Adding computer communication to otherwise dumb devices isn’t new. As far back as the 1990s, a whole list of Internet-enabled Coke machines around the world had varying functionality. The granddaddy of all Internet of Things was the Coke machine at Carnegie Mellon University, set up in the 1970s.
The power grid delivers electricity to charge iPads and run data centers. The power grid connects users with electricity producers through interconnected transmission and distribution networks. In these networks, system monitoring is necessary to ensure reliable power grid operation. The analysis of smart meter measurements and power systems is a routine part of system monitoring.
Help Net Security reports that most energy security professionals told nCircle they did not believe smart meters are secure enough. When asked, “Do smart meter installations have enough security controls to protect against false data injection?” 61% of the 104 energy security professionals said “no”. False data injection attacks introduce arbitrary errors into state variables while bypassing existing techniques for bad measurement detection to exploit the power grid.
Patrick Miller, the founder, CEO, and president of EnergySec noted, “Smart meters vary widely in capability and many older meters were not designed to adequately protect against false data injection. It doesn’t help that some communication protocols used by the smart meter infrastructure don’t offer much protection against false data injection either.”
“… we need to make sure that all systems that process usage data, especially those that make autonomous, self-correcting, self-healing decisions, assure data integrity,” Miller added.
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- Not-so-smart meters costly | Herald Sun
Railroad Sensors Predict Derailments Wirelessly
Union Pacific (UNP), the nation’s largest railroad company, has deployed Internet of Things technology throughout its network. according to Dailywirless.org, the IoT can predict certain kinds of derailments days or weeks before they are likely to occur. This will improve safety and avoid millions of dollars in damages.
According to the article, Union Pacific, which moves 900 trains a day, started using acoustic sensors 10 years ago to monitor noises from vibrations of ball bearings in train wheels. This allows the company to get trains off the track before a faulty bearing causes a derailment. More recently, the company started using visual sensors that can detect when wheels begin to flatten–another factor that can cause accidents on the rails.
Lynden Tennison, CIO at Union Pacific, told CIO Journal, that the company can now check 40 million patterns every day and can alert the train operators of any anomaly in a bearing within five minutes. “Our goal was to design a system that requires very little maintenance,” he said.
To do this, Union Pacific worked with Intel (INTC) which addressed some of the unique challenges of designing a wireless sensor network for a rail system (pdf). The blog states that to overcome the battery-life issues, Millennial Net paired its i-Bean wireless technology with “energy harvesting” technology from startup Ferro Solutions. An inductive vibration generates power to send [battery free] at 115 Kbps over a distance of 30 m,” said Tod Riedel, cofounder and vice president of business development at Millennial Net.
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Stacey Higginbotham at GigaOM asks “Are you ready for appliances that are smarter than you?” She points out that LG has introduced its first connected appliance, a Smart Thinq refrigerator that knows what’s inside it. The appliance can communicate with your phone. Your kitchen is about to get a similar level of connectivity as your living room.
The Smart Thinq refrigerator got a lot of press at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas as smart appliances were all the rage. The Android-based OS that enabled the fridge to communicate with your smartphone and share information like the contents of the fridge excited the press. The idea, according to the author, was that when someone got home from the grocery store they could choose to tell the fridge what was inside using a touchscreen or they could scan a bar code on their receipt that would contain the information about their purchases.
In this ideal world, the fridge would then be able to suggest recipes for the family based on their weight goals, age, gender, and whatnot. If the consumer selected a fridge-offered recipe the appliance could shoot the recipe to the Smart Thinq oven and it could preheat. All of the connectivity occurs via Wi-Fi and is controlled by the phone and the touchscreen.
The article explains that other features include such as calorie counting and notifications of expiration dates. And if grocery stores take part – then the fridge could show when certain items are out and order them for home delivery.
Is Your Dishwasher Really Yearning for the Internet? A startup called Ube thinks so. The firm is betting that smart devices and smartphone apps will make home automation cheap and easy.
In MIT’s Technology Review article “Is Your Dishwasher Really Yearning for the Internet?” Glen Burchers Ube’s chief marketing officer says that more and more home gadgets will ship with microprocessors, enabling the automation and remote control of everything from your lights to your laundry. Until this is a widespread reality, he’d like to sell you a wall outlet.
The wall outlet includes an ARM processor, runs Google’s Android mobile operating system, and can connect to the Internet. This means anything you plug into it can be controlled via your smartphone, and it will also track how much power your devices are consuming.
According to TR, the startup plans to sell the outlet along with a “smart” dimmer switch and plug for $60 to $70 apiece. The Austin, TX firm also plans to offer a free smartphone app that can control these and other Internet-enabled devices.
The blog reports that the Ube app will access a Wi-Fi network to scan for nearby Internet-enabled devices it can manage and lets you know what it can control. Mr. Burchers says the app can control more than 200 devices, most of which are gaming systems, set-top boxes, and TVs.
Mr. Burchers believes that Ube’s first products are just the beginning. He told TR most new electronics will be able to connect to the Web, and home builders will offer smart dimmers to new home buyers as they do granite countertops.
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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.
The BusinessInsider says that the PC market imploded last quarter. They cite data from technology prognosticators IDC who reported PC sales fell 14 percent in the first quarter, which is worse than their forecast of a 7.7 percent drop. IDC claims this is the worst quarter for PC’s since they started tracking sales.
FierceCIO makes the point that the decline in shipments pertains only to the consumer section of the PC market. According to Mikako Kitagawa, at Gartner: “Unlike the consumer PC segment, the professional PC market, which accounts for about half of overall PC shipments, has seen growth, driven by continuing PC refreshes.”
Despite what many people wish, I still don’t see many ways in which tablets can replace the office PC. How do you run a 40 column excel on a 9.5 inch Apple (AAPL) iPad screen? Can you use Access on a consumer-centric tablet like the iPad?
Taiwanese PC maker Acer 
