Justin Grammens
As I've been watching the Internet of Things explode in popularity in recent years, I'm starting to see some interesting trends happen. Trends that are shocking similar to other hot technologies that have emerged in the past: Job postings, developer tutorials, questions on stack overflow and conferences are all emerging to help support the ecosystem! Big players are either developing their own solutions or acquiring others in the space, which begins to show a level of maturity.
Starting with this issue, I'll be working to bring in more of these leading indicators covering not only the "what/why", but the "how" of IoT. I hope you enjoy this issue and as usual drop me a line with any feedback at [email protected]
News
IoT Hackathon Challenges Students to Think Differently
Teams created a FIRST-like game to connect the functions of each application. One app connected multiple cell phones to ThingWorx allowing a user to stream data from their phones. A second app collected data from an EV3 controller connected to sensors on a FIRST Lego League (FLL) robot.
Security
Monitor the Internet of Things In Your Office
Pretty cool. The system measures the typical radio-frequency signature of all the devices in an office. If it sense that anything unusual has developed because someone appears to be remotely accessing an Internet-of-things-connected device for malicious purposes, it will alert the IT staff.
Is Blockchain the Key to the Internet of Things?
A report cited in the articles states, "Right from the time a product completes final assembly, it can be registered by the manufacturer into a universal blockchain representing its beginning of life. Once sold, a dealer or end customer can register it to a regional blockchain."
Business
Build an IoT Analytics Solution with Big Data Tools
The Internet of Things is only useful if we are able to analyze the data that is captured. What's awesome is that today a number of open source projects such as MQTT and Apache Storm can help you not only collect, but analyze your data and provide value.
Mergers and Acquisitions Deals Gravitate To Internet Of Things
Acquirers spent $14 billion to acquire more than 60 IoT related companies in 2014. That's a 40x increase on the dollar amount spent and a more than 2x jump in the total number of deals compared to 2013.
The Internet of Things Is Going to Be a Legal Nightmare
Everyone is collecting data these days and storing it in the cloud, but who is making sure it's secure? Regulators appear united in the basic idea that IoT devices should be secure, however there's not a consensus yet on what security looks like or how to establish it for everyone.
Wearables
Gussied up with Smart Fashion
I like this quote from Omsignal CEO Stephane Marceau in the article, "Clothing is the most universal behaviour. It is the one type of wearable form factor that you've been wearing your whole life. Textile is a very valuable form factor when it comes to wearable -- it is malleable". There's amazing breakthroughs in the area of material designs and more energy efficient batteries that are going to propel the wearable markets forward in the future.
Video
Building an RFID Lock Controller with Gadgeteer
If you are a Microsoft software engineer, this might be of interest to you. See how to program a RFID lock using a new toolkit on the .NET Micro Framework called Gadgeteer.
Add BLE to Your IoT Project!
Short video using a number of different technologies: Johnny5, Octoblu, PunchThrough Bean, and Node.js to light up a Blink1
Crowd Funding
Luna: Turn Your Bed into a Smartbed
Luna intelligently manages your bed temperature, tracks sleep, and makes your bed smart.
Events
IoT Fuse Conference Launched at University of Minnesota
@IoTFuse is a conference to unite accomplished doers, makers and hackers with the brightest executives, entrepreneurs and innovators from business. This event will align the Midwest toward a vision of where the Internet of Things is today, where it is headed in the future, and how technology can be used to improve the physical world in which we live. Register today before it sells out!