Source: The Star, 21/5/2015
KUALA LUMPUR: The Internet of Things (IoT), which will soon be implemented in Malaysia, is projected to generate economic opportunities worth RM890 billion, globally.
Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation (Mosti) Datuk Dr Ewon Ebin said the ministry would lead the implementation of the IoT strategic roadmap, which would be launched by the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najb Tun Razak.
"By 2020, IoT is estimated to grow at 34.1% a year in the Asia Pacific region," he told a press conference prior to launching the National Innovation Conference and Exhibition (NICE) 2015 on Thursday.
In May 2014, Mosti's agency, MIMOS, launched the first IoT technical working group, indicating the government's commitment towards IoT as the next big thing in technology.
IoT is the inevitable integration of enabling technologies such as Internet, wireless sensors, radio frequency identification and global positioning systems, which could enhance the way people live.
The three-day conference, themed "Beyond Innovation" is organised by Mosti.
NICE 2015, which would feature both local and international speakers, managed to attract 1,000 participants and 81 exhibitors.
On the last day of the conference, Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin is scheduled to officiate the National Innovation Award 2015. - Bernama
Source: The Star, 21/5/2015
Posted by: Hairol
Thursday, 21 May 2015
Tuesday, 12 May 2015
Thread: Future IoT Protocol
Source: Larry Mittag, eetimes, 11/5/2015
The Thread protocol represents the future for networking the Internet of Things, according to a veteran embedded-systems consultant.
Early IoT devices generally have had to compromise their ambitions. Most connected products to date have either used WiFi connectivity for networking and paid the cost in terms of power or moved to Zigbee or Insteon for lower-power networking and have lived with the more restricted connectivity available on those networks. For IoT to reach its full potential, however, there is going to have to be a truly ubiquitous and robust networking standard.
The networks for these early products are mostly those described in my last blog. Their hallmarks are either one-to-many connectivity with a defined central controller or relatively static forwarding paths within the local network segment. These networks tend to be locally optimized for a specific set of tasks but limited in terms of being able to scale to the next level that is anticipated for the IoT.
That next level is going to require much more robust networking that is standardized. There are a number of networking suites that are trying to make the case for being that standard, but so far none of them has been able to meet all of the requirements to be accepted as the 800-pound gorilla of this Internet expansion.
One recent entrant that has been popular is Bluetooth Low Energy. This protocol set has very strong industry acceptance, but it still has a relatively local concept of networking. Bluetooth tends to be strongest at point-to-point communications.
There are options to build small networks of Bluetooth devices, as well as the Internet Protocol Support Profile (IPSP) which will allow the use of full IPv6 protocols. But IPSP really doesn’t seem to be designed to create a general-purpose network that can support more than a few dozen devices and provide robust routing into the Internet.
The strongest entry that I have seen for filling that niche is the Thread group. This organization consists of some major players such as ARM, Google (via their Nest subsidiary), and Samsung and built its technology on IEEE standards such as 6LowPAN. The result is a robust network base that can scale very effectively while also supporting very low-power devices.
It is worth pointing out that this is a networking stack, not an operating system. Just among the founding members of this group there are several potential IoT operating systems represented, and the Thread stack can be used with each of them as well as others.
Thread’s robustness really comes into play when you consider mobility. If nodes in an IoT network are moving around locally then the intranet forwarding paths must be constantly updated. If the local network itself is mobile (in a car or truck, for example) then the connectivity points to the Internet will be changing and need to be smoothly updated. If nodes within the local network are mobile across multiple local networks then the routing protocols must adjust to that.
Ideally all of these adjustments must take place without the applications using the network having to be aware of the changing connectivity environment. This can be done using the Thread protocols.
Some may ask if we need all this functionality. I think to go to the next stage we do. Others may question why we should pay to use IEEE standards. I think their value is primarily in strong interoperability testing. Predictable some will wonder if Thread even works. I would think there’s a pretty good bet it does given the players involved.
To my mind this is the strongest solution to bring clarity to this corner of the confusing IoT universe. There are still other questions about the choice of an operating system and hardware vendor that are far from settled, but the Thread Group can provide the lingua franca that can tie it all together and provide the scale that will be required.
Source: Larry Mittag, eetimes, 11/5/2015
Posted by Hairol
The Thread protocol represents the future for networking the Internet of Things, according to a veteran embedded-systems consultant.
Early IoT devices generally have had to compromise their ambitions. Most connected products to date have either used WiFi connectivity for networking and paid the cost in terms of power or moved to Zigbee or Insteon for lower-power networking and have lived with the more restricted connectivity available on those networks. For IoT to reach its full potential, however, there is going to have to be a truly ubiquitous and robust networking standard.
The networks for these early products are mostly those described in my last blog. Their hallmarks are either one-to-many connectivity with a defined central controller or relatively static forwarding paths within the local network segment. These networks tend to be locally optimized for a specific set of tasks but limited in terms of being able to scale to the next level that is anticipated for the IoT.
That next level is going to require much more robust networking that is standardized. There are a number of networking suites that are trying to make the case for being that standard, but so far none of them has been able to meet all of the requirements to be accepted as the 800-pound gorilla of this Internet expansion.
One recent entrant that has been popular is Bluetooth Low Energy. This protocol set has very strong industry acceptance, but it still has a relatively local concept of networking. Bluetooth tends to be strongest at point-to-point communications.
There are options to build small networks of Bluetooth devices, as well as the Internet Protocol Support Profile (IPSP) which will allow the use of full IPv6 protocols. But IPSP really doesn’t seem to be designed to create a general-purpose network that can support more than a few dozen devices and provide robust routing into the Internet.
The strongest entry that I have seen for filling that niche is the Thread group. This organization consists of some major players such as ARM, Google (via their Nest subsidiary), and Samsung and built its technology on IEEE standards such as 6LowPAN. The result is a robust network base that can scale very effectively while also supporting very low-power devices.
It is worth pointing out that this is a networking stack, not an operating system. Just among the founding members of this group there are several potential IoT operating systems represented, and the Thread stack can be used with each of them as well as others.
Thread’s robustness really comes into play when you consider mobility. If nodes in an IoT network are moving around locally then the intranet forwarding paths must be constantly updated. If the local network itself is mobile (in a car or truck, for example) then the connectivity points to the Internet will be changing and need to be smoothly updated. If nodes within the local network are mobile across multiple local networks then the routing protocols must adjust to that.
Ideally all of these adjustments must take place without the applications using the network having to be aware of the changing connectivity environment. This can be done using the Thread protocols.
Some may ask if we need all this functionality. I think to go to the next stage we do. Others may question why we should pay to use IEEE standards. I think their value is primarily in strong interoperability testing. Predictable some will wonder if Thread even works. I would think there’s a pretty good bet it does given the players involved.
To my mind this is the strongest solution to bring clarity to this corner of the confusing IoT universe. There are still other questions about the choice of an operating system and hardware vendor that are far from settled, but the Thread Group can provide the lingua franca that can tie it all together and provide the scale that will be required.
Source: Larry Mittag, eetimes, 11/5/2015
Posted by Hairol
Sunday, 10 May 2015
Brain technology patents soar
Source: Sharon Begley, Reuters, 6/5/2015
From ways to eavesdrop on brains and learn what advertisements excite consumers, to devices that alleviate depression, the number of U.S. patents awarded for "neurotechnology" has soared since 2010, according to an analysis released on Wednesday.
Most surprising, concluded market-research firm SharpBrains, is that patents have been awarded to inventors well beyond those at medical companies. The leader in neurotechnology patents, according to the report, is consumer-research behemoth Nielsen.
That expansion into non-medical uses, said SharpBrains Chief Executive Alvaro Fernandez, who presented the results at the NeuroGaming conference in San Francisco, shows we are at the dawn of "the pervasive neurotechnology age," in which everyday technologies will be connected to brains.
"Neurotech has gone well beyond medicine, with non-medical corporations, often under the radar, developing neurotechnologies to enhance work and life," he said.
Patents for neurotechnology bumped along at 300 to 400 a year in the 2000s, then soared to 800 in 2010 and 1,600 last year, SharpBrains reported.
Those awarded to medical device company Medtronic PLC , for instance, include ways to use electroencephalography (EEG) to measure the severity of a brain lesion. Several held by medical technology company St. Jude Medical Inc. describe ways to change brain activity to, say, improve vision.
But it is the explosion in non-medical uses, such as controlling video games with brain waves, that is driving neurotechnology.
SharpBrains measured "intellectual property (IP) strength" by number of neurotechnology patents as well as patent quality, reflected in how many other patents reference them, for instance.
By that measure, Nielsen leads the pack, with patents describing ways to detect brain activity with EEG and translate it into what someone truly thinks about, say, a new product, advertising, or packaging.
Microsoft Corp. holds patents that assess mental states, with the goal of determining the most effective way to present information. If software knows a user's attention is wandering, it could hold back complicated material.
Another Microsoft patent describes a neuro-system that claims to discern whether a computer user is amenable to receiving advertisements.
Such patents reflect the enthusiasm for neuro-monitoring, something many scientists say has not been shown to be more effective than, say, asking people what they think about a product.
On a lighter note, an EEG patent awarded to San Jose-based biosensors company NeuroSky describes a design for a headset that could deliver music based on a user's brainwaves, perhaps a ballad when the listener is feeling contemplative. (Reporting by Sharon Begley; editing by Andrew Hay)
Source: Sharon Begley, Reuters, 6/5/2015
Posted by Hairol
Tuesday, 5 May 2015
IoT For Chicken
Source: Ann Steffora Mutschler, Semiconductor Engineering, 2/4/2015
As a backyard chicken enthusiast in my spare time, I was pleasantly surprised to find that other technology-minded folks are interested in chickens too.
A simple Internet search revealed a ‘Chicken Tender’ project recently presented at the Intel IoT Roadshow in Seattle that I wish were already commercialized! This ingenious system tracks and monitors egg laying for individual chickens in a coop using RFID tagging, a USB digital scale plus sensors to monitor the environment — with the data then stored in an IoT cloud analytics platform.
According to the project page, APIs are used for gathering local weather forecasts. All of the data can then be analyzed to determine which chickens laid which egg, and other interesting information.
I would absolutely use a system like this in my two coops that house a number of breeds including large fowl Cochins, Ameraucana, Sicilian Buttercup, Buff Orpington, Plymouth Barred Rock and one regal Frizzle rooster.
I also found an Arduino-based chicken coop door controller that another techie chicken owner developed for his family’s flock of ex-battery hens.
Source: Ann Steffora Mutschler, Semiconductor Engineering, 2/4/2015
Posted by Hairol
As a backyard chicken enthusiast in my spare time, I was pleasantly surprised to find that other technology-minded folks are interested in chickens too.
A simple Internet search revealed a ‘Chicken Tender’ project recently presented at the Intel IoT Roadshow in Seattle that I wish were already commercialized! This ingenious system tracks and monitors egg laying for individual chickens in a coop using RFID tagging, a USB digital scale plus sensors to monitor the environment — with the data then stored in an IoT cloud analytics platform.
According to the project page, APIs are used for gathering local weather forecasts. All of the data can then be analyzed to determine which chickens laid which egg, and other interesting information.
I would absolutely use a system like this in my two coops that house a number of breeds including large fowl Cochins, Ameraucana, Sicilian Buttercup, Buff Orpington, Plymouth Barred Rock and one regal Frizzle rooster.
I also found an Arduino-based chicken coop door controller that another techie chicken owner developed for his family’s flock of ex-battery hens.
Source: Ann Steffora Mutschler, Semiconductor Engineering, 2/4/2015
Posted by Hairol
Addressing IoT Security
Source: Mark Skarpness, eetimes, 4/5/2015
To enable the full potential of the Internet of Things, engineers need to address the security challenge through a combination of interoperability, education and good design.
Many smart, connected devices are either completely unsecured or boast security features that are far too complex for the average consumer to implement, leaving data vulnerable to attack and even raising safety concerns for devices controlling the home, factory and car. Engineers must overcome several security challenges to realize the true power of the Internet of Things.
It’s only a matter of time before we see a major IoT attack. For example, as smart light bulbs are coming in to homes with no security built in whatsoever. Surveillance cameras and home gateways often come with default passcodes that are never changed. If a company attempts to push software updates to its smart devices, both the consumer and company are at risk for a data breach or even physical harm.
The first step to better security is establishing common standards across the entire spectrum. Several groups currently are focused on solving the interoperability problem, and security is a key part of the standard discussion. The current goal is to have the specs and implementation done this year, with a focus on bringing standards-based products to market before year end.
If you ask the typical consumer about IoT security, you’re likely to get a dozen different opinions, many of them misinformed. As we design products for the IoT, we must also conduct outreach and education campaigns to empower customers with relevant security knowledge, such as the need to set strong passwords, understanding what permissions each device has, what kind of data it’s collecting, and where that information ultimately ends up.
Developers need to take a proactive -- not a reactive -- approach to designing security features, which will result in a better, safer product and increased customer loyalty, as opposed to a reactive approach. This is an emerging and increasingly important topic in the security field, and will soon be a major competitive differentiator.
One great way to be more proactive is to participate in ongoing industry standards work. Several of the current standards groups, such as the Open Interconnect Consortium, are actively soliciting product designers to discuss their unique challenges so they can better understand what kind of standards are needed. There’s no better time to make our voices heard and help define the forthcoming standards that will shape the future of connected technology.
We’re entering a period of truly limitless possibility as a result of the IoT, and can expect to see incredible innovations emerge in the coming years that will enhance the way we live. In order to bring this innovation to fruition, we must first conquer the security challenge through a combination of interoperability, education and design, ensuring that IoT is as safe and secure as it is dynamic.
Source: Mark Skarpness, eetimes, 4/5/2015
Posted by Hairol
To enable the full potential of the Internet of Things, engineers need to address the security challenge through a combination of interoperability, education and good design.
Many smart, connected devices are either completely unsecured or boast security features that are far too complex for the average consumer to implement, leaving data vulnerable to attack and even raising safety concerns for devices controlling the home, factory and car. Engineers must overcome several security challenges to realize the true power of the Internet of Things.
It’s only a matter of time before we see a major IoT attack. For example, as smart light bulbs are coming in to homes with no security built in whatsoever. Surveillance cameras and home gateways often come with default passcodes that are never changed. If a company attempts to push software updates to its smart devices, both the consumer and company are at risk for a data breach or even physical harm.
The first step to better security is establishing common standards across the entire spectrum. Several groups currently are focused on solving the interoperability problem, and security is a key part of the standard discussion. The current goal is to have the specs and implementation done this year, with a focus on bringing standards-based products to market before year end.
If you ask the typical consumer about IoT security, you’re likely to get a dozen different opinions, many of them misinformed. As we design products for the IoT, we must also conduct outreach and education campaigns to empower customers with relevant security knowledge, such as the need to set strong passwords, understanding what permissions each device has, what kind of data it’s collecting, and where that information ultimately ends up.
Developers need to take a proactive -- not a reactive -- approach to designing security features, which will result in a better, safer product and increased customer loyalty, as opposed to a reactive approach. This is an emerging and increasingly important topic in the security field, and will soon be a major competitive differentiator.
One great way to be more proactive is to participate in ongoing industry standards work. Several of the current standards groups, such as the Open Interconnect Consortium, are actively soliciting product designers to discuss their unique challenges so they can better understand what kind of standards are needed. There’s no better time to make our voices heard and help define the forthcoming standards that will shape the future of connected technology.
We’re entering a period of truly limitless possibility as a result of the IoT, and can expect to see incredible innovations emerge in the coming years that will enhance the way we live. In order to bring this innovation to fruition, we must first conquer the security challenge through a combination of interoperability, education and design, ensuring that IoT is as safe and secure as it is dynamic.
Source: Mark Skarpness, eetimes, 4/5/2015
Posted by Hairol
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