Like the calculator, the spreadsheet, and the internet, AI-driven LLM tools are likely to change HOW we do our work, but not the fact that humans will still be the ones doing the work in the first place.
The third article of this series presents a deep-dive into how efficiently we can use Snowflake tables and warehouses and how data sharing occurs across accounts.
This guide explores how to auto-scale your Kinesis Data Streams consumer applications on Kubernetes so you can save on costs and improve resource efficiency.
Everybody's trying to get in on the big-money future of IoT, and now "everybody" includes Microsoft with Windows 10. Larry Dignan at ZDNet put together a look at Windows 10's role in IoT - as it's been described by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella at the Gartner Symposium ITXpo, at least - which suggests that the new OS will be a central platform for IoT systems of all types. Specifically: Windows will be able to run on everything from sensors to wearables to whatever computing shift emerges. Or, as Patrick Thibodeau at ComputerWorld interpreted it: [Nadella] sees the company's upcoming operating system Windows 10 as integral in managing every aspect of the IoT, from the sensors, mechanical systems, to the applications and analytics that underlie it. Those are some pretty big promises, but as Nadella said, Windows 10 is "the first step in a new generation of Windows as opposed to just another release after Windows 8." After all, that would be Windows 9, right? Check out Dignan and Thibodeau's coverage of Nadella at the Gartner Symposium ITXpo for more details on Windows 10 in general. It looks like a promising future: Yo Ebola, I'ma let you finish but #Windows10 is gonna have the greatest virus of all time #WindowsTillIDie — Bill Gates (@BillKingGates) October 6, 2014
As the Internet of Things becomes a ubiquitous idea and a fact of life, what happens to all the aging and increasingly insecure Things? According to Wired's Robert Mcmillan, responding to a recent question on the security of IoT from Dan Geer, this may be a serious problem [1][2]. The solution, Mcmillan suggests, is to design these devices with an expiration date. In other words: they need to be programmed to die. The problem may not be too severe now, but the future of the Internet of Things will look different than it does now. Security will likely loosen, because software will be a part of everything, and it tends to be the case that things mass produced to that degree experience a bit of a drop in quality. That, Mcmillan argues, presents a problem: ...all code has bugs, and in the course of time, these bugs are going to be found and then exploited by a determined attacker. As we build more and more devices like thermostats and lightbulbs and smart trashcans that are expected to last much longer than a PC or a phone, maybe we need to design them to sign off at the point where they’re no longer supported with software patches. Otherwise, we’re in for a security nightmare. A similar argument came from Bruce Schneier's interview with Scott Berinato about how future bugs like Heartbleed could impact IoT [3]. Schneier's conclusion is that processes must be built into IoT devices and development to allow for regular patching and securing of embedded systems. How practical is that, though? Mcmillan points to some recent scenarios where these fears have already come true: the lack of support for Linksys routers infected with Moon Worm, for example. Long-term patching would solve these issues, but will the increasing number of organizations developing IoT products be forward-thinking enough to care? It's also not as if the problem will fade as the products become less popular, Mcmillan says: Researchers have studied the way that security vulnerabilities are discovered, and what they’ve found is that security bugs will keep cropping up, long after most software is released... in fact, they’ll only get worse. Open sourcing technology as it ages may also be a solution, Mcmillan says. However, even that is imperfect and requires a lot of cooperation from companies who may not be enthusiastic about such cooperation, as well as a base of developers interested enough in the technology to maintain it. So, creating devices with an expiration date may be one of the most practical solutions. Otherwise, what happens when IoT is everywhere? What happens when we stop taking care of the things that we build? [1] http://www.wired.com/2014/05/iot-death/ [2] http://geer.tinho.net/geer.secot.7v14.txt [3] https://dzone.com/articles/heartbleed-iot-how-much-worse
Sometimes you just have to track the sleep habits of the living things around you. For example, maybe your children wake up at mysterious and unexpected times. Otherwise, in the case of Ricky Robinett at Twilio, you might just be wondering how much your dog sleeps while you're away. One solution, as it turns out, is a sleep tracker built with Tessel and Twilio. Robinett has written a solid tutorial on how to build such a thing, and all it requires is a Twilio account (of course), along with a Tessel microcontroller and accelerometer module, a USB battery pack, and a somewhat cooperative dog. From there, Robinett walks you through everything you'll need to know: setting up Tessel and sending SMS, using Twilio libraries, interacting with the accelerometer, and so on. Then, once you're all set up, you're ready to take an action rarely described in technical circles: Deploy to Your Dog The end result (depending on your personal choices regarding dog-clothing) is something like this: (via Ricky Robinett at Twilio) It keeps you updated via text message on your dog's sleeping habits by generating an update after five minutes without movement. So, if your dog is just a particularly lazy creature who spends extended periods of time staring, stationary and wide-eyed, at a fixed point on the wall, it sounds like you might get some inaccurate numbers. In general, though, it's a cool idea: regular updates letting you know how long your dog has slept. So, as long as nobody hacks your dog and starts running Doom on it (as those pesky hackers are known to do these days), it looks like a fun project.
It's fairly clear that not everybody agrees on how to define the Internet of Things, but certain aspects are more generally agreed upon. For example, DIY computing (along the lines of Raspberry Pi) is opening up in a big way because of the growth of IoT, allowing developers to solve a lot of new problems in new spaces and think outside of the box a bit. To illustrate that point, Sunanda Jayanth at Contract IQ has assembled a round-up of SDKs for IoT and wearable devices. The list covers six SDKs, each with a brief description: Google’s Android Wear SDK Samsung’s Tizen SDK IBM + Libelium WunderBar by relayr Microsoft Windows on Devices u-blox + ARM Some of these SDKs - Windows on Devices, for example - are not available quite yet, but have been announced and are coming soon. Beyond the round-up, Jayanth warns of possible hurdles for IoT, despite the bright future: At the stage of growth that IoT is in right now, incumbents are in danger of stifling growth simply by accidentally introducing complexity. If your things and my things have to talk together, we need a common language. A rapid development and uptake of common platforms and standards that encourages seamless cooperation is what the industry is in dire need of. But the solution Jayanth suggests, is open source software. Industry-wide standards for architecture and APIs could help prevent these problems, and developers taking advantage of these new SDKs and growing a community - an open source community, ideally - around these new technologies could go a long way to keeping things orderly in the future. That, and making sure we don't end up with mountains of bug-ridden, unkillable IoT devices.
If you're in a Best Buy sometime around November or December working your way through your Internet of Things shopping list, you might come across a new department: Connected Home. According to Best Buy's overview, it will include a lot of IoT products: We’re talking video monitoring (including security cameras and systems like Dropcam); smart thermostats (from Nest and Honeywell); smart lighting (check out Philips Hue); smart locks (with options from Kwikset); garage door accessories (like those from Chamberlain); motion, water, door and window sensors; smoke/CO2 detectors; automation/control hubs, light and appliance controls (including Belkin WeMo); and energy monitors. It's an interesting development - IoT is becoming fairly mainstream these days. Check it out: (via Best Buy) According to Stacey Higginbotham at Gigaom, Best Buy isn't the only one, either: Jim Frey (@smartlumens) sent me a picture of a Massachusetts Target featuring an end cap with Wink’s hub and various good, as well as what look like connected locks. Given the predictions for IoT's growth over the next few years, it's not surprising to see IoT being featured a little more explicitly in retail settings - I'm sure there's more to come.
So, you heard about IoT. You got your Apple Watch and your Intel Edison and you're putting Doom on everything and your refrigerator is sending all kinds of emails. All you have left to do is check all the entries on your IoT shopping list and get your home fully automated, bring your life into the future. Before you worry about the technological singularity, though, you may want to consider something more immediately threatening: your rapidly emptying bank account. According to Terence Eden's recent look at the price of Things, a truly automated home is a bigger economic undertaking than it might seem to be at first glance. First, he points to sensors for his windows: After a traipse through my family home, I discover that I have 20 separate external doors and windows. I don't live in a mansion - but all my windows are split into two different sections. So, if I want my windows to become part of "The Internet of Things" I'm going to be shelling out £600. That's quite a lot of money. And that's only for a passive system. And, as Eden points out, that's just to let you know whether the window is open or not. It doesn't lock or unlock your window. It doesn't close or open your window. That's £600 - $980.30 USD according to my extensive research - just to keep you from worrying about your carpet when it starts raining. But it gets worse from there. Eden also looks at more branded scenarios, such as decking out your IoT house with some better lighting: Suppose I want some smart lightbulbs? The highly desirable Philips Hue Personal Wireless Light Bulbs are FIFTY QUID EACH . . . If I were to deck my place out completely in Philips Hue bulbs, I wouldn't have much change left from £1,250. And those are just a few of the items that the home of the future would likely include. Eden briefly looks at iBeacons and NFC tags, for example, and his conclusion is the same: IoT is expensive. Certainly these prices will drop over time, and it's definitely not an all-or-nothing game when it comes to these devices, but either way, Eden presents an interesting look at a less-often-explored aspect of the Internet of Things. There are a lot of exciting things happening right now, but to what degree will we actually have access to them?
If you're interested in getting involved with IoT - maybe you're one of those Java developers who just got a fun set of tools - it looks like the next few years are going to be a good time to do it, because according to Business Insider's BI Intelligence report, the Internet of Things is growing. A lot. Specifically, the report is measuring the growth of internet-connected "everyday" and "enterprise" devices, which I assume refers to any internet-connected device that one would not traditionally expect to have an internet connection. In other words, your refrigerator, or your toaster, or your dog. According to Business Insider, there are approximately 1.9 billion of these devices today, and by 2018, there will be about 9 billion. Again, that's not including smartphones, wearables, traditional computers, and other things you expect to be internet connected - in fact, that 9 billion figure is greater than the predicted numbers of all those other devices put together. That's a lot of things, and it makes sense, given what we've already heard about all the IoT money and IoT jobs. Business Insider also points to a few potential sources of this influx of IoT devices: connected billboards, for example, and flexible electricity grids that compensate and adjust for various energy usage scenarios. In short, IoT is already here, and it's going to get a lot bigger. Soon, this will be your life: pic.twitter.com/0fmnhs7BvG — Omer Shapira (@omershapira) September 26, 2014 Or, you know, something along those lines. Check out Business Insider's full article - a preview for their BI Intelligence report, which requires a sign-up - for all the details.
Security in the Internet of Things is a fairly common concern these days - you know, Heartbleed, toasters, that kind of thing - but you may not even have considered the greatest threat to your connected devices: classic 1990s first person shooters. That's the scenario presented in this recent experiment from Context Information Security. By taking advantage of a web interface that require no user authentication, the Context team managed to get Doom up and running on a Canon Pixma printer. Obviously Doom is not the point in itself, so much as an illustration of the vulnerability, but it definitely gets the idea across. According to Michael Jordon at Context, the vulnerability was fairly serious: At first glance the functionality seems to be relatively benign, you could print out hundreds of test pages and use up all the ink and paper, so what? The issue is with the firmware update process. While you can trigger a firmware update you can also change the web proxy settings and the DNS server. If you can change these then you can redirect where the printer goes to check for a new firmware. So what protection does Canon use to prevent a malicious person from providing a malicious firmware? In a nutshell - nothing... Jordon's post goes into detail on how the encryption was broken. Canon was contacted and informed of the problem, and responded that it would be fixed, but Jordon warns that it's not a unique scenario. While this particular technique is not currently a common concern, it demonstrates the reality of security concerns when it comes to IoT devices. Once everything is connected, how many devices will be vulnerable? How confident can we be that the creators of these devices will be cognizant of these issues? As a potential catch-all solution, Context offers a strange bit of advice: Context recommends that you do not put your wireless printers on the Internet, or any other ‘Internet of Things’ device. So, there you go - one way to be sure. The Internet of Things can't help but be secure if you get rid of that whole "Internet" part.
