Emerging protocol can help manage the Internet of Things — GCN The ever-expanding networks of sensors and other machine-to-machine devices on the “Internet of Things” are creating huge stores of data for everything from traffic and weather monitoring to health care and finance. And there will only going be more of them. Sensors, for example, will play a key role in the Obama Administration’s recently released National Strategy for Civil Earth Observations, a plan to increase the efficiency and effectiveness Earth-observations. Along with other steps toward streamlining the efforts of the 11 agencies involved in the observations, it calls for extensive use of sensors in gathering the data. Of course, having all that data is one thing. Making sense of it — quickly — is another. One key is the emerging Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) protocol, a lightweight messaging transport for machine-to-machine communications that recently was proposed as an OASIS standard. OASIS in March began the process “to define an open publish/subscribe protocol for telemetry messaging designed to be open, simple, lightweight and suited for use in constrained networks and multi-platform environments.” The protocol, which consumes little power, is designed to help sensors and other devices — which tend to be low-power and low-bandwidth — communicate reliably.

Emerging protocol can help manage the Internet of Things — GCN

The ever-expanding networks of sensors and other machine-to-machine devices on the “Internet of Things” are creating huge stores of data for everything from traffic and weather monitoring to health care and finance.

And there will only going be more of them. Sensors, for example, will play a key role in the Obama Administration’s recently released National Strategy for Civil Earth Observations, a plan to increase the efficiency and effectiveness Earth-observations. Along with other steps toward streamlining the efforts of the 11 agencies involved in the observations, it calls for extensive use of sensors in gathering the data.

Of course, having all that data is one thing. Making sense of it — quickly — is another. One key is the emerging Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) protocol, a lightweight messaging transport for machine-to-machine communications that recently was proposed as an OASIS standard.

OASIS in March began the process “to define an open publish/subscribe protocol for telemetry messaging designed to be open, simple, lightweight and suited for use in constrained networks and multi-platform environments.” The protocol, which consumes little power, is designed to help sensors and other devices — which tend to be low-power and low-bandwidth — communicate reliably.

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“Is a social network without integrated analytics like a vehicle without a safety belt?”

Social media hit a low with the Boston Marathon witchhunt, says blogger Eric Schartzman. Analytics, he argues, needs to be embedded in big data.

Via briansolis.com |Without Analytics,Big Data is Just Noise 

(via ibmsocialbiz)

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A Boy And His Atom: The World’s Smallest Movie

Scientists are known for loving their work. Biologists tend to their cultures and animals. Physicists polish their exquisite machines like sports car entusiasts treat vintage Ferraris. So do chemists love atoms? Apparently they do. At least enough to write a love story with, and about them.

IBM scientists have created the world’s smallest movie using individual atoms. It’s the story of a boy and his playful atom buddy, drawn in stop motion and with each quantum pixel positioned using a scanning tunneling microscope. Every frame is magnified a stunning 100 million times!

This amazing feat was accomplished by using a charged atomic needle to drag single carbon monoxide molecules (the individual atoms we see are one side of that two-atom molecule) around on a copper substrate. I’ve posted a little bit about these feats of atomic art before, with these “quantum corrals” and “ferrous wheels”. 

See those ripples around each atom? They remind me of pebbles being tossed into a still pond. They are actually ripples in the electron field of the copper surface below! It’s a reminder that, contrary to many textbooks, electrons behave more like waves than particles following an orbit. And like any other wave, they can form intricate interference patterns. Check out this previous post for more on that.

The hope is that manipulating atomic structures like this may lead to even greater information storage capacity. Imaging all the world’s books and movies on your mobile phone at once!

Here’s a “making of” movie from IBM, featuring the sound of atoms being moved as well as the encouraging sight of several female team members.

This makes me as happy as atom boy there.

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IBM Social Business: It’s more than networking, it’s working. (by IBM)

By 2014, nearly four out of five businesses plan to invest in social business technology. Our world is social. On a smarter planet, so are businesses. Let’s build a smarter planet. Learn more at http://ibm.co/XzIG6J

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How The Internet Of Things Will Revolutionize Search – ReadWrite As mobile devices dictate the terms of search and how results are being conveyed to end users, there’s another phenomenon that will greatly influence the future of search - very soon, we’re going to be swimming in more data than we will know what to do with. The rise of the Internet of Things means billions of physical objects will soon generate massive amounts of data 24 hours a day. Not only will this make traditional search methods nearly impossible to use, it will also create an environment where instead of looking for things in the world, those things will be seeking us out to give us all sorts of information that will help us fix, use or buy them.

How The Internet Of Things Will Revolutionize Search – ReadWrite

As mobile devices dictate the terms of search and how results are being conveyed to end users, there’s another phenomenon that will greatly influence the future of search - very soon, we’re going to be swimming in more data than we will know what to do with.

The rise of the Internet of Things means billions of physical objects will soon generate massive amounts of data 24 hours a day. Not only will this make traditional search methods nearly impossible to use, it will also create an environment where instead of looking for things in the world, those things will be seeking us out to give us all sorts of information that will help us fix, use or buy them.

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Turning a standard LCD monitor into touchscreen with a $5 wall-mounted sensor | ExtremeTech Researchers at the University of Washington’s aptly named Ubiquitous Computing Lab can turn any LCD monitor in your hous into a touchscreen, with nothing more than a $5 sensor that plugs into the wall and some clever software. The technology, called uTouch, works by measuring the electromagnetic interference (EMI) caused by your hand when it moves near or touches an LCD monitor. This might sound a little bit crazy, but I’ll explain. Basically, the electricity running through the wires in your house has a unique electromagnetic signature. There is the “carrier wave,” provided by the power company and your nearby substation, and then every single kink and switch along the way modulates the EM signature until it is quite unique. What most people don’t realize, though, is that every device that is plugged into a wall outlet also changes your EM signature. Your TV doesn’t just suck power from your house — it’s a two-way street, with the electronic components in the TV producing interference that change your house’s EM signature.

Turning a standard LCD monitor into touchscreen with a $5 wall-mounted sensor | ExtremeTech

Researchers at the University of Washington’s aptly named Ubiquitous Computing Lab can turn any LCD monitor in your hous into a touchscreen, with nothing more than a $5 sensor that plugs into the wall and some clever software.

The technology, called uTouch, works by measuring the electromagnetic interference (EMI) caused by your hand when it moves near or touches an LCD monitor. This might sound a little bit crazy, but I’ll explain. Basically, the electricity running through the wires in your house has a unique electromagnetic signature. There is the “carrier wave,” provided by the power company and your nearby substation, and then every single kink and switch along the way modulates the EM signature until it is quite unique. What most people don’t realize, though, is that every device that is plugged into a wall outlet also changes your EM signature. Your TV doesn’t just suck power from your house — it’s a two-way street, with the electronic components in the TV producing interference that change your house’s EM signature.

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“

The technological advances transforming “Edison’s 130-year-old industry” promise to revolutionize the way light is integrated in our homes, workplaces, and cities.

As “the last industrial-age analog technology” is digitized, Felicity Barringer looks at “the fundamental rethinking of lighting now under way in research labs, executive offices and investor conferences.”

“Innovations on the horizon range from smart lampposts that can sense gas hazards to lights harnessed for office productivity or even to cure jet lag. Digital lighting based on light-emitting diodes — LEDs — offers the opportunity to flit beams delicately across stages like the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge — creating a light sculpture more elegant than the garish marketers’ light shows on display in Times Square, Piccadilly Circus and the Shibuya district in Tokyo.”

She explains other possible applications, such as lampposts that function as “nodes in a smart network that illuminate spaces, visually monitor them, sense heat and communicate with other nodes and human monitors.”

“James Highgate, an expert on the new technology who runs an annual LED industry conference, sees a transition period ahead ‘for the next three to five years, until the eight billion sockets in the U.S. get filled’ with LEDs. ‘Some people will never change,’ he added. ‘They’ll be in the alleys buying 100-watt incandescents.’”

”

Lighting Revolution Produces Radiant Visions of Our Future | Planetizen

Full Story: New Technology Inspires a Rethinking of Light
Published on Wednesday, April 24, 2013 in The New York Times

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What’s In Your Gut? Ask Citizen Science | Co.Exist The American Gut Project is trying to create a better picture of the human “microbiome.” Give it some of your info, and they’ll tell you a lot about all the bugs that make up your digestive system and how they’re affecting your health.

What’s In Your Gut? Ask Citizen Science | Co.Exist

The American Gut Project is trying to create a better picture of the human “microbiome.” Give it some of your info, and they’ll tell you a lot about all the bugs that make up your digestive system and how they’re affecting your health.

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engineeringisawesome: Evans Wadongo: MwangaBora Lamp In 2004 at the tender age of 19, Evans Wadongo took it upon himself to create an alternative to the unhealthy and often dangerous kerosene lamps and firelights used by villages like his in rural Africa. The enterprising Kenyan engineer developed the MwangaBora lamp, a fume-less light source made of 50% recycled materials that has since been widely distributed throughout the countrysides of Kenya and Malawi. To further the production and distribution of such lamps, NYC’s Friedman Benda gallery is hosting a three-day charitable selling exhibition—designed by fashion designerReed Krakoff—showing an edition of 1,000 solar lamps designed entirely by Wadongo. Cool Hunting

engineeringisawesome:

Evans Wadongo: MwangaBora Lamp

In 2004 at the tender age of 19, Evans Wadongo took it upon himself to create an alternative to the unhealthy and often dangerous kerosene lamps and firelights used by villages like his in rural Africa. The enterprising Kenyan engineer developed the MwangaBora lamp, a fume-less light source made of 50% recycled materials that has since been widely distributed throughout the countrysides of Kenya and Malawi. To further the production and distribution of such lamps, NYC’s Friedman Benda gallery is hosting a three-day charitable selling exhibition—designed by fashion designerReed Krakoff—showing an edition of 1,000 solar lamps designed entirely by Wadongo.

Cool Hunting

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IBM Solar Collector Harnesses the Power of 2,000 Suns | Inhabitat - Sustainable Design Innovation, Eco Architecture, Green Building A team of IBM researchers is working on a solar concentrating dish that will be able to collect 80% of incoming sunlight and convert it to useful energy. The High Concentration Photovoltaic Thermal system will be able to concentrate the power of 2,000 suns while delivering fresh water and cool air wherever it is built. As an added bonus, IBM states that the system would be just one third the cost third of current comparable technologies. Based on information by Greenpeace International and the European Electricity Association, IBM claims that it would require only two percent of the Sahara’s total area to supply the world’s energy needs. The HCPVT system is designed around a huge parabolic dish covered in mirror facets. The dish is supported and controlled by a tracking system that moves along with the sun. Sun rays reflect off of the mirror into receivers containing triple junction photovoltaic chips, each able to convert 200-250 watts over eight hours. Combined hundred of the chips provide 25 kilowatts of electricity. The entire dish is cooled with liquids that are 10 times more effective than passive air methods, keeping the HCPVT safe to operate at a concentration of 2,000 times on average, and up to 5,000 times the power of the sun. The direct cooling technique is inspired by the branched blood supply system of the human body and has already been used to cool high performance computers like the Aquasar. The system will also be able to create fresh water by passing 90 degree Celsius liquid through a distillation system that vaporizes and desalinates up to 40 liters each day while still generating electricity. It will also be able to amazingly offer air conditioning by a thermal drive absorption chiller that converts heat through silica gel. Replacing expensive steel and glass with concrete and pressurized foils, the HCPVT is less costly than many other similar installations. Its high tech coolers and molds can be manufactured in Switzerland, and construction provided by individual companies on-site. Through their design, IBM believes they can maintain a cost of less than 10cents per kilowatt hour.    


IBM Solar Collector Harnesses the Power of 2,000 Suns | Inhabitat - Sustainable Design Innovation, Eco Architecture, Green Building

A team of IBM researchers is working on a solar concentrating dish that will be able to collect 80% of incoming sunlight and convert it to useful energy. The High Concentration Photovoltaic Thermal system will be able to concentrate the power of 2,000 suns while delivering fresh water and cool air wherever it is built. As an added bonus, IBM states that the system would be just one third the cost third of current comparable technologies.

 Based on information by Greenpeace International and the European Electricity Association, IBM claims that it would require only two percent of the Sahara’s total area to supply the world’s energy needs. The HCPVT system is designed around a huge parabolic dish covered in mirror facets. The dish is supported and controlled by a tracking system that moves along with the sun. Sun rays reflect off of the mirror into receivers containing triple junction photovoltaic chips, each able to convert 200-250 watts over eight hours. Combined hundred of the chips provide 25 kilowatts of electricity.

The entire dish is cooled with liquids that are 10 times more effective than passive air methods, keeping the HCPVT safe to operate at a concentration of 2,000 times on average, and up to 5,000 times the power of the sun. The direct cooling technique is inspired by the branched blood supply system of the human body and has already been used to cool high performance computers like the Aquasar. The system will also be able to create fresh water by passing 90 degree Celsius liquid through a distillation system that vaporizes and desalinates up to 40 liters each day while still generating electricity. It will also be able to amazingly offer air conditioning by a thermal drive absorption chiller that converts heat through silica gel.

Replacing expensive steel and glass with concrete and pressurized foils, the HCPVT is less costly than many other similar installations. Its high tech coolers and molds can be manufactured in Switzerland, and construction provided by individual companies on-site. Through their design, IBM believes they can maintain a cost of less than 10cents per kilowatt hour.

 

 

(via phroyd)

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Patent No. 8229853. 2012.   Real-time fraud prevention.     This patented system stops fraudulent credit and debit card purchases before they happen. The locations of the purchases must match what you have indicated in your travel itineraries, and if they don’t, the system will recognize that something’s up and stop the transaction before you fund someone’s extravagant designer-handbag shopping spree. Download the print

Patent No. 8229853. 2012.   
Real-time fraud prevention.    

This patented system stops fraudulent credit and debit card purchases before they happen. The locations of the purchases must match what you have indicated in your travel itineraries, and if they don’t, the system will recognize that something’s up and stop the transaction before you fund someone’s extravagant designer-handbag shopping spree.

Download the print

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