disruptions wreak havoc on global economies. Avoiding them is dangerous, but lucrative.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/josephbernstein/how-internet-providers-get-around-war-zones
And shipping accidents are hardly the only hazards associated with running fiber-optic cable through the Middle East. It’s a very real possibility that an act of war — a bombing or a firefight — in one of the most unstable regions in the world could literally disrupt bulk financial transactions running between skyscrapers in London and Abu Dhabi.
The economic consequences of such an outage are obvious and devastating, and they don’t only hurt big banks. Take just India, with its booming virtual outsourcing sector, enormously reliant on dependable internet. By some reports, 60 million people in India were affected by the 2008 disruption.
In the wake of the 2008 disruption, companies on both ends of the Mediterranean route began clamoring for redundancy, or the creation of alternative network links from Europe to Asia. And over the past half-decade, a series of enormous European and Asian telecom consortia have done just that, building four new overland fiber-optic pathways to link Europe to the financial hubs of the Persian Gulf and the booming economies of South Asia.
Ultimately, the only way for corporate and institutional interests to make sure that they don’t suffer outages in the future is to make the sources of internet they buy access to as diverse as possible. That way no single act of man or nature proves so catastrophic as to repeat the disastrous disruptions of 2008.
Or, as Cowie said, “The remedy for all of these is politically neutral”: More cable.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Confirmed: Comcast Acquired PowerCloud Systems, Gears Up For Smart Home Play
http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/14/comcast-skydog/
I have now confirmed that Comcast has indeed acquired PowerCloud Systems, a spinoff from PARC that developed hardware and software to monitor broadband usage in your home or office.
Comcast will not be resuscitating Skydog (a home WiFi monitoring hardware and app) or other products from PowerCloud. Rather, the idea, from what I understand, will be for Comcast to take some of that technology, and the people who created it, for them to work on a bigger “smart Internet” strategy (that’s the term used internally). As carriers continue to look for ways to be more than commoditized bit pipes, this will be part of Comcast’s wider technology play, and will include developing a product similar to Skydog but effectively able to connect with, monitor and manage all connected hardware in the home.
Comcast — the cable, broadcasting and Internet giant in the middle of buying Time Warner cable for $45 billion – is also honing the products that will help it sell more broadband services when (and if) that deal gets completed. As part of that strategy, Comcast has quietly acquired PowerCloud Systems, the company behind, Skydog, a WiFi router and app that lets users monitor and modify how broadband is used in their homes.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Led By Nest, ‘Thread’ Might Be Most Promising IoT Initiative Yet
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/14/07/15/1232223/led-by-nest-thread-might-be-most-promising-iot-initiative-yet
Nest, Big A%@ Fans, Yale door locks, ARM, Freescale, Samsung and Silicon Labs launch the Thread Group, a standards initiative for using 6LoWPAN-based network technology with mesh capabilities optimized for home automation. Because it blends IPv6 with low-power 802.15.4 radios, a layer of security, peer-to-peer communications, and other special sauce for whole-house connectivity, Thread looks extremely promising
Tomi Engdahl says:
Led by Nest, ‘Thread’ for Home Automation is Most Promising IoT Standard Yet
http://www.cepro.com/article/led_by_nest_thread_for_home_automation_is_most_promising_iot_standard_yet/
Thread Group, launched today by Nest, Big Ass Fans, Yale and major chip makers, presents mesh network for 6LoWPAN; millions of deployments in the field already via Nest Weave.
It’s hard to introduce a new “standard” for home automation or Internet of Things without being laughed out of the (enlightened) media, but this new protocol called Thread is the most exciting initiative I’ve seen since Z-Wave. And I’ve been doing this for 20 years.
That’s because Thread takes the most ubiquitous networking protocol on the planet – IP – and turns it into a mesh network to optimize coverage and performance. Specifically, Thread is based on 6LoWPAN, the low-power wireless protocol that delivers IPv6 over an 802.15.4 radio – the same radio used for ZigBee.
The new technology comes from the Thread Group (managed by Inventures), whose seven founders include chip makers and product manufacturers alike: ARM, Big Ass Fans, Freescale Semiconductor, Nest Labs, Samsung Electronics (chip division, not CE), Silicon Labs, and Yale Security.
In addition to bringing mesh to 6LoWPAN, Thread adds a layer of security, enables point-to-point communications, and provides schemes for optimizing battery life.
Not coincidentally, Thread borrows from the (previously?) proprietary Nest protocol called Weave, which also is based on 6LoWPAN and also adds “special sauce,” the likes of which can be found in Thread.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How recycled cellphones can prevent illegal tree-chopping in the rainforest
Environmental awareness is very popular — everyone seems to be going green lately. Sometimes we get so wrapped up in protecting our own communities that we forget the world outside of our own.
http://www.electronicproducts.com/Computer_Systems/Modules/How_recycled_cellphones_can_prevent_illegal_tree_chopping_in_the_rainforest.aspx
Rainforest Connection, a San Francisco-based nonprofit with a new Kickstarter campaign, is converting old phones into devices that can detect illegal logging and poaching in the rainforest in real time.
Company founder Topher White and his team have developed a prevention system using a network of recycled devices such as Android handsets and fragments of solar panels that can detect and pinpoint signs of environmental destruction activity — such as chainsaws, gunshots, and animal distress calls over a mile away. Then can raise the alarm for conservationists on the ground in real time.
Each RFCx device made of recycled electronics is installed and hidden in tree canopies to continuously capture all ambient sound. The device then transmits an alert to the cloud server which in turn sends an SMS messages to first responders.
Currently the only detection systems that exist rely on satellites that show rainforest destruction days or weeks after it has already occurred.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nest, Samsung Create Low-Power Network ‘Thread’ for Smart Home Products
http://mashable.com/2014/07/15/thread-network/
Nest and six other manufacturers including Samsung announced on Tuesday they are launching a new wireless network called Thread that will allow smart gadgets to talk to each other as a greater part of the smart home revolution.
Thread is an IP-based wireless networking protocol that will connect products in the home, with no hardware required. In addition to Nest and Samsung, Thread was formed by ARM, Big Ass Fans, Freescale, Silicon Labs and Yale. The program will open to new members by the second quarter of 2015.
Similar to how you don’t pay for Bluetooth — manufacturers just build the technology into devices and consumers can use it to connect things together (like a smartphone app and a fitness tracker) — Thread aims to be another key ingredient that will be baked into future products.
Unlike existing networking technologies, Thread enables IPv6 communications — the latest version of the Internet Protocol that will replace IPv4, which takes up about 96% of Internet traffic — for products and is focused on not draining batteries quickly.
Tomi Engdahl says:
HOPE X: Creating Smart Spaces With ReelyActive
http://hackaday.com/2014/07/22/reely/
When we hear about the Internet of Things, we’re thinking it’s a portable device with a sensor of some kind, a radio module, and the ability to push data up to the Internet.
[Jeff]‘s startup is working on a device that turns every space into a smart space. It does this with radio modules connected to a computer that listen to Bluetooth and the 868, 915 and 2400MHz bands. These modules turn every place into a smart space, identifying who just walked into a room, and who is at a specific location. Think of it as the invisible foundation for any truly smart house.
The software that makes the whole thing work can run on just about anything; if you want a Raspi to turn on the lights when you enter a room, or turn off a thermostat when you leave a building, that’s just a few lines of code and a relay.
The software is open source, and [Jeff] and his team are looking at making the hardware open.
Tomi Engdahl says:
barnowl
https://www.npmjs.org/package/barnowl
Identify and locate wireless devices within a Smart Space with barnowl, a middleware package for reelyActive radio sensor infrastructure. We believe in an open Internet of Things.