Group items tagged

He is officially called the "Messaging Community Lead" for IBM's WebSphere message queue (MQ) architecture, which is a title that grants some modicum of honor without claiming too much authority. Andy Piper has become IBM's point man for the concept of a planet enmeshed in billions, perhaps trillions, of signal-sending, communicating devices. The case may be made that anything that can be "on" could be made to send a signal on a network - perhaps something as simple as "on" itself, periodically. The possibilities for a world where the operating status of any electronic device may be measured from any point on the globe, are astounding.

Two weeks ago, IBM and its development partner Eurotech formally submitted Message Queue Telemetry Transport protocol to the Eclipse Foundation open source group. It's being called "the" Internet of Things (IoT) protocol, but in fairness it's only one candidate. It would serve as the communications mechanism for devices whose size may scale down to the very small level, with negligible power and transmission radius of only a few feet.

One example application already in the field, Piper told RWW, is in pacemakers. Tiny transmitters inside pacemakers communicate using MQTT with message queue brokers at their patients' bedsides. Those brokers then communicate with upstream servers using more conventional, sophisticated protocols such as WebSphere MQ.

Research In Motion has staked its claim as a leader in the mobile payment and Near Field Communications space with the announcement of a new pilot project which will see Telefonica employees at the network operator's Madrid headquarters able to pay for goods in local retailers with their BlackBerrys.

The Telefonica Wallet for BlackBerry project will allow users of the NFC enabled BlackBerry Bold 9900, BlackBerry Curve 9360 and BlackBerry Curve 9380 handsets to pay by touching their device against a reader in participating stores.

The pilot is set to be rolled out to Telefonica employees worldwide and, if successful, could be a precursor to commercial services rolling out from next year, according to the network giant.

Taiwan's Acer Inc. plans to launch smartphones with near field communication (NFC) technology, which will allow users to make remote bill payments and contactless payments for retail and public transport, a company manager said Thursday.

"Telecom operators have forecast that NFC technology will become critical for smartphones next year, and I think other cellphone makers will also regard this technology as a default function on their products by that time," said Vincent Chen, product manager of Acer's telecom business department.

The current Mango operating system does not support NFC technology, but the next release of the Windows mobile platform -- Windows 8 -- is likely to feature the function, Chen said.

The Internet Has Been a Force for Good” No. In the days when the Internet was young, our hopes were high. As with any budding love affair, we wanted to believe our newfound object of fascination could change the world. The Internet was lauded as the ultimate tool to foster tolerance, destroy nationalism, and transform the planet into one great wired global village. Writing in 1994, a group of digital aficionados led by Esther Dyson and Alvin Toffler published a manifesto modestly subtitled “A Magna Carta for the Knowledge Age” that promised the rise of  “‘electronic neighborhoods’ bound together not by geography but by shared interests.” Nicholas Negroponte, then the famed head of the MIT MediaLab, dramatically predicted in 1997 that the Internet would shatter borders between nations and usher in a new era of world peace. Read more at www.foreignpolicy.com

Colorado, defending Yahoo against attempts by the federal government to obtain the contents of Yahoo Mail messages without first obtaining a warrant. One month earlier, the Justice Department filed a 17-page brief arguing that Yahoo Mail messages do not fall under current statutory protection because, once opened, those messages are not considered to be in “electronic storage.” The privacy coalition—which included Google—came to Yahoo’s defense, arguing that users with e-mail stored in the cloud have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of that e-mail, and should thus be protected from warrantless searches by the government. (Hopefully the irony of Google opposing robust searches is not lost on Google’s attorneys.) Unfortunately, the protections afforded by the warrant requirement have not yet been fully extended to the digital “cloud.” This handy metaphor for the ethereal Internet as a storage and access hub is coming to have other implications: can we really conceal our data inside this cloud, shielding it from government intrusion? Read more at arstechnica.com

Sen. Patrick Leahy on Tuesday unveiled an overhaul to a 25-year-old digital privacy law that would require the government to obtain warrants before accesssing email and other cloud-based data. The update to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), would also extend to location-based data, and allow private companies to collaborate with the government in the event of a cyber attack. The ECPA was first enacted in 1986, well before the Internet, email, or smartphones. As a result, it is "significantly outdated and out-paced by rapid changes in technology and the changing mission of our law enforcement agencies after September 11," said Leahy, a Vermont Democrat. As a result, Leahy's updated 2011 version of the ECPA would apply to technologies like email, cloud services, and location data on smartphones. If the government wanted an ISP to hand over emails on a particular customer, for example, they would need to first obtain a warrant. At this point, the government abides by a rule that provides access to email after 180 days, depending on the circumstance.

Computex trade show in Taipei.

“Investors want to know which tablet is better, which has the best price-performance, and when the non-iPad camp is going to get going,” said Angela Hsiang, an analyst at KGI Securities Co. in Taipei. “Previously, people couldn’t actually see the products. At Computex, we’ll be able to touch and use them.”

Global shipments of tablets will climb to 215 million units in 2015 from 17 million last year, Toni Sacconaghi, a New York- based analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., wrote in a May 26 report. Fifteen percent of all tablets will cannibalize the sale of consumer PCs, reducing computer-sales growth by 2 percent annually between 2010 and 2015, Sacconaghi wrote.

As the electronic age puts physical bookstores and libraries under increasing threat, Local Books is a great example of how, by encouraging a resurgence of consumer interest at a local level, new technologies can be used to provide a shot in the arm for traditional outlets. Launched in January, it’s a free iPhone app that allows users to search an area for bookstores, libraries and literary events such as readings, book discussions and signings. Local Books is powered by LibraryThing Local—a crowdsourced database of 51,000 bookstores and libraries around the world. Users can search for these “venues” by name or by location. The details provided for venues include maps plus (when available) descriptions, photographs, links, and information about upcoming events at those establishments. Venues and events can be sorted by distance, name, type and date. At present Local Books does not show inventories from bookstores and libraries. We wouldn’t be surprised to see this feature available from them or from someone else in the near future. Could that be you? (Related: Online platform connecting booklovers.) Website: www.librarything.com/blog/2010/01/local-books-iphone-application.php

Do cell phones cause brain cancer? It may be too early to say for sure. The latency period or time between exposure and recognition of a tumor is around 20 years, sometimes longer. And, cell phone use in the U.S. has been popular for only  around 15 years. Back in 1996, there were 34 million cell phone users. Today there are 9-10 times as many. Keeping that in mind, it is worth taking a more detailed look at the results of Interphone, a multinational study designed to try to  answer this question. The headline from this study was there was little or no evidence to show an association between cell phones and cancer. Though, if you went to the appendix of the study, which interestingly was available only online, you found something unsettling. The data showed people who used a cell phone 10 years or more doubled the risk of developing a glioma, a type of brain tumor. And, across the board – most of the studies that have shown an increased risk are from Scandinavia, a place where cell phones have been popular since the early 1990s. For these reasons, the whole issue of latency could become increasingly important.

Cell phones use non-ionizing radiation, which is very different from the ionizing radiation of X-rays, which everyone agrees are harmful. Non-ionizing radiation won’t strip electrons or bust up DNA. It's more like very low power microwaves. Short term, these microwaves are likely harmless, but long term could be a different story. Anyway, who likes the idea of a microwave, even a low-powered one, next to their head all day?

And, what about kids?

Sales of digital e-books have outstripped real books for the first time, according to Amazon.Four years after the launch of electronic novels, the firm announced it has sold 105 e-books for every 100 printed books over the past six weeks.While e-book sales have previously outsold hardback books, never before have they exceeded sales of all books, in both hardback and paperback forms.

It's the so-called 'Internet of Things' right? The point at which your milk carton has an RFID tag on it to let your electronically enabled fridge know that it has gone off. Your fridge (which is Internet-connected of course) then automatically orders your online shopping account to send you new milk and your auto-payment system takes that out of your bank account. All you have to do is pick your milk up at the door, open the carton and pour it into your PG Tips -- nothing more. But are we ready for all this? Are developers ready for this? Are web developers ready for this? Are manufacturers ready for this? Are the world's major IT vendors ready for this? Answer: umm, probably not.

Microsoft's Kinect has been the fastest-selling consumer electronic device in history, has over 10 million owners, and connects nearly 35 million users through Xbox Live--all of whom are capable of online sharing. "This type of experience is really an untapped market because these devices already live at home," says Dawson. KinectShop is primed to seamlessly integrate with real-life shopping experiences. "With an experience like KinectShop, a shopper can easily scan a QR code or swipe their NFC smartphone to take their experience with them and use wayfinding tools to locate the product in-store," Luke Hamilton, Dawson's Razorfish colleague, writes to Fast Company in an email.

Having been relegated to our screens, are our friendships now anything more than a form of distraction?

Facebook isn’t the whole of contemporary friendship, but it sure looks a lot like its future. Yet Facebook—and MySpace, and Twitter, and whatever we’re stampeding for next—are just the latest stages of a long attenuation. They’ve accelerated the fragmentation of consciousness, but they didn’t initiate it.

The modern temper runs toward unrestricted fluidity and flexibility, the endless play of possibility, and so is perfectly suited to the informal, improvisational nature of friendship. We can be friends with whomever we want, however we want, for as long as we want.

Motivating Gen Xers

Room to grow. Offer Gen X employees clear statements of goals

Opportunities to make choices. Since this generation has become accustomed to "fending for themselves," provide options--options for task selection, options for challenges, options to formulate new processes, and options to develop creative yet appropriate conclusions.

At most companies, going AWOL during daylight hours would be grounds for a pink slip. Not at Best Buy. The nation's leading electronics retailer has embarked on a radical--if risky--experiment to transform a culture once known for killer hours and herd-riding bosses. The endeavor, called ROWE, for "results-only work environment," seeks to demolish decades-old business dogma that equates physical presence with productivity. The goal at Best Buy is to judge performance on output instead of hours.

Best Buy did not invent the post-geographic office. Tech companies have been going bedouin for several years. At IBM (IBM ), 40% of the workforce has no official office; at AT&T, a third of managers are untethered. Sun Microsystems Inc. (SUNW ) calculates that it's saved $400 million over six years in real estate costs by allowing nearly half of all employees to work anywhere they want. And this trend seems to have legs.

Another thing about this experiment: It wasn't imposed from the top down. It began as a covert guerrilla action that spread virally and eventually became a revolution. So secret was the operation that Chief Executive Brad Anderson only learned the details two years after it began transforming his company. Such bottom-up, stealth innovation is exactly the kind of thing Anderson encourages.

It may be difficult to describe what exactly the phrase “an internet of things” means, but the pieces of the puzzle that are required for that to develop are all here today, ThingM CEO Mike Kuniavsky told attendees at GigaOM’s Mobilize conference in San Francisco. Those puzzle pieces include ubiquitous network connectivity, cloud-based services, cheap assembly of electronics, social design, open collaboration tools and low-volume sales channels. When put together, Kuniavsky said, they create an “innovation ecosystem” that is the foundation for an internet of things.

What kind of services is Schmidt referring to when he says that Google is looking at Google+ as an identity platform that could support other services? Dave Winer thinks that the company wants to effectively become a bank — something he also suspects that Apple and Amazon are interested in as well — and that’s definitely a possibility. Apple and Google both seem interested in NFC technology (near-field communication), which turns mobile devices into electronic wallets, and having a social network tied to an individual user’s identity would come in handy. Ross Dawson says Google wants to build a “reputation engine” using Google+ as a platform.

UW researchers say this new type of transistor could one day understand or even control body functions.

Materials scientists are looking at these proton-based microscopic transistors for future advances in prosthetics and biological sensing.

In the body, protons activate “on” and “off” switches and are key players in biological energy transfer. Ions open and close channels in the cell membrane to pump things in and out of the cell. Animals, including humans, use ions to flex their muscles and transmit brain signals. A machine that was compatible with a living system in this way could, in the short term, monitor such processes. Someday it could generate proton currents to control certain functions directly.

Can the UK overcome sector fragmentation to build an ‘Internet of things’ industry? The European Commission recently approved a plan to encourage farmers to use electronic tagging to identify cattle. This, regulators believe, will help make rearing cattle more efficient, cut fraud, and help stem the spread of diseases.

A broad term (even by the standards of ‘cloud computing’ and ‘big data’), it was first coined by British-born MIT researcher Kevin Ashton in 1999. Its approximate meaning today is a system for integrating the data produced by devices such as RFID tags or sensors in order to monitor, measure, manage and enhance physical objects.

revealing new patterns of interconnectedness in the physical world.

Because NFC tags are more expensive than barcodes or RFID tags (just under $1 in volume) they will make their way into high-end retail products first: Cars, electronics, consumer appliances.  As more products start to include NFC tags, this will drive the price down even further.  As the price goes down, NFC tags will make their way into products $20 and above (clothing, wine, shoes, Costco-sized purchases). And then there are the phones. With almost 100 million NFC-equipped phones estimated to be shipped just over the next year and more than 1 billion predicted for the next four years, shopping, comparing, and purchasing via NFC-equipped smartphones will become commonplace.