It’s undeniable: 2014 was the year when the electronics industry decidedly and collectively moved forward to push the Internet of Things (IoT). In year 2015 IoT markets will continue to grow. I think we’re going to see some critical mass on corralling the IoT in 2015. IoT is a young market – no one seems to be clearly leading. Communications are the key here. Over the last 10 years the world has done a remarkably good job of connecting the global wireless world. The last decade has radically changed the way we live. The smartphone and its cousin, the tablet, was the final link to ubiquitous wireless coverage, globally. The fantasy of the IoT is quite grand: everything on the planet can be smart and communicate. The idea is both powerful and impractical.
IoT is entering peak of inflated expectations: The Internet of Things is at that stage when the efforts of various companies involved in it, along with research, are proving to have a lot of promise. At this stage, the Internet of Things should not have too many difficulties attracting developers and researchers into the fold. As we turn to 2015 and beyond, however, wearables becomes an explosive hardware design opportunity. Tie the common threads of IoT and wearables together, and an unstoppable market movement emerges. There seems to be a lack of public appreciation of the extent to which the Internet of Things is going to fundamentally change how people interact with the world around them.
On the other hand, the Internet of Things is getting poised to enter the trough of disillusionment, which means that there is more room for failure now. There are issues of security, privacy, and sharing of information across vertical implementations that still need to be worked out. Until they are, the IoT will not be able to fulfill all its promises.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is beginning to grow significantly, as consumers, businesses, and governments recognize the benefit of connecting inert devices to the internet. The ‘Internet of Things’ Will Be The World’s Most Massive Device Market And Save Companies Billions Of Dollars in few years. BI Intelligence expects that the IoT will result in $1.7 trillion in value added to the global economy in 2019. This includes hardware, software, installation costs, management services, and economic value added from realized IoT efficiencies. The main benefit of growth in the IoT will be increased efficiency and lower costs: increased efficiency within the home, city, and workplace. The enterprise sector will lead the IoT, accounting for 46% of device shipments this year, but that share will decline as the government and home sectors gain momentum. I expect that home, government, and enterprise sectors use the IoT differently.
The IoT is only enabled because of two things: the ability of networks to reach countless nodes, and the availability of cost-effective embedded processors to attach to a multitude of devices. The prices for components and devices continues to decline while the skyrocketing global demand for 24/7 Internet access grows exponentially. The Internet of Things growth will benefit mostly from the autonomous machine-to-machine (M2M) connectivity that will make up the bulk of the objects of the IoT. This is the main driver for double-digit growth across verticals in the electronics, and especially the semiconductor industry well into the next decade. The IoT will connect places, such as manufacturing platforms, energy grids, health-care facilities, transportation systems, retail outlets, sports and music venues, and countless other entities to the Internet.
Internet of Things can become Engineering for Everyone. The emergence of open-source development platforms, developed and maintained by dedicated volunteers, has effectively raised the level of abstraction to a point where nonexperts can now use these platforms. The availability of open-source software and, more recently, hardware targeting embedded applications means that access to high-quality engineering resources has never been greater. This has effectively raised the level of abstraction to a point where nonexperts can now use these platforms to turn their own abstract concepts into real products. With the potential to launch a successful commercial venture off the back of tinkering with some low-cost hardware in your spare time, it’s no wonder that open-source hardware is fuelling an entirely new movement. A new generation of manufacturer is embracing the open-source ethos and actually allowing customers to modify the product post-sale.
Exact size predictions for IoT market next few years vary greatly, but all of the firms making these predictions agree on one thing—it’s going to be very big.
In year 2014 very many chip vendors and sensor algorithm companies also jumped on the IoT bandwagon, in hopes of laying the groundwork for more useful and cost-effective IoT devices. Sensors, MCUs, and wireless connectivity are three obvious building blocks for IoT end-node devices. Wireless connectivity and software (algorithms) are the two most sought-after technologies. Brimming with excitement, and with Europe already ahead of the pack, a maturing semiconductor industry looks expectantly to the Internet of Things (IoT) for yet another facelift. The IC sales generated by the connectivity and sensor subsystems to enabled this IoT will amount $57.7 billion in 2015.
Chips for IoT market to grow 36% in 2015, says Gartner as automotive V2X, LED lighting and smart domestic objects are set to drive semiconductor market growth through the year 2020, according to market analysis firm Gartner. The move to create billions of smart, autonomously communicating objects known as the Internet of Things (IoT) is driving the need for low-power sensors, processors and communications chips. By 2018, the market value of IoT subsystems in equipment and Internet-connected things is projected to reach $103.6 billion worldwide, which represents a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 21.0 percent from $39.8 billion in 2013.
BI Intelligence expects that by 2019 IoT market will be more than double the size of the smartphone, PC, tablet, connected car, and the wearable market combined. A new report by Yole Developpement pegs the market size in the $70 billion range by 2018, with the next five years presenting a golden opportunity for device makers as the IoT enters the growth stage. Device shipments will reach 6.7 billion in 2019 for a five-year CAGR of 61%.
Number of connected devices is expected to to reach 36 billion units by 2020, cautions that “all of this new market opportunity is under threat.” Other estimate according to market research firm Radiant Insights of San Francisco is that the number of Internet connections will grow from 9 billion devices in 2014 to 100 billion by 2020 (twice as many as the estimate from Cisco Systems Inc). IC Insights forecasts that web-connected things will account for 85 percent of 29.5 billion Internet connections worldwide by 2020. Currently fragmented market, the number of cellular M2M connections could rise from 478 million today to 639 million in 2020.
By 2024, the report predicts that overall market value for components will exceed of $400 billion, of which more than 10% will come from hardware alone. Revenue from hardware sales will be only $50 billion or 8% of the total revenue from IoT-specific efforts, as software makers and infrastructure companies will earn the lion’s share. As the Internet of Things grows to a projected 212 billion items by 2020, the question of regulation looms increasingly large.
The growth of the IoT will present some very interesting issues in a variety of areas. You will see some very fast activity because unless it gets resolved there will be no IoT as it is envisioned.
General consensus is that the interconnect protocol of the IoT will be IP (Internet Protocol). As it stands today, the deployment of the billions of IoT objects can’t happen, simply because there just aren’t enough IP addresses with IPv4. While there is still some discussion about how to connect the IoT, most are in agreement that the IoT protocol will be IPv6. The first step will be to convert all proprietary networks to an IP-base. Then, the implementation of IPv6 can begin. Because direct interoperability between IPv4 and iPv6 protocols is not possible, this will add some some complications to the development, resulting in a bit of obfuscation to the transition for IPv6.
Is There Any Way to Avoid Standards Wars in the Emerging Internet of Things? I don’t see that possible. IoT will be in serious protocol war in 2015. There is a wide selection of protocols, but no clear set of winners at the moment. The real IoT standardization is just starting – There are currently few standards (or regulations) for what is needed to run an IoT device. There is no single standard for connecting devices on the Internet of Thing, instead are a handful of competing standards run by different coalitions of companies: The Thread Group (Qualcomm, The Linux Foundation, Microsoft, Panasonic), The Industrial Internet Consortium (Intel, Cisco, AT&T, IBM, Microsoft), Open Interconnect Consortium (Samsung, Intel, Dell), Physical Web (Google), AllSeen Alliance (Samsung, Intel, Dell) and huge number of smaller non-standardized protocols in use. Each of the standards vary how they do things.
Anyone who tries to build a physical layer and drive a software stack based on it all the way up to the application layer is a fool. But many companies try to do it this year. Today Zigbee is the most cost effective, but tomorrow WiFi will figure it out. On networking field in every few years there’s a new management protocol – what will happen in IoT, it will keep moving, and people will need open APIs.
Currently the IoT lacks a common set of standards and technologies that would allow for compatibility and ease-of-use. The IoT needs a set of open APIs and protocols that work with a variety of physical-layer networks. The IP and network layer should have nothing to do with the media. The fundamental issue here is that at the moment the Internet of Things will not have a standard set of open APIs for consumers. IoT, it will keep moving, and people will need open APIs. I suspect that at some point, after the first wave of the Internet of Things, open APIs and root access will become a selling point.
It is not just technical protocol details that are problem: One problem with IoT is that it is a vague definition. Do we simply mean ‘connected devices? Or something else? One of the main issues, which will only get worse as the IoT evolves, is how are we going to categorize all the different objects.
Early in 2015, the Industrial Internet Consortium plans to wrap up work on a broad reference architecture for the Internet of Things, ramp up three test beds, and start identifying gaps where new standards may be needed. The group, formed by AT&T, Cisco, GE, IBM, and Intel, now has about 115 members and aims to make it easier to build commercial IoT systems. The IIC hopes to finish a first draft of its reference architecture by the end of January and have it ratified by March. It will define functional areas and the technologies and standards for them, from sensors to data analytics and business applications. The framework includes versions for vertical markets including aerospace, healthcare, manufacturing, smart cities, and transportation. A breakout section on security also is in the works. Hopefully the reference architecture could be used to help people construct industrial IoT systems quickly and easily.
With the emergence of the Internet of Things, smart cars are beginning to garner more attention. Smart cars are different than connected cars, which are simply smartphones on wheels. Even though the technology has been on the evolutionary fast track, integration has been slow. For car manufacturers, it is a little tricky to accept driverless cars because it disrupts their fundamental business model: Private resources will evolve to shared resources, centrally controlled, since autonomous vehicles can be controlled remotely.
Over the next few years, we’ll see a torrent of new devices emerge that are connected to the Internet and each other through a wide range of different wireless networking protocols. As a result, there’s a race on, not just to get those devices connected, but also to provide the network infrastructure necessary to managing all of them at scale. WiFi, Bluetooth, and cellular networks are nowadays widely used, nut new alternatives are coming to solve applications were those technologies are not most suitable. There are different plans for wide area wireless networks that use licensed or unlicensed wireless bandwidth to transmit small amounts of data from various connected device – this could create its own connection to them in a cost effective manner without relying on existing cellular or WiFi networks.
Recently we have developed a pressing need, or desire to put our refrigerators, and everything we have access to while mobile, on the net, morphing the brave new world of the Internet of Things, into the Internet of Everything (IoE). And that will make that last 100 meters—that final frontier of interconnect—a reality. Today, only about 10% of the last 100 meter devices that will make up the IoT are connected. As the IoT evolves, other small cells such as businesses, city centers, malls, theaters, stadiums, event centers, and the like, will connect much of what they have on premise (soda or popcorn machines, vending machines, restaurants, parking garages, ticket kiosks, seat assignments, and a very long list of others). And, there are a very large number of devices that are short-range in all of these various cells. What was once the last mile for connectivity is now the last 100 meters.
Plenty of people and companies in the technology world tend to come at the Internet of Things by dwelling on the “Internet.” But what if, instead, we started with the “Things?” Knowing intimately what “things” are supposed to do and how they think and behave will be the key to solving one of the IoT’s most pressing issues: application layers. Over the past 18 months, the industry has launched numerous consortia, from Qualcomm’s AllSeen and Intel’s Open Interconnect Consortium to Apple’s HomeKit and Google’s Thread. Every entity says it’s targeting the “interoperability” of things at home, but each is obviously concentrating primarily on its own interests, and making their “layer” specifications slightly different from those pursued by others.
It seems that no industry consortium is particularly interested in defining — in gory detail — the specific functions of, say, what a door lock is supposed to do. The library of commands for each function already exists, but someone, or some group, has to translate those already determined commands into an IP-friendly format. One of the standards organizations will take up the challenge in 2015. This will be the first step to “knock barriers down for IoT” in 2015.
Missing today in the IoT are reliability and robustness. Consumers expect their light switched and other gadgets to be infinitely reliable. In many today’s products we seem to be far from reliable and robust operation. Today’s routers can relay traffic between networks, but they have no idea how to translate what functions each device attached to them wants to do, and how to communicate that to other devices. The network needs to be able to discover who else is on the network. Devices connected to network need to be able to discover what resources are available and what new devices are being added. The network needs to be extensible.
Despite the oft-mocked naming scheme, the Internet of Things (IoT) has an incredibly practical goal: connecting classically “dumb” objects—toasters, doorknobs, light switches—to the Internet, thereby unlocking a world of potential. Imagine what it means to interact with your home the same way you would a website, accessing it without geographic restriction. But there is one missing piece of the smart home revolution: smart home operating system. So what will be the system that capitalizes on the smart home in the same way, the enabler of all the applications and actions we want our homes to run and do? There are no ready answers for that yet. And there might not be a singular, cohesive operating system for your home, that this stuff isn’t one-size-fits-all. It might be that the real potential for home automation lies not in local software running on a home device but in the cloud. I think that the cloud is going to be more important over time, but there will always be also need for some local functionality in case the connection to cloud is lost. Right now the Internet of Things is rather disjointed compared to Internet and computers.
When everything will be connected, how about security? In the path to IoT, the issue of data and device security looms large. Security for the ‘Internet of Things’ will be talked about very much in 2015 for a good reason. As Internet of Thigs becomes more and more used, it will be more hacked. Thus security of Internet of Things will be more and more talked about. Virtually anything connected to the Internet has the potential of being hacked, no matter how unlikely. Internet of Things devices often lack systematic protections against viruses or spam. Nowadays most security breaches are software-based, when an application can be compromised. Counter-measures for such attacks range from basic antivirus scanning software, to embedded hypervisors to hardware-bound secure applications tying their execution to uniquely identifiable hardware. There is emerging customer demand for silicon authentication. But the threats extend way beyond software and some hackers will put a lot of effort into compromising a system’s security at silicon-level. Individual devices can get hacked, but all systems should have some way of self-checking and redundancy. Those IoT systems can be very complex at device and system level. The problem with complexity is that you create more attack points and make it easier for hackers to find flaws.
Experts recommend far more layers of cyberprotection than manufacturers have thought necessary. Because many of the devices will often be practically inaccessible, the “patch and pray” strategy used for many desktop software packages is unlikely to be an effective strategy for many forms of IoT devices. Right now, there are hundreds of companies churning out “Internet of Things” (IoT) devices as fast as they can, without thinking too much on the security issues they can cause in the future. The imperative is clear: Do your homework on the specific security features of any IoT device you might consider bringing into the home. What steps are IoT companies taking to keep us safe from others online, and what constitutes a truly “safe” smart appliance?
What we’re opening up is a whole new subject not just of security but of safety. That safety depends on devices to be constantly connected to the Internet the same way they’re connected to the power grid. That’s a whole new area that deserves its own consideration. Keep in mind that IoT is one field where cyber security flaws can kill in the worst case. Connecting unrelated devices in the IoT means many more pieces now affect reliability and security. More devices are now considered critical, such as a connected baby monitor or a smart smoke detector, because wrong information can injure or kill people. The Internet of Things is coming no matter what happens. The people in charge of keeping the public safe and the industry healthy need to be ready.
The European Police Office (Europol) said governments are ill-equipped to counter the menace of “injury and possible deaths” spurred by hacking attacks on critical safety equipment. There are many potential dangers are in transportation: many new cars are Internet connected and potentially vulnerable, SCADA Systems in Railways Vulnerable to Attack and Airline bosses ignore cyber security concerns at their peril. With industrial control systems becoming network-connected, security risks rise and will need a long-term solution. In light of the trend toward the Industrial Internet of Things, development teams must start thinking hard about network security and planning for its long-term viability.
You have to accept the fact that at each point in the IoT there are vulnerabilities to malicious attacks and interception of vital information. Soon, almost every network will soon have some IoT-hacking in it. IDC predicts that in two years from 90 per cent of the global IT networks have met IoT data theft. In a report, cybersecurity firm Fortinet expects greater threats from “denial of service attacks on assembly line, factory, industrial control systems, and healthcare and building management…resulting in revenue losses and reputation damages for organizations globally.” This opens new doors of risks in the areas of corporate extortion, altering of corporate business operations, and the extension of cyberattacks to include physical threats of harm to civilians.
There are lessons to be learned to keep the cyber security in control in the IoT era. There will be lessons to be learned for all the parties of the IoT ecosystem. The companies that figure out how to make security available on multi-stakeholder platforms will be the most successful ones. Figuring out a secure platform is important, but having different levels of security is still important. Different uses have different bars. Security is a self-regulating system to some extent because it is supply and demand. That is the Holy Grail for technology right now, which is how to build systems with enough security—not 100% protection right now—from a unified platform point of view for multiple applications.
The data generated by the Internet of Things has the potential to reveal far more about users than any technology in history: These devices can make our lives much easier … The Internet of Things however, can also reveal intimate details about the doings and goings of their owners through the sensors they contain. As the Internet of Things grows to a projected 212 billion items by 2020, the question of regulation looms increasingly large. There is a lot of effort is going today at the government level. They’re not thinking about whether the Internet goes down. They’re worried about what happens if the Internet gets compromised.
When we have devices on the field, there is question how to analyze the data coming from them. This is easily a “big data” problem because of the huge amount of data that comes from very large number of sensors. Being able to monitor and use the data that comes from the Internet of Things is a huge potential challenge with different providers using different architectures and approaches, and different chip and equipment vendors teaming up in a range of different ways. Many large and smaller companies are active on the field: Intel, IBM, Lantronix+Google, Microchip+Amazon, Freescale+Oracle, Xively, Jasper, Keen.io, Eurotech, and many other.
The huge increase of data is coming. Radiant predicts that wireless sensor networks will be used to monitor and control very many domestic, urban, and industrial systems. This promises to produce an explosion of data, much of which will be discarded as users are overwhelmed by the volume. As a result, analysis of the data within the wireless sensor network will become necessary so that alerts and meaningful information are generated at the leaf nodes. This year has seen the software at the very highest point in the Internet of Things stack — analytics — becoming tightly coupled with the embedded devices at the edge of the network, leading to many different approaches and providers.
Integrating data from one IoT cloud to another will have it’s challenges. Automation services make big steps by cutting corners. Sites like IFTTT, Zapier, bip.io, CloudWork, and elastic.io allow users to connect applications with links that go beyond a simple synch. Check what is happening with integration and related services like IFTTT, ItDuzzit, Amazon Lambda. For example IFTTT is quietly becoming a smart home powerhouse.
Most important sources of information for this article:
With $16M In Funding, Helium Wants To Provide The Connective Tissue For The Internet Of Things
IFTTT, other automation services make big steps by cutting corners
Internet of Things: Engineering for Everyone
IoT in Protocol War, Says Startup – Zigbee fortunes dim in building control
Analysts Predict CES Hotspots – Corralling the Internet of Things
What’s Holding Back The IoT – Device market opportunities will explode, but only after some fundamental changes
Apps Layer: ’800lb Gorilla’ in IoT Nobody Talks About
Analysts Predict CES Hotspots – IoT, robots, 4K to dominate CES
10 Reasons Why Analytics Are Vital to the Internet of Things
Tech More: Mobile Internet of Things BI Intelligence Consumer Electronics – Most Massive Device Market
Wearables make hardware the new software
Zigbee Opens Umbrella 3.0 Spec
IoT Will Give ‘Embedded’ a Shot in the Arm - Connected cities to be largest IoT market
Chips for IoT market to grow 36% in 2015, says Gartner
Apps Layer: ’800lb Gorilla’ in IoT Nobody Talks About
Short-Range, Low-Power Sensors – once the last mile for connectivity is now the last 100 meters
The one problem the Internet of Things hasn’t solved
Plan Long Term for Industrial Internet Security
To Foil Cyberattacks, Connected Cars Need Overlapping Shields
IoT cybersecurity: is EDA ready to deliver?
More Things Are Critical Systems
Silicon, Security, and the Internet of Things
The missing piece of the smart home revolution
Hackers will soon be targeting your refrigerator
10 Reasons Why Analytics Are Vital to the Internet of Things
1,316 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google Reveals Health-Tracking Wristband
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-23/google-developing-health-tracking-wristband-for-health-research
Google Inc.’s life sciences group has created a health-tracking wristband that could be used in clinical trials and drug tests, giving researchers or physicians minute-by-minute data on how patients are faring.
The experimental device, developed within the company’s Google X research division, can measure pulse, heart rhythm and skin temperature, and also environmental information like light exposure and noise levels. It won’t be marketed as a consumer device, said Andy Conrad, head of the life sciences team at Google.
“Our intended use is for this to become a medical device that’s prescribed to patients or used for clinical trials,” Conrad said in a telephone interview.
Doctors, researchers and drugmakers have long craved a way to continuously track patients’ vital signs outside of a lab. Yet creating a device that’s easy for patients to use, while also capturing rich, accurate data has been a challenge, said Kara Dennis, managing director of mobile health at Medidata, a New York-based firm that specializes in data analytics.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Renesas APIs Bring RTOS Development to the Masses
Synergy platform takes IoT/MCU coding up a level
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326940&
Hardware and software companies are looking for strategies to help companies cope with shorter product development cycles for embedded and IoT designs, while software content is increasing and fewer experienced software developers are available.
Initially, companies such as TI, Freescale and Silicon Labs started making it easier to develop code for a variety of IoT and sensor designs. Now, to further simplify development, real-time RTOS suppliers such as Express Logic, Mentor Graphics, Texas Instruments have introduced application-specific versions of their RTOSes for targeted IoT markets in the consumer and industrial segments.
Taking proprietary RTOS use to the next level
Taking this more targeted proprietary RTOS strategy to the next level is Renesas Electronics has just taken the wraps off its Synergy Platform. Synergy is an application programming interface (API), built around a framework based on the Express Logic ThreadX RTOS and X-ware middleware, comes with a new scalable family of MCUs.
The Renesas Synergy MCU family, which will become available over the next few month, begins with the S1 series, an ultra-low-power MCU based on a 32-MHz Cortex-M0+ core. Three additional members, the S3, S5 and S7 series, use Cortex-M4 cores.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Startup Taps Into Home Energy Circuit
Curbs energy consumption
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326939&
Local startup Curb wants to help you find the energy hog in your home — whether it be your spouse or the space heater. The home automation company has developed a hardware system that attaches to a home circuit breaker to monitor energy consumption.
“We took a different path from other home automation products. Most are point solutions that monitor or control air conditioners, or a specific light bulb or outlet,” Curb CEO Erik Norwood told EE Times. “We take it one step higher to the nervous center of the home — the circuit box — and give that center a brain.”
Curb’s box clicks into a home’s circuit breaker and can measure voltage as well as the current going into different circuits in the home. Information drawn from the breaker calculates a real-time spending breakdown by appliance or home zone, usage trends over time, and provides tailored recommendations to save power. That data can be communicated in real time or stored in Curb’s on-board memory or SD card.
Curb’s flagship device, the Curb Home Pro, monitors 18 different circuits, with two dedicated to the main breaker to note total home consumption. Current transducers (CT clamps) snap onto circuit breaker wires and are 99.5% accurate, Norwood noted.
The box can gather 18,000 samples per second on each circuit, which is enough to distinguish between appliances and provide usage information on a smartphone app. The Curb device uses a Freescale i.Mx28 processor running at 454 MHz, as well as additional digital signal processing chips. Curb also uses A/D converters from Analog Devices and Qualcomm powerline communications.
Curb communicates via Ethernet over power line back to a home router, which allows users to substitute electrical wires for a CAT 5 cable.
Norwood said Curb has kept future standards in mind and designed its boxes with a connectivity module so users can comply with Zigbee, Wi-Fi, Thread, or other communications protocols.
Tomi Engdahl says:
‘Smallest SoC for IoT’ Adds Memory
Single Chip System Module packs dual A9s, security, Gbyte of DRAM
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326944&
A new category of chip has dawned upon the semiconductor industry according to Freescale. One step beyond the familiar system-on-chip (SoC), this new category dubbed Single Chip System Module (SCM) includes everything an SoC contains, plus gigaBytes of DRAM stacked on top along with a power management chip and flash memory chip alongside its dual ARM Cortex-A9 application processors.
Tomi Engdahl says:
IoT Security: Gone in a Wink
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1326932&
The recent security lapse of an Internet of Things vendor teaches three key lessons any IoT designer should learn.
Wink, Inc. (New York City) is a home automation company with its Wink Hub at the heart of its connected home business. One of the claims to fame of the Wink Hub is it can coordinate devices from other manufacturers that support the Wink network such as Nest thermostats, Philips Hue lightbulbs, Chamberlain garage door openers and DropCam cameras.
As an IoT device, everything is done automatically including software updates from the manufacturer. Unfortunately for Wink, automated updates came to a crashing halt recently. In fact, the crash was so bad that the Wink hubs were effectively bricked — the hardware was made inoperable.
The expired certificates affected almost all Wink’s users, causing all the hubs to go offline and show a dreaded solid yellow light.
Here are some lessons learned from Wink:
An outside review or validation of your procedures, algorithms and design is mandatory. It’s not that you don’t have smart employees working on your product – clearly Wink did. I’m betting the certificate expiration was a simple oversight, one that may have been caught by an outside firm with fresh eyes.
Be transparent with security, your IoT device, related applications and data. Simply writing a white paper to explain the security behind Wink updates may have uncovered the certificate expiration problem. In any case, end users deserve to know how you are protecting them and their networks. Don’t forget to clearly indicate why you are storing data in your cloud, too.
Don’t forget about privacy. I like to know what data is being stored about me because it helps me to understand my risk if there’s a data breach. I might not care that much if Mr. IoT Vendor suffers a data breach if all that he has stored about me is my home thermostat settings and readings for the last year and not my credit card information.
With the number of IoT devices expanding, it’s increasingly important that we understand how we are being protected by the IoT vendors. Transparency is not only a necessity but also a requirement.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Secure IoT MCUs Drive Freescale-NXP
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326956&
The future of Freescale Semiconductor and NXP is in connecting and securing the Internet of Things, with a major focus on automotive. The CEOs of both companies outlined their collective vision for the merger, which will likely close in November, during a keynote at Freescale Technology Forum (June 23).
The merger will create the fifth-largest non-memory semiconductor company, NXP CEO Rick Clemmer said at Freescale Technology Forum (held here, June 22-24). The goal isn’t to generate massive cost savings, but to provide more well-rounded options for IoT customers.
Leading semiconductor companies — Intel, Qualcomm, Broadcom/Avago, and Texas Instruments — all have narrowly focused strategies that focus on microcontrollers, communications, and analog. This leaves a prime area for the new NXP to focus on.
“No companies are focused on creating secure connections and infrastructure for a smarter world,” Freescale CEO Gregg Lowe said. “Clearly if we do that successfully, and we can do that very rapidly, we can move up in succession.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
We need to know about the Internet of Things, say US Senators
Your TV is your enemy, says Eugene Kaspersky
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/06/25/we_need_to_know_about_the_internet_of_things_say_us_senators/
As US lawmakers call on the Government Accountability Office to assess the world of the Internet of Things, Eugene Kaspersky has unloaded on the thingification of home appliances.
A bipartisan group of US Senators (Brian Schatz and Cory Booker for the Democrats, Deb Fischer and Kelly Ayotte for the Republicans) released the letter to Comptroller General Gene Dodaro to launch the probe.
Among other things, They ask the GAO to look at the current state of IoT technology, whether the US government has experience using IoT technology, what agencies have IoT plans or strategies, and any federal law changes that might be needed to enable the IoT.
Security and privacy are also on their list, along with spectrum requirements, and what’s going on in the rest of the world.
Kaspersky’s input into the debate is at least characteristically wide-ranging and blunt. He told NBC the “Internet of Things” should be called the “Internet of threats”.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Simulating Your IoT design; Will Your Large-Scale Deployment Work in Practice?
http://rtcmagazine.com/articles/view/110542
Simulation can be a thorough and efficient way to test an IoT network that physically will consists of large numbers of nodes that communicate wirelessly from device to Cloud.
Developing and testing Internet of Things applications and systems are big challenges, simply because the systems are big – they contain a lot of units. It is difficult to get hundreds of nodes into the software development lab for testing, and it is also difficult to provide all those nodes with interesting and realistic inputs. When developing software that will run on hundreds or even thousands of IoT nodes, just how do you test that software in a practical manner? Simulation is a very good answer.
The IoT systems that are being built today often follow a three-tiered architecture
There are many small nodes that connect to each other and to gateways using wireless mesh networks, and the gateways then connect to a management server or the Cloud. The small nodes can be sensors like temperature sensors, electricity meters, cameras, light switches, or actuators like thermostats, lights, and door locks. The gateways or concentrators handle the connection to the outside world, and ensure security. The back-end server, which is often in the Cloud, deals with the business and control aspects of the IoT system.
To test this type of system, you want to have the wireless nodes spread out over a large area so that not all are in contact with each other, which requires using entire buildings or campuses as the “lab.” Setting up and maintaining such a network is a significant amount of work, with labor costs quickly dwarfing the cost of the nodes themselves.
In a simulator, as shown in Figure 1, setting up a large network is really easy. You just write a program to virtually deploy and spread out the nodes over the virtual space you need, and then model the wireless reachability between the nodes.
Simulating the entire IoT system in this fashion allows you to test all aspects of the software, including things such as the wireless communications stack and how it deals with network problems, the sensing and actuator code and how it works with the environment, and the sleep modes and wake-up intervals on the nodes and how well they conserve power. Other software functions that could be also tested include the reporting function from sensors to gateways and on to server, the middleware that manages network nodes and updates software on the nodes. This includes OTA updates, along with the security of the gateways and the nodes and the scalability of the data management system as the number of nodes goes up.
One particular aspect of an IoT system test that is a very good fit for simulation is testing system and software behavior as the system is scaled up.
there is a large amount of idle time in the system, idle time that can be exploited to accelerate the simulation by using hypersimulation.
In the end, physical labs are needed to perform final testing on your system. You have to test what you ship and ship what you test. However, using simulation to augment the physical test lab to cover more test cases and run more test variants is necessary to ensure that quality is maintained and that the system is robust across a wide variety of situations. With simulation, you will be able to build a better IoT system in a better way.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The number of connected devices is set to explode, with Gartner forecasting it will reach 25 billion by 2020 – of which 250 million will be connected vehicles.
The Internet of Things (IoT) affects virtually every industry and domain in our society including our homes, health, hospitals, factories and critical infrastructure as well as our planes, trains and automobiles.
insights into key questions such as:
How does the scale and complexity of the IoT lead to changes in the way we develop software applications and assess them for risk?
As software increasingly becomes assembled from reusable third-party and open source components and frameworks, how do we minimize risk from the software supply chain?
What is a basic cybersecurity checklist for developing secure IoT systems (e.g., encryption, authentication, segmentation, patching mechanisms, etc.)?
What are other attack surfaces beyond the endpoint device itself (web and mobile apps, back-end cloud services, etc.)?
With so many different platforms and protocols, how do you assess the maturity of suppliers in your supply chain?
What role should industry standards and government regulations play?
Source: https://webinar.darkreading.com/19880?keycode=DRWE01
Tomi Engdahl says:
Will a datacentre be driving your car in 12 years’ time?
Keep your hands off the wheel, sir
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/06/25/driverless_cars_and_datacentres/
Driverless cars will be taking over our roads in around 12 years time, when comms technology has advanced to deliver the power of the datacentre direct to your preferred motor.
Andreas Reich, head of electronic pre development at Audi, this week told a Huawei Innovation Conference in Munich that if the 1970s was the age of electronics for the auto industry, and the 90s the age of software, we are now in the age of “cloud data”.
“This decade it’s being connected seamlessly with custom infrastructure and other vehicles,” Reich said. “We bring the internet to the car. The driver should get all the information he needs while he is driving.”
A rapid ramp-up of in-car processing power, and the promise of ultra-fast communications meant drivers could confidently hand over the controls to silicon full in around 12 years time he predicted.
Reich said this would mean a rapid increase in the computing horsepower each car carried, from 8,000 dmips for Audi’s 2014 models to 20,000 by next year. He said the firm’s infotainment systems would be modular to allow silicon horsepower to be jacked up in the future without scrapping the whole vehicle.
Connected services meant drivers would be able to use all the apps they use outside their car, inside their car, while driving, he claimed. When it came to navigation, for example, this would include “real images of your environment up to 30 meters, then Streetview.”
Audi has already developed a traffic light system that will integrate its vehicles with cities’ traffic systems to optimise speeds and reduce carbon emissions, slowing down vehicles approaching lights and switching on engines five seconds before the light goes to green. This has been tested in the US, Europe and Asia. The next step will be developing a common interface to easily connect Audi’s vehicles to cities’ and local government’s traffic management systems.
Similarly, systems to automate parking and direct cars to empty spaces will require cars to be integrated with municipal systems and those of private parking operators.
The next stage, swarm intelligence, would bring together data from many cars, with the grunt work being done at the back end and results redistributed to vehicles. This would result in the production of very accurate real time maps, for example. “If one car has a break down it sends info to all other cars – you can get this information before you see the car.”
All this will require very wide band communication into the car. The carmaker has already integrated LTE into vehicles in China and will roll this out worldwide next year.
This would coincide with the oneset of the very wide bandwidth comms promised with 5G. However, Reich questioned whether 5G was the answer to all comms’ needs, such as car-to-car communication.
5G is expected to starting coming together around 2020, opening up the prospect of massively high bandwidth wireless and other comms
Will we also see the driverless datacentre around the same time? It’s one thing negotiating five lanes of traffic at 140kmph. Overseeing thousands of servers is of course quite another level of complexity – but one you will soon be able to do while stuck in a traffic jam.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Java: The once and future king of Internet programming
http://www.itworld.com/article/2929784/development/java-the-once-and-future-king-of-internet-programming.html
Built for embedded computing and streamlined for real-time, here’s why Java is the language of IoT
Few people today realize that Java began as a language for embedded computing. Its earliest versions specifically targeted home appliances such as television set-top interfaces. Communication between devices was central to James Gosling’s original vision for Java, and he envisioned it being used for not only device-to-consumer but device-to-device communication. Twenty years later, those original design strengths are ready to support the Internet of Things.
Java’s ubiquity also makes it a good fit for IoT. Massive resources worldwide are invested in transmitting Java to a new generation of programmers and ensuring that it is maintained to support all the production systems that rely on it. Hundreds of thousands of successful applications and systems already attest to Java’s capabilities.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Amazon Opens Up Alexa To Developers and Third Party
http://www.i-programmer.info/news/141-cloud-computing/8724-amazon-opens-up-alexa-to-developers-and-third-party-.html
Amazon’s Alexa provides a cloud-driven way to add voice technology to services and devices and there’s a role, and the potential for seed funding, for both developers and hardware manufacturers.
Amazon announced Echo. a wireless speaker with a built-in, voice-controlled, personal assistant called Alexa in November last year.
In future Alexa will no longer be tied exclusively to Echo. Amazon has announced that the Alexa Voice Service (AVS), the cloud-based service behind Echo, is being made available for free to third party hardware makers who want to integrate Alexa into their devices.
One example of how AVS might be used is that a wi-fi alarm clock maker could create an Alexa-enabled clock radio, so a customer can talk to Alexa as they wake up, asking “what’s the weather today?” or “what time is my first meeting?”. The developer preview of AVS is planned to start next month.
For developers the important news is the availability of the Alexa Skills Kit (ASK) which helps you create new voice-driven capabilities for Alexa, both for Echo and for other devices that take advantage of AVS.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why Kaspersky chief calls IoT ‘Internet of Threats’
http://www.cloudpro.co.uk/cloud-essentials/cloud-security/5181/why-kaspersky-chief-calls-iot-internet-of-threats
Any device connected to the internet provides a new entry point for hackers, Eugene Kaspersky warns
Eugene Kaspersky has expressed fears about the Internet of Things (IoT), dubbing it the ‘Internet of Threats’.
The security firm’s chief was interviewed by NBC, and detailed the problems connected devices could cause.
The IoT will create a whole variety of entry points for hackers to infiltrate homes and businesses, he claimed, including via a phone connected to a device, as well as the computer that controls it.
Wit hundreds of devices being connected to each other, each provides the perfect opportunity for criminals to hack into devices and distribute ransom messages or malware.
They will also allow hackers to siphon off personal or confidential data stored on the devices, as well as the controllers.
“I am afraid that in the very near future we will see very bad incidents, maybe global incidents, from attacks which are designed for Mac or for Android systems,” he said.
“Take any device – and then think about the possible scenarios for criminal attacks, what kind of profits criminals can have from attacking the device,” Kaspersky said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Embedded development support needs expansion
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/embedded-insights/4439791/Embedded-development-support-needs-expansion?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150629&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150629&elq=1424320750924042b5cd182614a2d810&elqCampaignId=23656&elqaid=26697&elqat=1&elqTrackId=096cf32c0792407686cc1c48a34ac760
back then we also had to program everything in assembly language using home-brew tools because there was almost no design support ecosystem available. Embedded development has come a long way since then, including the growth of a substantial ecosystem of tool and software support for processor, yet that support ecosystem may have to dramatically expand again to meet the needs of the coming generations of embedded designs.
Unlike in the embedded dark ages, performance is not the key factor that developers use when evaluating processors. According to the Embedded Market Studies UBM has conducted annually for more than 20 years, processor performance is a very distant second (45%) to the availability of development tools (71%) in importance when evaluating a processor. It’s almost inconceivable that in today’s market a vendor would introduce a new processor without having a slew of IDEs, debuggers, operating systems, drivers, protocol stacks, and the like ready and waiting.
Adding network connectivity to an embedded system design seems like it should be straightforward, like adding another peripheral or IO port to the design. It’s not. The link to the network means that the Internet with all of its capabilities and drawbacks now become part of the product. In addition to the protocol stacks and drivers needed for the link itself, the product design will need support for things like remote device provisioning and management, security against cyber-attack, cloud and gateway interactions, browser-based or mobile device user apps, analytics, the ability to deal with slow or lost network connections, and a host of other capabilities.
Few development teams have expertise in all these areas.
“Customers don’t want to know how to put an IoT system together,” he said, “they want a solution. They don’t have the bandwidth and knowledge to develop it themselves.” This means that processor vendors are going to have to develop a support ecosystem to provide most of elements needed to meet the network requirements of the IoT.
But there is still a long way to go. The IoT as a market is highly fragmented. What works for one type of application may be ill-suited to another.
No vendor today would dream of offering a processor without tool and library support. The availability of tools and libraries does not encourage use of a processor, but their absence certainly discourages processor adoption. In the same way, a decade from now it’s likely that no one would dream of offering a processor without wireless, cloud, apps, security, and other IT support. The IoT will require such functions, and development teams will not want to spend their time acquiring or creating them. They’ll want to spend their time developing their unique value proposition. And for that to happen, the embedded support ecosystem will need to expand substantially.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Startup’s Tech is Intel’s Quark Neural Network
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326977&
The pattern-classification technology inside the Quark SE system chip from Intel is the same as that being offered for license and in chip form by startup NeuroMem Inc. (Petaluma, Calif.).
The Quark SE is the system-chip on Intel’s button-sized Curie module that was launched at the Consumer Electronics Show. Intel said at the time that the QuarkSE chip, a processor developed for wearable applications, included a pattern classification engine that allows it to identify different motions and activities.
“Yes, the pattern matching/classification engine inside the Quark SE is an implementation of our technology,”
“We can license our IP to semiconductor companies for integration in their SoC or we can license to OEM customers doing their own SoCs or FPGAs. NeuroMem also sells standard ICs, boards and development tools that our customers use to build their systems,” Lambinet said.
He added that up until now sensor-based peripherals had to be connected to a smartphone or to the cloud to perform any useful classification. With the NeuroMem technology deployed at the end-point node the sensing unit can become autonomous and does not need to consume bandwidth and power to transmit unfiltered data.
The NeuroMem technology can also be deployed elsewhere in the network because it scales well, Lambinet said. “We recognise one face out of millions just as fast as we recognise one face out of 1000. CPU/GPU solutions are extremely fast for small and medium datasets but they slow down dramatically as soon as they reach the limit their parallelism. At some point, they become sequential as all the cores have to share memory bandwidth. Our technology does not have this limitation because the computing happens inside the memory.”
The CM1K is a chain of 1,024 identical neurons that operate in parallel but are connected together to make global decisions.
Tomi Engdahl says:
SYSGO announces PikeOS 4.0 for IoT and Industry 4.0
Mainz, Germany
, June 24, 2015
https://www.sysgo.com/news-events/press/press/details/article/sysgo-announces-pikeos-40-for-iot-and-industry-40/
• European operating system for IoT and Industry 4.0
• Flexible software architecture based on Hypervisor
• Guaranteed functional safety and IT security
SYSGO today announced the release of Version 4.0 of the Hypervisor PikeOS. PikeOS 4.0 is designed as a platform for technology change and gives manufacturers of smart systems access to the Internet of Things (IoT) and Industry 4.0. To do so, PikeOS 4.0 uses the most modern virtualization technologies in hardware and software and focuses on new development as well as on the migration of existing applications. Support for industry-specific safety standards guarantee functional safety and IT Security, especially protection against unauthorized access, manipulation and espionage.
Normal vs. secure world
PikeOS Hypervisor offers a TrustZone Monitor for the ARM TrustZone that separates the application into a normal world and a secure world and assigns the corresponding CPU cores to them. Critical control functions can be separated from non-critical convenience applications and protected from each other.
The entire development tool chain is updated to GCC 4.8.
PikeOS supports the ARM Cortex family and the Freescale QorIQ CPU family with Layerscape LS1 and the T series.
Tomi Engdahl says:
10 Hot Internet of Things Startups
http://www.cio.com/article/2602467/consumer-technology/10-hot-internet-of-things-startups.html#tk.cross_2cio_intrcpt
Tomi Engdahl says:
Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) benefits, examples
http://www.controleng.com/single-article/industrial-internet-of-things-iiot-benefits-examples/409060393e42ca704206cb505bcd4ed8.html
Cover story: Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) technologies, applied for monitoring valves in a refinery, used wireless acoustic transmitters to improve regulatory compliance and reduce hydrocarbon losses by $3 million annually due to timely detection and repair of faulty valves. The project paid for itself in five months, with an estimated annualized return on investment (ROI) of 271% annualized over 20 years. See four IIoT benefits.
The Industrial IoT (IIoT) is much more advanced than the commercial IoT, primarily due to the prevalence of connected sensors in the industrial world, which are the “things” in the IoT. Hundreds of millions of connected wired and wireless pressure, level, flow, temperature, vibration, acoustic, position, analytical, and other sensors are installed and operating in the industrial sector, and millions more are added annually, increasing value with additional monitoring, analysis, and optimization. This is part of the June Control Engineering cover story on Industry 4.0 and Industrial Internet of Things to help make smarter factories.
The IIoT connects sensors to analytic and other systems to automatically improve performance, safety, reliability, and energy efficiency by:
1. Collecting data from sensors (things) much more cost effectively than ever before because sensors are often battery-powered and wireless
2. Interpreting this data strategically using big data analytics and other techniques to turn the data into actionable information
3. Presenting this actionable information to the right person, either plant personnel or remote experts, and at the right time
4. Delivering performance improvements when personnel take corrective action.
Tomi Engdahl says:
ONVIF
http://www.onvif.org/
ONVIF is an open industry forum for the development of a global standard for the interface of IP-based physical security products.
ONVIF is committed to the adoption of IP in the security market. The ONVIF specification will ensure interoperability between products regardless of manufacturer. The cornerstones of ONVIF are:
Standardization of communication between IP-based physical security
Interoperability between IP-based physical security products regardless of manufacturer
Open to all companies and organizations
The ONVIF specification defines a common protocol for the exchange of information between network video devices including automatic device discovery, video streaming and intelligence metadata.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Synopsys Acquires Elliptic Technologies, Beefs up Security
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1327012&
EDA software company Synopsys, Inc. announced (June 29) its acquisition of security intellectual property company Elliptic Technologies. Elliptic, a founding member of the prpl Foundation’s Security Working Group, has been working on an open security framework for deploying secured and authenticated virtualized services in the IoT and related emerging markets. Its security IP is already in many devices, from mobile, automotive, digital home, Internet of Things (IoT) and cloud computing applications, according to the press release.
Synopsys also recently announced acquisition of Codenomicon and plans to acquire Quotium’s Seeker product.
Synopsys Expands Security Solutions with Acquisition of Elliptic Technologies
Acquisition Complements DesignWare IP Portfolio with a Broad Range of Security IP
http://news.synopsys.com/2015-06-29-Synopsys-Expands-Security-Solutions-with-Acquisition-of-Elliptic-Technologies
Tomi Engdahl says:
Disassembled Mouse Keeps Track Of Gas Meter
http://hackaday.com/2015/06/30/disassembled-mouse-keeps-track-of-gas-meter/
After building devices that can read his home’s electricity usage, [Dave] set out to build something that could measure the other energy source to his house: his gas line. Rather than tapping into the line and measuring the gas directly, his (much safer) method was to simply monitor the gas meter itself.
The major hurdle that [Dave] had to jump was dealing with an ancient meter with absolutely no modern electronics
To accomplish this, [Dave] used the sensor from an optical mouse.
When the dial passes a certain point, the sensor alerts an Arduino that one revolution has occurred.
Reading an old-style gas meter – with a mouse chip!
http://www.rotwang.co.uk/projects/gasmeter.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Open APIs Open Standards Open Source
Black Box Code
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/black-box-code-pasi-hurri?trk=mp-reader-card
In discussions with our customers and prospects, especially with those related to the public sector, notions like ‘open APIs’, ‘open standards’, ‘non-proprietary architecture’ are often brought up. Some governments even insist on using ‘open source’. A popular challenge from customers to vendors is to label them as ‘black box’ solutions, with vendor lock-in as primary motivation.
12 years ago also we at BaseN decided that our primary components – scalable and fault tolerant data storage, computing and presentation engines must be fully under our control. Our goal, which we successfully reached, was to avoid restrictive financial and technical dependencies on third party components. Commercially this means that pricing and its scalability is also determined solely by us.
Open source is a splendid catalyst of innovation, so we closely follow and support several projects. However, when it comes to core components, dependence on an open source system is, in our view, a similar if not even greater risk than utilizing proprietary code through a commercial agreement.
Now that we’re scaling up our global IoT operator to support billions of devices and services, this independence is key.
Tomi Engdahl says:
DNS Tunneling with an ESP8266
http://hackaday.com/2015/07/01/dns-tunneling-with-an-esp8266/
There’s a big problem with the Internet of Things. Everything’s just fine if your Things are happy to sit around your living room all day, where the WiFi gets four bars. But what does your poor Thing do when it wants to go out and get a coffee and it runs into a for-pay hotspot?
[Yakamo]’s solution is for your Thing to do the same thing you would: tunnel your data through DNS requests. It’s by no means a new idea, but the combination of DNS tunneling and IoT devices stands to be as great as peanut butter and chocolate.
DNS tunneling, in short, relies on you setting up your own DNS server with a dedicated subdomain and software that will handle generic data instead of information about IP addresses. You, or your Thing, send data encoded in “domain names” for it to look up, and the server passes data back to you in the response.
DNS tunneling is relatively slow
BTWifi & FON(and other hotspots) as a Free transport of IOT device data, Using DNS Tunneling.
http://yakamo.org/?p=1506
Tomi Engdahl says:
IBM Makes Lake George World’s Smartest Lake
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1327038&
Over 60 researchers, including ones from IBM and Rensselaer Polytechnic, are turning Lake George into a sea of sensors.
When you think of the Internet of Things, you probably don’t think of lakes. But IBM, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and the Fund for Lake George are using IoT technology to make New York’s Lake George a “smart lake.” They are combining sensors and computer models to get a clearer picture of what is happening inside the Lake George ecosystem than we’ve ever had of any large body of water.
The Jefferson Project, named after Thomas Jefferson, who was a fan of the lake, is described as a “physics-to-fish” attempt at maintaining the health of the lake. It is threatened by multiple human-caused issues, including salt run-off from nearby roads, invasive species, and algae
The teams have placed sensors throughout the lake, including ones on the lake’s 200-foot deep floor, floating on the surface, and even in the streams that feed the lake.
Internet of Things Turning New York’s Lake George into “World’s Smartest Lake”
http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/47219.wss
The new phase of the project is the culmination of several milestones. An array of sophisticated sensors of different shapes and sizes, including underwater sonar based sensors; customized software programs and solar energy systems to power off-grid equipment have now been deployed, tested and refined. These enhancements have led to greatly improved measurement data that will be used to better understand the lake and lead to improvements in the accuracy of four predictive models built by IBM researchers that precisely measure weather events, water run-off from the surrounding mountains into the lake, inputs of road salt to the lake, and water circulation.
These four models, together with Rensselaer’s food web model, which examines how the lake’s ecosystem is affected by nature and human activities, comprise the interconnected environmental management system, which is the heart of the project. The food web model is also being further calibrated with extensive surveys of the lake’s algae, plants, and animals.
“Never in the history of any freshwater lake in the world has the caliber of science and technology now being brought to Lake George been applied for the purpose of sustaining lake health, ‘from physics to fish,’ ” said Eric Siy, executive director of The FUND for Lake George. “The empowered science of The Jefferson Project will empower people to ensure the Lake is protected for future generations.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Verizon 2015 DBIR: Don’t Sweat Mobile and IoT
http://www.securityweek.com/verizon-2015-dbir-dont-sweat-mobile-and-iot
Verizon on Tuesday released its widely anticipated 2015 Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR), a must read report compiled by Verizon with the support 70 contributing partners, which analyzed 79,790 security incidents and 2,122 confirmed data breaches across 61 different countries.
In short, Verizon suggested that enterprise security teams don’t freak out over the current risks posed by Mobile and Internet of Things (IoT).
“We feel safe saying that while a major carrier is looking for and monitoring the security of mobile devices on its network, data breaches involving mobile devices should not be in any top-whatever list.”
IoT Security Challenges
While the number of non-traditional devices connected to corporate networks may be challenging enterprises, no widely known IoT device breaches have been disclosed–unless you count the spamming refrigerator incident which itself was questioned by many security experts.
So far, most of the breach examples in the news have been proofs of concept, and filtering out the hype and hypotheticals, there were few incidents and little data disclosure to report for 2014, Verizon said.
“When jumping on the IoT bandwagon, perform threat modeling and attack graph exercises to determine who your most likely adversary is, what their motives may be (financial vs. espionage vs. ideology, etc.), and where the most vulnerable components in your IoT services are,” Verizon advised.
Organizations should also determine where sensitive data ultimately resides in the ecosystem. “It may be on very “un-IoT” devices such as cloud-based databases or Hadoop70 clusters.”
“Ensure focus on Internet-visible components.”
According to a study by Atomik Research and security firm Tripwire released in January, 63 percent of executives expect business efficiencies and productivity will force them to adopt IoT devices despite the security risks. Still, 46 percent said the risks associated with IoT have the potential to become the most significant risk on their networks.
Quantify the impact of a data breach with
NEW DATA FROM
THE 2015 DBIR.
http://www.verizonenterprise.com/resources/reports/rp_data-breach-investigation-report-2015-insider_en_xg.pdf
Tomi Engdahl says:
Gobot is a framework for robotics, physical computing, and the Internet of Things, written in the Go programming language
http://gobot.io/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bread Online is a Bread Maker for the Internet of Things
http://hackaday.com/2015/07/07/bread-online-is-a-bread-maker-for-the-internet-of-things/
An engineering student at the University of Western Macedonia has just added another appliance to the ever-growing list of Internet enabled things. [Panagiotis] decided to modify an off-the-shelf bread maker to enable remote control via the Internet.
[Panagiotis] had to remove pretty much all of the original control circuitry for this device. The original controller was replaced with an Arduino Uno R3 and an Ethernet shield. The temperature sensor also needed to be replaced, since [Panagiotis] could not find any official documentation describing the specifications of the original. Luckily, the heating element and mixer motor were able to be re-used.
A few holes were drilled into the case to make room for the Ethernet connector as well as a USB connector.
The Arduino bread maker can be controlled via a web site that runs on a separate server. The website is coded with PHP and runs on Apache.
The IoT (internet of things) breadmaker
http://arch.icte.uowm.gr/projects/breadmaker2015/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Chinese wifi circuit operates at minimum power
Wifi connection is not traditionally thought as network link for variety of small equipment because of high power consumption. Demonstrated by the Chinese Rockchip, which RKi6000 chipset is the company that the world’s low-power most.
Rockchipin by chipset cuts up to 85 percent of your Wi-Fi radio power consumption. As a result, for example, was connected to the sensor node can transmit data to the AAA batteries up to 35 years.
Low power consumption allows for circumstances in which the camera with a Wi-Fi connection power source may be sufficient coin-cell battery.
Rochchipin according RKi6000 chipset power consumption is similar to low power bluetooth or BLE-level radios. The reception power consumption is about 20 milliwatts. However, Wifi is bluetooth workable, because routers can be found practically everywhere.
The chipset will be available in the third quarter.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3004:kiinalainen-wifi-piiri-toimii-pienimmalla-virralla&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
11 million smart meters
Schneider Electric designs and implements technology platform, which the Spanish electricity company Iberdrola is able to handle and manage the data an estimated 11 million contactless smart electricity meters and advanced tracking devices are collected. These measuring devices are to be installed in the Spanish low-voltage network by 2019.
Schneider Electric Titanium-based technology platform can be used to integrate the data collected smart meters and low voltage network infrastructure, advanced control in one central PRIME-standards-based solution. Iberdrola has the solution enables real-time and secure access to network management information.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3015:11-miljoonaa-etaluettavaa-sahkomittaria&catid=13&Itemid=101
PRIME (PoweRline Intelligent Metering Evolution) today is a mature, consolidated and worldwide PLC standard for Advanced Metering, Grid Control and Asset Monitoring applications and the objective to establish a set of open international PLC standards has been met.
http://www.prime-alliance.org/
Tomi Engdahl says:
$49 Arduino-compatible board features enhanced Cortex M7 MCU
http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/electronic-product-reviews/other/4439834/-49-Arduino-compatible-board-features-enhanced-Cortex-M7-MCU–touch-screen-LCD–audio–and-more?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_consumerelectronics_20150708&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_consumerelectronics_20150708&elq=a002b2677df348baba716c9e25cba105&elqCampaignId=23814&elqaid=26895&elqat=1&elqTrackId=f9e8e286ffaa49b49b0dbdd3e313f3d9
STMicro’s Arduino-compatible STM32F7 Discovery Kit is an exciting development for DIY-ers interested in Internet-of-Things (IoT) applications. Although intended primarily for “mainstream” embedded developers, the board and associated development tools make it easy and affordable for the Maker/DIY-er crowd to get their hands on the STM32F7*, STM’s the latest and highest-performing Cortex-M7 core. Developers involved with Connected Lighting and other Smart Home/Smart Building applications will also find this a great way to see if STM’s most IoT-capable MCU is a candidate for their next project.
Priced at $49.90, the Discovery Kit’s open hardware architecture provides an affordable, compact platform which includes a WQVGA touchscreen color display, stereo audio, multi-sensor support, security, and high-speed connectivity. Unlimited expansion capability is provided through the Arduino Uno connectivity support and immediate access to a large choice of specialized add-on boards.
The STM32F7 Discovery Kit comes with ST’s STM32Cube firmware library, as well as direct support from a wide ecosystem of software-development tool partners and the ARM® mbed™ online community.
Tomi Engdahl says:
World’s smallest computer can fit on the edge of a nickel
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/tech-edge/4439854/World-s-smallest-computer-can-fit-on-the-edge-of-a-nickel?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_consumerelectronics_20150708&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_consumerelectronics_20150708&elq=a002b2677df348baba716c9e25cba105&elqCampaignId=23814&elqaid=26895&elqat=1&elqTrackId=ad535360bd7a47efbab901e59f98cf63
As part of the quest to give computing devices smaller, more efficient designs, University of Michigan researchers have spent over a decade working to develop what they believe is the world’s smallest complete computer, built on a cubic millimeter scale. The Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA, which currently houses an exhibit focused on the Micro Mote, estimates that close to 150 of the computers could fit inside a single thimble.
The main impediment to creating such small devices is not shrinking the functioning parts but creating a power source.
Solar cells in the Michigan Micro Mote power the battery with ambient light – including indoors where no natural sunlight is present – in theory allowing the computers to run forever.
Each unit, part of a category of technology referred to as smart dust, is assembled in layers and is capable of being customized to a particular function.
Possible uses for the technology in environmental and energy management can be found in tracking power use for the smart grid, charting polar ice changes, detecting soil moisture, and even monitoring air and water quality.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ken Yeung / VentureBeat:
Pinterest taps IFTTT and Polyvore as the first two services to integrate its APIs
http://venturebeat.com/2015/07/08/pinterest-taps-ifttt-and-polyvore-as-the-first-two-services-to-integrate-its-apis/
In May, Pinterest announced a new platform for developers to help them build apps that would “bring Pins to life.” Today, the interest-based social networking company announced the first two services that have integrated with Pinterest’s API: IFTTT and Polyvore.
Pinterest says it has received many submissions for ideas on how to integrate its API with third-party services, ranging from helping people plan their travels to designing their homes and gardens to even ordering the ingredients on recipe Pins. IFTTT, a web-based conditional platform, and Polyvore, the fashion site, are only the first, as Pinterest tells us additional integrations and apps will start rolling out after today.
Here’s how the Pinterest integrations will work: with Polyvore, users will now be able to easily save their items — fashion, beauty, and home decor collections — to Pinterest. This can be done on an iPhone, iPad, or desktop.
With IFTTT, anyone can connect their Pinterest account with hundreds of products and devices through the Pinterest channel. This also means users can save Pins to boards with a specific set action on third-party apps, such as upvoting a Reddit post, favoriting an Etsy item, or simply liking an Instagram photo.
If you’re a third-party developer interested in integrating with Pinterest, the company says it’s happy to chat.
As you can see, the workflow has striking similarities to something one might see when authenticating third-party sites with Facebook data.
The integrations with Polyvore and IFTTT are clearly just the beginning.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Home / Health / Medicine / Modern Medicine / Modern Medical Technology
Will the Internet of Things change hospital technology?
http://health.howstuffworks.com/medicine/modern-technology/internet-of-things-change-hospital-technology.htm
You may have heard of the Internet of Things, the buzzword for a future in which sensors and devices are embedded in a wide range of physical objects — from refrigerators to cars — and linked through wired and wireless networks to the Internet. Those networks of machines won’t be posting funny cat videos to Facebook, either — they’ll be churning out enormous volumes of data, which will then flow to powerful computers to analyze and communicate back to the machines.
Inanimate objects become tools for monitoring their environments, understanding trends and responding to them with incredible speed. It’s a future that’s already arriving. In Japan, for example, billboards look at people as they pass by, assess how they fit consumer profiles, and then change their messages to suit [source: Katz]. Precision combines link wirelessly to satellites and use their observations to alter the way that they till a particular field [source: Cibils].
But some of the most transformative effects of the Internet of Things will be felt in health care. Patients being treated for a chronic illness, for example, may be outfitted with sensors that allow doctors to monitor their vital signs continuously, both in and out of the hospital.
Continuous network monitoring could also allow manufacturers to keep an eye on the performance of medical equipment, from MRI machines to pacemakers, make adjustments and repairs remotely, and reduce the possibility of breakdowns or performance lags
Tomi Engdahl says:
Fatem Oomi smart phone
http://oomihome.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=63&v=09IvwTsaUbA
Tomi Engdahl says:
Internet of Things
http://eu.mouser.com/applications/internet-of-things/
The Internet of Things (IoT) is about interconnecting embedded systems. It brings together two evolving technologies: wireless connectivity and smart sensors. Combined with recent advances in low power microcontrollers, these new “things” are being connected to the internet easily and inexpensively, ushering in a second industrial revolution.
Mouser has opened sub-website for Internet of Things related topics:
http://eu.mouser.com/applications/internet-of-things/
Tomi Engdahl says:
IoT Sensor Node Block Diagram
http://fi.mouser.com/applications/internet-of-things-block-diagram/
The Internet of Things (IoT) is about interconnecting embedded systems, bringing together two evolving technologies: wireless connectivity and sensors. These connected embedded systems are independent microcontroller-based computers that use sensors to collect data. These IoT systems are networked together usually by a wireless protocol such as WiFi, Bluetooth, 802.11.4, or a custom communication system. The networking protocol is selected based on the distribution of nodes and the amount of data to be collected.
This data is sent over the network to the main hub or computer. This main computer collects and analyzes the data, storing it in memory and even making system decisions based on the results of the analysis.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Belgian Smappee has introduced a new business unit for energy management. Smappee Pro is the company that at the moment only for small and medium-sized businesses designed for energy management solution. The tool helps companies to visualize how much energy they consume in real time, and at the same time allows for the management of electrical equipment on mobile devices.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3055:alylaite-paljastaa-tyopaikan-
Smappee Pro.
Bringing energy monitoring and control to SMEs
http://www.smappee.com/be_en/pro
Turn your sites into a smart energy network. Smappee Pro is an energy management solution that combines industrial-grade features with the ease of use and cost-efficiency of our award-winning home energy solution.
energiasyopot&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
From fitness trackers to drones, how the Internet of Things is transforming the insurance industry
http://uk.businessinsider.com/how-the-internet-of-things-is-transforming-the-insurance-industry-2015-7?utm_source=taboola&utm_medium=cpc&utm_content=taboola&utm_campaign=taboolaMain&utm_term=pmc-variety?r=US
The ability to bring internet connection to nearly every type of consumer device will have huge implications for the insurance industry over the next five years. Insurers looking to cut costs, improve business practices, and better assess clients’ risk levels, will increasingly invest in the Internet of Things (IoT).
Some auto and health insurers are already offering a new type of insurance — usage-based insurance (UBI) that uses IoT devices to track clients’ activity and offer discounts or rewards for healthy and safe behavior. We expect 17 million people will have tried UBI auto insurance by the end of this year.
Here are some key points from the report:
Auto insurers are the leading adopters of UBI insurance models. By 2020, over 50 million US drivers will have tried UBI insurance, according to our estimates.
Healthcare insurers are giving customers free fitness trackers and offering lower premiums or other benefits for meeting daily exercise goals.
The IoT is also helping insurers reduce risk and mitigate costs in other ways.
Home insurance companies are incentivizing customers to install connected devices that warn of potential danger to properties.
IoT-based analytics can be used to predict future events, such as major weather patterns. This can help insurers better price policies and prepare customers for upcoming incidents, which should help reduce damages.
Property insurance companies are increasingly using drones to assess damages after an incident has occurred. Consulting firm Cognizant estimates that drones will make insurance adjusters’ work flow 40%-50% more efficient.
Read more: http://uk.businessinsider.com/how-the-internet-of-things-is-transforming-the-insurance-industry-2015-7?utm_source=taboola&utm_medium=cpc&utm_content=taboola&utm_campaign=taboolaMain&utm_term=pmc-variety?r=US#ixzz3fOQmC8RZ
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Internet of (nearly) Everything
http://www.theguardian.com/media-network/ng-interactive/2015/jun/17/the-internet-of-nearly-everything
The Internet of Things connects certain everyday physical objects to the internet, and to each other. But what happens when the internet is connected to everything?
Tomi Engdahl says:
AWS Official Blog
Amazon API Gateway – Build and Run Scalable Application Backends
https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/amazon-api-gateway-build-and-run-scalable-application-backends/?sc_campaign=launch&sc_category=api_gateway&sc_channel=SM&sc_content=summit_launch&sc_detail=std&sc_medium=aws&sc_publisher=tw_go&adbsc=social_launches_20150709_48897386&adbid=619168902879145984&adbpl=tw&adbpr=66780587
I like to think of infrastructure as the part of a system that everyone needs and no one likes to work on! It is often undifferentiated & messy, tedious to work on, difficult to manage, critical to the success of whatever relies on it, and generally taken for granted (as long as it works as expected).
Many of our customers host backend web services for their mobile, web, enterprise, or IoT (Internet of Things) applications on AWS. These services have no user interface. Instead, they are accessed programmatically, typically using a REST-style interface. In order to successfully host an application backend you need to think about the infrastructure: authorization, access control, traffic management, monitoring, analytics, and version management. None of these tasks are easy, and all count as infrastructure. In many cases you also need to build, maintain, and distribute SDKs (Software Development Kits) for one or more programming languages. Put it all together, and the amount of code and resources (not to mention head-scratching) devoted to the infrastructure for web services can dwarf the actual implementation of the service. Many of our customers have told us that they would like to make investments in web services, but have little interest in building or maintaining the infrastructure for them due to the cost and complexity involved.
New API Gateway
Today we are introducing the new Amazon API Gateway. This new pay-as-you-go service allows you to quickly and easily build and run application backends that are robust, and scalable. Instead of worrying about the infrastructure, you can focus on your services.
The API Gateway makes it easy for you to connect all types of applications to API implementations that run on AWS Lambda, Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), or a publicly addressable service hosted outside of AWS. If you use Lambda (I’ll show you how in just a moment), you can implement highly scalable APIs that are totally server-less.
You can also implement APIs that wrap around, enhance, and effectively modernize legacy systems
The API Gateway was designed to deliver on the following promises:
Scalable & Efficient – Handle any number of requests per second (RPS) while making good use of system resources.
Self-Service & Highly Usable – Allow you to define, revise, deploy, and monitor APIs with a couple of clicks, without requiring specialized knowledge or skills, including easy SDK generation.
Reliable – Allow you to build services that are exceptionally dependable, with full control over error handling, including customized error responses.
Secure – Allow you to take advantage of the latest AWS authorization mechanisms and IAM policies to manage your APIs and your AWS resources.
Performant – Allow you to build services that are globally accessible (via CloudFront) for low latency access, with data transfer to the backend over the AWS network.
Cost-Effective – Allow you to build services that are economical to run, with no fixed costs and pay-as-you-go pricing.
Available Now
The Amazon API Gateway is available today in the US East (Northern Virginia), US West (Oregon), and Europe (Ireland) regions and you can start using it today.
The pricing model is simple. You pay for calls to the API and for outbound data transfer (the information returned by your APIs). Caching is priced separately, and the price is depending on the size of the cache that you configure.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hacker Search Engine Becomes the New Internet of Things Search Engine
http://www.securityweek.com/hacker-search-engine-becomes-new-internet-things-search-engine
At DEFCON 17 in 2009, John Matherly debuted a search engine named Shodan (after the villainous computer in the cult-classic video game, System Shock). Shodan was received with some alarm in the media, who named it “The world’s scariest search engine.”
Google finds web sites; Shodan finds devices
Where Google and other search engines index websites by looking at the body of the returned content, Shodan works by indexing HTTP headers and other “banner” information leaked from various devices. Shodan fingerprints the devices and indexes them by country, operating system, brand, or dozens of other attributes.
Today, Matherly is pleased to say that Shodan is becoming the new search engine for the Internet of Things. The same mechanics that allow Shodan to find Cisco routers in Connecticut enables it to find webcams, video billboards, license-plate scanners, those giant wind turbines, and many other devices.
The flexibility of Shodan makes for many curious searches. In one showcase example, Matherly used Shodan to locate Internet-accessible license plate readers, and found that 1.3% of motorists in Detroit use novelty license plates such as: SEWTHIS, GOODDAY, and my favorite, EMBALMR.
The powers of Shodan can be used for good. Manufacturers can use Shodan to locate unpatched versions of their software in IoT devices. And Sales can use it to identify new customer opportunities. One Shodan query shows the number of HP printers in need of toner across ten different universities. Hint: Staples, you might want to visit the University of Minnesota.
Consumer-grade security concerns
Though Shodan queries can be constructive or humorous, there is still security to consider. Whether Matherly intends it to or not, Shodan is already exposing the sham of consumer-grade security that we all suspected would be a hallmark of The Internet of Things.
Shodan can’t see everything in the Internet of Things—it’s going to find devices that look like “connectable” servers on the Internet. The vast majority of IoT devices will be sensors sending data one way through “smart hubs” (IoT-aware routers) in home networks that NAT the connections up to the cloud. In theory, the IoT hubs will protect the sensor from prying eyes on the Internet.
Except, according to Matherly, IoT hubs have a suboptimal security posture. Many still have telnet enabled(!) with default passwords or no passwords at all. Shodan can find these hubs if they are exposed directly to the Internet. And if someone were to access the hub from the Internet, he may be able to monitor the sensor data passing through it. That could be a problem for homes that log motion-sensor data to the cloud. An eavesdropper could use the sensor data to determine if someone were home or not.
Hacking (or just logging in) to an exposed home router is going a step beyond just running a Shodan search. Extrapolating threats like these leads us right back to the original media fear: that Shodan would be used as a go-to, DiY attacker search engine but this time, against the new consumer infrastructure.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nokia’s aftermath has created some interesting companies.
1. PulseOn: measuring the heart rate monitor from your wrist
2. Haltian: fearlessly wonder device
Things idea of the device is to facilitate the equipment, for example, on the Internet and it is povattu device “things Internet” creation.
The device can be used, for example, a burglar alarm, but its features allow the help of the Internet also means that it could warn of overheating, for example, a car or even a deterioration of food. Things to use open source
3. Jolla: The new Nokia? – one of the largest fruit of the Bridge program.
Source: http://www.iltalehti.fi/uutiset/2015071020012513_uu.shtml
Tomi Engdahl says:
Home Automation with Raspberry Pi
http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/home-automation-raspberry-pi
The Raspberry Pi has been very popular among hobbyists and educators ever since its launch in 2011. The Raspberry Pi is a credit-card-sized single-board computer with a Broadcom BCM 2835 SoC, 256MB to 512MB of RAM, USB ports, GPIO pins, Ethernet, HDMI out, camera header and an SD card slot. The most attractive aspects of the Raspberry Pi are its low cost of $35 and large user community following.
In this article, I briefly describe the requirements of the project that I outlined, and I explain the various tools I decided to use to build it. I then cover the hardware I chose and the way to assemble the parts to realize the system. Next, I continue setting up the development environment on the Raspbian image, and I walk through the code and bring everything together to form the complete system. Finally, I conclude with possible improvements and hacks that would extend the usefulness of a Pi home automation system.
The Internet of Things
An ongoing trend in embedded devices is to have all embedded devices connected to the Internet. The Internet was developed as a fail-safe network that could survive the destruction of several nodes. The Internet of Things (IoT) leverages the same redundancy. With the move to migrate to IPv6, the IP address space would be large enough for several trillion devices to stay connected. A connected device also makes it very convenient to control it from anywhere, receive inputs from various sensors and respond to events. A multitude of IoT-connected devices in a home has the potential to act as a living entity that exhibits response to stimuli.
Raspberry Pi Home Automation
Inspired by the idea of having a home that has a life of its own, I settled on a home automation project to control the lights in my living room. The goal of my project was to be able to time the lights in my living room and control them remotely over the Internet using a Web browser. I also wanted to expose an API that could be used to control the device from other devices programatically.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Decapping the CC2630 and CC2650
http://hackaday.com/2015/07/09/decapping-the-cc2630-and-cc2650/
TI sells four different models of their CC26XX wireless MCUs. Three support one of the following: RF4CE, Zigbee/6LoWPAN, and Bluetooth and a further model which supports all protocols. Each IC has the same baseline specification: 128Kb Flash, 20Kb RAM and 15 GPIOs. cc26xx_nitric[Jelmer] was curious to know if the price difference was all in the software. And in order to verify this decided that decapping was the only thing to do!
Tomi Engdahl says:
Non-Invasive Smart Electricity Meter
http://hackaday.com/2015/07/11/non-invasive-smart-electricity-meter/
The project is based on the Spark Core, and uses clamp-on current sensors to measure energy use. The sensors wrap around the mains cable, meaning you don’t have to disconnect anything to hook them up. The backend runs on a LAMP server which could be a Raspberry Pi if you have one. [Yonas] runs it on a hosted server as a matter of preference.
Spark Non-Invasive Smart Electricity Meter
A simple Non-Invasive Smart Electricity Meter using Spark Core
https://www.hackster.io/yleguesse/spark-non-invasive-smart-electricity-meter
A non invasive current sensor is connected to the spark core (with a few components), and clamped around a cable in the Mains distribution unit. No wiring is required, however Do not try this at home
The project uses the EmonLib Library for Electricity monitoring https://github.com/openenergymonitor/EmonLib
Tomi Engdahl says:
New Part Day: The ESP8266 Killer
http://hackaday.com/2015/07/13/new-part-day-the-esp8266-killer/
Around this time last year we first heard of the ESP8266 WiFi module. It’s still a great little module, providing WiFi connectivity for all those Internet of Things things at a price point of just $5. It’s an attractive price for a great module with a huge community pumping out a lot of projects for the platform.
Now there’s a new kid on the block. It’s called the EMW3165, and like the ESP it provides WiFi connectivity for a bunch of wireless projects. It’s much, much more capable with an STM32F4 ARM Coretex M4 microcontroller, a ‘self hosted’ networking library, more RAM, more Flash, and more GPIOs. How much, you’re probably asking yourself. It’s a dollar more than the ESP8266.
There will be a lot of interesting builds using this part. It’s also passed FCC certification. Very cool.
EMW3165
http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/EMW3165-p-2488.html?cPath=19_20
https://hackadaycom.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/emw3165.pdf
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ron Amadeo / Ars Technica:
Google launches Eddystone, an open source, cross-platform Bluetooth LE beacon format
Meet Google’s “Eddystone”—a flexible, open source iBeacon fighter
Google’s cross-platform standard combines the best of iBeacon and The Physical Web.
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/07/meet-googles-eddystone-a-flexible-open-source-ibeacon-fighter/
Move over iBeacon—today Google is launching “Eddystone,” an open source, cross-platform Bluetooth LE beacon format. Bluetooth beacons are part of the Internet of Things (IoT) trend. They’re little transmitters (usually battery powered) that send out information about a specific point of interest, and that info is then passively picked up by a smartphone or tablet in range of the transmitter. A beacon-equipped bus stop could send out transit times, stores could send promotions to the customers currently in the store, or a museum could send people information about the exhibit they’re standing in front of.
Like iBeacon, but more open
At this point some of you are likely saying, “This already exists! It’s called iBeacon!” Apple’s two-year-old iBeacon standard has a number of problems though, the main one being that it’s a proprietary standard that only works with iDevices.
Eddystone is cross-platform—support is built into Google Play Services’ Nearby API on Android, and it can be used via a library on iOS. Eddystone is also open source and is available on GitHub under the Apache v2.0 license (we’ll update with links later once this all goes live).
The openness of Eddystone is the big differentiator. In contrast, Apple is so protective of iBeacon that when one company, Radius Networks, got iBeacon support up and running on Android, Apple contacted them and had the product shut down.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Monica Alleven / FierceWireless:
Thread Group releases its IoT networking protocol, adds Qualcomm as board member
http://www.fiercewireless.com/tech/story/thread-group-releases-its-networking-protocol-home-based-internet-things/2015-07-13
Almost exactly a year after announcing itself to the world, the Thread Group is releasing the Thread 1.0 specifications and documentation that will allow its members to build Thread-compliant products.
“It’s a fantastic milestone,” said Thread Group President Chris Boross, noting that all members are now getting access to that documentation. “It’s a big step in the Thread program.”
What the AllSeen Alliance is doing is complementary to what Thread is doing, and “it’s not competitive,” Boross told FierceWirelessTech. The AllSeen Alliance developed an application framework, and that technology runs over different networks, like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and hopefully, in the future, Thread. While Thread is not announcing a partnership between the two, “obviously, Thread has been designed to work with lots of different applications,” and it continues to work with ZigBee, which is just the first of many partnerships in Thread’s future, he said.
According to the Thread Group, millions of existing 802.15.4 wireless devices already on the market can run Thread with just a software enhancement–no new hardware is required. Thread is specifically geared for deployment for devices in and throughout the home.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Send In The Drones: Putting Wheels And Wings On The Internet Of Things
http://hackaday.com/2015/07/17/send-in-the-drones-putting-wheels-and-wings-on-the-internet-of-things/
In the paper, authors [Jennifer Wang], [Erik Schluntz], [Brian Otis], and [Travis Deyle] put a commercially available quadcopter and RC car to the hack. Both platforms were fitted with telemetry radios, GPS, and an off-the-shelf RFID tag reader and antenna. For their sensor array, they selected passive UHF RFID tags coupled to a number of different sensors, including a resistance sensor used to measure soil moisture. A ground-control system was developed that allowed both the quad and the car to maneuver to waypoints under GPS guidance to poll sensors and report back.
Beyond agriculture, the possibilities for an IoT based on cheap sensors and autonomous vehicles to poll them are limitless.
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1507.02373v1.pdf
Tomi Engdahl says:
How to Make Amazon Echo Control Fake WeMo Devices
http://hackaday.com/2015/07/16/how-to-make-amazon-echo-control-fake-wemo-devices/
[Chris] has been playing with the Amazon Echo. It’s sort of like having Siri or Google Now available as part of your home, but with built-in support for certain other home automation appliances like those from Belkin WeMo and Philips. The problem was [Chris] didn’t want to be limited to only those brands. He had other home automation gear that he felt should work with Amazon Echo, but didn’t. That’s when he came up with the clever idea to just emulate one of the supported platforms.
The WeMo devices use UPnP to perform certain functions over the network.
Amazon Echo and Home Automation
http://www.makermusings.com/2015/07/13/amazon-echo-and-home-automation/
Anyone who has taken steps toward home automation can probably relate to the feeling of wrongness that the Amazon Echo has such limited options for integrating into a smart home. I don’t use the Belkin WeMo system or Philips Hue light bulbs. But it just seems like I should be able to say, “Alexa, turn on the kitchen light” and make it work with my setup. There’s just enough already built in that not being able to do this is frustrating.
Here’s what I did to get it to work. My solution is general enough that it can be easily tweaked to work with many different technologies as long as you’ve got some kind of API available.
The WeMo devices use the UPnP protocol to advertise themselves on the network, respond to searches from controllers, and define the details of their control interfaces. The Echo searches for the WeMo devices specifically and is programmed to know about the WeMo API. The minimal amount that the Echo uses the UPnP protocol means that it should be possible to emulate WeMo devices on the network in software.
Finding out how the Echo and the WeMo interact took some network sniffing with Wireshark. Because the Echo and WeMo are both WiFi devices, capturing the network traffic required a wireless adapter that could be put into “monitor mode”.
Wireshark can decrypt the traffic if you tell it your SSID and passphrase, as long as the captured data includes the four EAPOL handshake packets from each device.
Creating a software emulation of the WeMo switch would allow me to have as many virtual WeMo devices as I wanted on my network, each with a different name. Each switch can be told to turn “on” or “off”, so the interface is pretty basic.
Here’s what I decided I needed for my virtual WeMo cloud:
An IP address for each virtual switch.
A listener for UDP broadcasts to address 239.255.255.250 on port 1900.
A listener on port 49153 for each switch on its associated IP address.
Logic to customize the search response and the setup.xml to conform to the UPnP protocol and give the Echo the right information about each switch.
Logic to respond to the on and off commands sent by the Echo and tie them to whatever action I wanted to really perform.
I don’t know that the Echo requires a different IP address for each switch or if I can use multiple ports on a single IP address or even multiple URLs on a single port.
A search request from the Echo is a UDP broadcast formatted as an HTTP request, with HTTP headers indicating what is being searched for. There is no body.
Each UPnP device on the network that satisfies the search term is supposed to send a UDP message to the IP address and port that made the search request. The response is formatted as an HTTP response. But this is not TCP, there aren’t really any connections involved.
Once the Echo receives the search response, it sends an HTTP GET request to the URL specified in the LOCATION header.
And the switch responds with the device description file, which is 133 lines long in the WeMo switch that I tested.
When you tell the Echo to turn a device on or off, this is what it sends as an HTTP request to the device
That’s an awful lot of stuff just for the “1” or “0”
Similarly for the response, which has no dynamic data other than the date and the content-length
That’s all it takes to finish the dialog necessary to make the Echo think the software is a genuine WeMo switch. A tiny bit of extra code wired the “1” and “0” commands into REST API requests, and I was able to make it all work from voice command to action.