Postscapes: Tracking the Internet of Things

Smart beacons and proximity interactions: 9 questions with the creators of tod

2012-06-01T06:52:31Z

We recently had the chance to ask Rowdy Robots CEO Jon Prevo and VP Don Mallicoat about their newly kickstarted project tōd (less than 1 day to go to back project) and where they see the smart beacons leading them.

Can you share a little background on tōd?

When we put the tod Smart Beacon together our vision was to create a truly configurable, expandable and affordable accessory together that leveraged the cutting edge and soon to be ubiquitous Bluetooth 4 standard. We wanted to create something could be what you needed when you needed it. Something that came with a robust set of functionality out of the box, but that could be endlessly expanded with sensors and add on modules by the Hacker Spaces. Something that anyone could create a custom interaction on, using the simple UI on the app or dashboard. On top of that we wanted to build a foundation accessory, one that could be hacked, modded and tweaked by the DIY, Hacker and IOT crowd. Alone tod Smart Beacons represent a Proximity Interaction Platform foundation, that can be extended to the IOT world with a wide array of sensors or as connectivity for your project using Bluetooth 4.0 vs WiFi.

Thanks to the flexibility, speed and low power of Bluetooth 4 we have been able to create something that we are very excited about, the first truly customizable Personal Accessory. Something that enables the Internet of Everything, not just things but people, places, and actions, right in the palm of your hand, that you can connect to using the devices you already own and take with you anywhere.

What was original inspiration for the product?

We’ve always wanted other options for connecting projects to the web, as well as other options for simple projects besides Arduino. Over the years we’ve kicked around plenty of ideas for an Interaction Platform, something that was finer than GPS and worked indoors, something that was like QR codes but instant and automatic, something that was similar to RFID and NFC but with lower power and greater range.

Over years of discussions, other projects and advancements in technology it all came together thanks to Bluetooth 4 and its adoption by the manufacturers. We finally had a way to tie everything together and make it work, so we took a leap of faith and put it all together on a very small budget and pushed it to Kickstarter. Now here we are 1000+ backers and 2000+ tod Smart Beacons Pre-Ordered and we’re ready to launch into full production.

I really enjoy the set it and forget it aspect of the beacon. Have you seen any particular industry or user understand the concept quicker than others?

Families with children and caregivers of those with mental disabilities or injuries such as Autism and Alzheimers. I've personally experienced the gut wrenching dread when I look down and my child is not by my side. I don't know how long she's been gone, where I was when she wandered and I am frantic until I find her. Now that will never happen again, anywhere we go. From my front yard to the park, mall, museum, or on vacation. I simply set the range and rest at ease knowing I will be instantly alerted if they wander from my adjustable safety perimeter.

Other than that, since we're moving into production with our product and finalizing our software with the Kickstarter project we haven't pushed tod out there too hard yet. However living in Utah and loving the outdoors I'm the most excited by the opportunities for interactions in the wild. For example tod Enabled Ski Resorts where there are tod Smart Beacons at the top and bottom of each run and around the mountain where I can interact automatically or as part of an interactive game. Or, to interact with a trail head or some insane vertical terrain on a climb and interact with a tod Smart Beacon to earn a badge that someone created before they placed the beacon.

Whats the most unexpected or surprising idea for tōd that you have seen people come up with lately?

Zombie Tag. They will be launching soon on Kickstarter and want to include the tod Smart Beacon to provide proximity interactions and allow for better than GPS use indoors.

How does discoverability work within the tōd system?

Smart Beacons broadcast their identity autonomously. When the tod app is running on a mobile device, the beacon is picked up and identified. From there, the user either can interact or not depending on the rights and interactions created by the owner. You can set interactions to be public, private or group, as well as do so on a schedule. For example, one that's big for me, if I usually leave work at 5:15 and I have a beacon in the car I can set it so that if I don't get in the car by 5:20 to send my wife a text letting her know I'm running late and then have the system ask me if I want to send her another at 5:45 when I actually get in the car that I'm on my way. I can set that to occur Mon-Fri, automatically.

Can you speak a little bit more to the Cloud service that you are developing? Any favorite features that we can look forward to?

tod Smart Beacons that you own will natively be able to interact with your devices and extend any functionality that the device has to offer. The tod Cloud adds to the tod functionality by extending the full functionality of the web, and allowing interactions with tod Smart Beacons that belong to others. The largest potential we see there is to run a full marketing suite allowing businesses to interact with consumers, to create seamless and instant feedback opportunities as well as expansive interactive experiences. This additionally opens up a wide range of social opportunities as well, both on system and with integrations to existing social platforms.

Our app and Dashboard will be built on our patent pending Proximity Interaction Platform. But we will also be extending it's power to other Bluetooth 4 devices by allowing them to be registered on the system with possible minor losses in functionality. We will further extend the platform by opening licensed access via an API for creating proprietary apps and solutions as well.

Any additional details for the development community in terms of add-on module possibilities or API's that you can share?

Since we are putting the tod Smart Beacon to the world with an Open Development Platform the sky is really the limit. The foundation of the system is the BLE112A module which offers the entire standardized Bluetooth low energy stack protocol which includes GAP, GATT, L2CAP, SMP and Bluetooth SIG low energy profiles. This really creates an open Development Protocol where Developers can add sensors, haptic feedback, motors and servos, displays and practically anything that can be attached to a GPIO. Additionally with the on-board 8051 Processor and 128k of available memory, simple Arduino style projects can be build with firmware code and simple electronics, connecting to the web through Bluetooth 4 and the other devices you already own.

We have some on going discussions on integration with Pebble, Meta Watch, Presence and Ninja Cloud, and are actively evaluating other IOT platforms like Cosm, Sen.se and ifttt.com

What are your next steps?

As our project closes and we move from project to full production and product our next steps are to solidify the brand, global distribution, and partnerships that make sense. We have a lot planned for the coming months that will extend Bluetooth 4 into a lot of existing markets where enhanced, instant and automatic interactions make sense. We’re excited to see what the developers from Kickstarter put together as well.

Shout-outs: Any sites/people/articles or books that have inspired you lately?

We have been truly inspired by the people on Kickstarter. The faith, the support, being able to see our vision and offer feedback and of course their support has been absolutely amazing. A Great Big shout out to all of the blogs and outlets that have supported us and given great coverage, Postscapes of course, Mashable, Engadget, Design Buzz, MyLovelyMac, Kidela and the many others. Thank you to our families and friends for standing behind us through the whirlwind that this has been so far and for the pushes of inspiration.

Thanks for taking the time.

If you want to pick yourself up a smart beacon visit http://todhq.com/, or you can follow Rowdy Robots latest developments on their blog or at @ConnectUrLife.

Image credits: Rowdy Robots

Sonicity: Real time space sonification

2012-05-31T03:30:42Z

Stanza is a London based artist who has been exploring ideas of technology and networked art since he first started exhibitiing his work in 1984. His project Sonicity first deployed in 2010 at The Lanternhouse in Ulverston uses wireless sensor motes and security monitoring technologies to explore how the experience of the gallery visitor will change as they engage with the real-time data being generated around them.

"My system monitors the space (the building) and the environment (the city) and captures live real time data (light , temperature, noise, humidity, position) to create an ambient sonification, an acoustic responsive environment, literally the sound of the micro incidents of change that occur over time."

In the gallery space 170 speakers are laid out across the floor from which you can walk around and hear the "re-formed and re-contextualised" live data from the sensor networks.

Technical information and more details about the installation can be found at: http://www.stanza.co.uk/sonicity/index.html or you can watch/hear the project in action in the video below.

Image Credits: Stanza
Additional Coverage: Nerual, Disruptive Technologies, Virtual Art

Cloud-based video monitoring: Sensr

2012-05-28T04:23:47Z

With the tagline "watch your stuff," Sensr is a video monitoring startup that utilizes cheap webcams and a cloud-based service so users can monitor video footage of their homes and offices (or anything else) over the Web.

The service works best with a dedicated network camera that supports FTP, but your built-in camera or most any USB web camera can be outfitted to work. A motion detecting system can be set to notify you via a text message or email if anything happens ("Heading out of town for the weekend? Leave your camera pointed at the front door. If someone comes in, we'll text you.").

Images are stored and organized on the service (via Amazon S3) by time and day for later retrieval and users can also share their camera feed publicly on the site or on other social media sites. Future plans include implementing face detection technology and releasing a public API (currently in alpha).

More details about the service can be found at: https://sensr.net/

Additional Notes:
- Bloomberg interview with co-founder Adam Beguelin
- 1.5 million in funding led by Spark Capital

Via: Tamberg
Additional Coverage: Techcrunch, RWW, SFGate

Personal Platforms: 5 questions with Alexandre Solleiro of Manybots

2012-05-28T04:55:58Z

This is the eleventh segment in the Postscapes Interview Series with some of the top people influencing the Internet of Things.

Alexandre Solleiro the CEO of Manybots discusses:

User-centric ecosystems
The IoT as a type of rallying cry
Activity streams and their control & ownership

Interview:

Can you give us a little background about yourself?

My name is Alexandre Solleiro. I’m 30 years old and currently live and work in Lisbon, Portugal.

I’m the founder and CEO of Manybots, a personal intelligence platform. I began working on the platform in late 2009, and since 2010 I have been fully dedicated to the task of giving our personal data a new life, and giving ourselves a new life through our data.

Prior to Manybots, I was a Partner at Quodis, a premier web boutique, where I also co-founded Liberdade 229, Lisbon’s first coworking space. Further down the timeline, I worked at companies of different shapes and sizes, doing different things.

How do you view the term “Internet of Things”?

The term itself feels like an invitation to rally, as if it represented a movement, rather than a system. The movement, for me, is about the Internet of Everything, hopefully the Web of Everything.

Where do you see the Internet of Things and its technologies creating the most impact?

Well, where did the Internet have a minor impact so far? No stone will be left unturned, again; the direct connection of our objects with our digital workflows is the what the Internet will do next.

Within the Manybots universe, we use the Activity Streams format to represent data. Real world “Things”, like any other digital “thing” in Web 2.0 (eg: people, posts, comments, photos,videos, etc.), are the actors, objects or targets of our actions.

The transformation of real interactions into digital information, and the creation of real interactions from digital information is powerful, powerful, magic. Connecting our things to Manybots enables a range of use cases that have the power to change our lifestyle. It’s a fantastic outlook.

What are you currently working on or are most excited about?

I’d say our partnership program. We’re building an ecosystem where our users can make the most out of their information.

We are approaching potential partners, businesses and organizations of all walks of life, showing them the platform and asking questions like “Hey, how will you respond to a smarter customer that knows this much about their business relationship with you?”, or “what could you build and offer people if they allowed you to get detailed contextual information about them, such as this?”.

Even though our objective is very pragmatic -- we want as many as possible to create or integrate their websites, apps and devices on the platform --, we end up having the most fascinating conversations as we try to spread the idea of a user-centric ecosystem.

Shout-outs: Any sites/people/articles or books that have inspired you lately?

I’d encourage people interested in the IoT to look at two projects that inspire us at Manybots:

Activity Streams
The VRM (Vendor Relationship Management) project

Thanks for taking the time to talk to us.

If you would like to get in touch with Alexandre to learn more about how personal data platforms work visit Manybots.com or follow their latest work at @manybots or @als.

An Open Internet of Things

2012-05-25T05:35:49Z

In March of 2011, Usman Haque and Ed Borden of Pachube (now Cosm) introduced an "Internet of Things Bill of Rights" via a blog post and corresponding article in Volume Magazine in an attempt to "build up consensus around what we urban citizens should expect of the data that is being gathered, and will be gathered more insistently, by devices, sensors and monitors in our high-growth massively networked cities"

It’s clear that our growing cities of massive sensor networks will bring with them all sorts of weird, wonderful and worrying data shadows. We want to find a way we can all be a part of the process of defining what that data is, how it is collected and what is done with it

This conversation has continued to progress through a hundred member strong google group and now into a new stage of development via the Open Internet of Things Assembly. This two day event being held June 16-17th in London will feature a lineup of speakers (Adam Greenfield, Rob van Kranenburg, Russell Davies, and Usman Haque (and others)) that will set the stage for a range of workshop sessions to define specific aspects of Open Data as it applies to the Internet of Things.

The end result of these conversations will be a core set of principles and a framework document that will hopefully become a new industry standard that companies and communities can use in shaping their data policies for networked objects in the coming years.

Postscapes is a big supporter of this Open IoT vision and will be highlighting the projects and companies that support the document and its principles. As part of this involvement I have been working with Cosm, the Assembly team, and other IoT companies to create a working document to be used as a base for the workshop discussions and we could use your input on the latest version.

If you believe this movement is as important a part of a making a truly innovative Internet of Things as we do there are a few ways to get involved in these early stages:

Comment on the latest working document
Join the Google Group
Attend the Assembly event in London (early bird tickets still available), or even become a sponsor (Starting at only £100.00)

I'm looking forward to hearing your input and thanks to all that have participated in the discussions so far (Sen.se, EVRYTHNG, IoBridge, Manybots, Joost Patel, Nathan Cravens and the Open Manufacturing Group, Linkedin Quantified Self group, and of course all of the Open IoT Members)

SHOAL: Pollution monitoring fish

2012-05-28T02:58:50Z

The Shoal project is a European 7th framework research initiative led by professor Huosheng Hu and his team at the university of essex creating a new type of real-time harbour pollution monitoring system via robotic fish.

The fish are currently being field tested in the port of Gijon, Spain where water quality monitoring is now dependent on human divers and laboratory testing that only occurs around once per month (and costs up to €100,000 per year to maintain).

"By having autonomously controlled fish with chemical sensors attached we aim to do these tests in-situ. Further the fish will also be given an intelligence so that if they do find significant amounts of pollution and they deduce it's coming from a source they will all work together to find the source of the pollution so that the port can stop the problem early before more pollution occurs."

Outfitted with a sonar system for communication and a host of electrochemical sensors measuring heavy metals and water quality (Dissolved O2, Conductivity, ORP) levels the fish use their built-in swarm intelligence system to quickly narrow down the location and extent of the pollution source and send the information back to port authorities to take proper action. An infrared, GPS, and other sensor data also help the fish to measure their position, heading, speed etc and ensure that the fish are not stolen or damaged.

Although still in development mode the project coordinators would eventually like to commercialize the project and sell these systems to ports throughout the EU and the world. You can learn more about the project details at roboshoal.com or by watching a short overview video from the BBC embedded below.

Additional Coverage: BBC, National Geographic, DesignBoom, New Scientist, Verge
- Interview with Professor Hueosheng Hu
Image Credit: Shoal project

Knut: Wi-Fi Sensor Hub

2012-05-23T09:38:24Z

Knut (Pronounced kah-noot) is a Wi-Fi sensor hub currently seeking Kickstarter funding for finalizing smartphone app development (Iphone, Windows, Android) and picking up the raw materials for production.

The device was created by two Boston based friends Richard Pasek and Jay Gondelman and was originally conceived after the two needed to create a custom monitoring controller for an aquarium they were building together and quickly realized how their technology could be applied across a range of applications.

Knut uses email to send and receive data, has a high accuracy temperature sensor and a battery level sensor built-in and can be expanded with additional external sensors (Humidity, vibration, door, water proof temperature, 3-Axis Accelerometer and water presence) via a 3-port hub.

Some sample applications include cigar box humidity tracking and home or aquarium temperature monitoring:

Additional Notes:

Alerts and monitoring setting can be updated and managed for the Knut via an app or a web page stored on the device
Knut connects to the internet using commonly available Wi-Fi.
Security: WEP-64, WEP-128, WPA, WPA2
Battery: 2 AAA
Range: 100 meters. Obstructions (such as walls) will reduce range

Help the project reach its remaining funding goals on Kickstarter ($10,000 towards $25k as of 5/23/2012) or track the latest development news @myknut or on their blog.

Imp Card

2012-05-21T04:57:55Z

Electric Imp is a startup that came out of hiding this week created by former members of the iPhone and Gmail development teams. Their product consists of a cloud service and a line of SD form factor pluggable cards that contain an ARM Cortex M3 SoC with embedded Wi-Fi.

Electric Imp is working with OEMs to get their module's built into a range of commercial products and the cards themselves are expected to ship starting in late June for $25. Three development kits will also be sold ranging from a basic $7 board that provides minimum support for the card (socket, ID chip, and a power supply) up to a $25 hobbyist board for getting a project online without any soldering requirements that includes a range of built-in sensors and outputs.

Additional Notes:

802.11b/g/n WiFi and integrated antenna
No physical interface - Device is configured via a smartphone app and the Imp's light sensor
WEP, WPA and WPA2 encryption
When actively transmitting at maximum power, the peak current is around 250mA
Software that runs on the Imp is written in Squirrel, a C-like language, with extensions to communicate with the hardware interfaces and the service
The Imp software includes a standards compliant IP stack and TLS security

Learn more about the Imp at: http://electricimp.com or @electricimp

Additional Coverage: Verge. Engadget, FellowGeek, Mashable, Business Insider, PC World
Image Credits: Electric Imp

International Internet of Things Event

2012-05-18T06:14:05Z

On June 6th in Eindhoven, The International Internet of Things Event will take place. The day will feature a full day seminar focusing on the future of Internet of Things for The individual and The Home (schedule here) and an Exhibition showcasing Internet of Things products and services in its current and future formats.

The following topics will be covered during the conference:

What are actual business cases for IoT in Healthcare, Consumer Electronics, Utilities and how will this impact business in the future
What is the current status of IoT technologies (f.i. ZigBee, zWave, DECT ULE, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, KNX etc.), how do they compete and are they complementary
Who takes the lead in the value chain of IoT
What are legal, social and IP consequenses of IoT (will Big Brother watch us in the future?)

Learn more about the event at: http://iotevent.eu/ or follow along with the event blog here.

Floating Sensor Network

2012-05-16T09:36:24Z

The Floating Sensor Network is a project by researchers at UC Berkeley that provides real-time, high-resolution data on waterways via a series of mobile sensing 'drifters' that are placed into the water and monitored by cell networks and short-range wireless radios.

As the drifters are carried by the water, their GPS receivers track their movement while other on-board sensors monitor temperature and salinity levels. This data can then be used to estimate river flow and contaminant propagation in real-time and eventually be combined with other sensor data streams (USGS permanently deployed sensing stations, mobile measurements, etc) to create “traffic maps” for an entire delta, showing the speed and depth of the water, and how contaminated the water is.

The long term vision of the project is to "put California water online, to create a system that will enable water managers and scientists to visualize the evolution of California’s water resources in real time."

The Sacramento River is the first testing bed for the fleet of sensors that can also be deployed in response to unanticipated events like floods, contaminant spills and levee breaches.

The rapid deployment of such a fleet can lead to an immediate and more precise understanding of “where the water is going,” thus helping agencies to contain disasters more quickly and more efficiently. In addition to tracking contaminants, the technology can be deployed in a levee system to search for signs of levee leaks (abnormal temperatures, abnormal salt concentration) and it can be deploy around levee breach to confirm a repair is functioning properly.

Learn more about the project at http://float.berkeley.edu/ or watch the clip below for more details:

Team: Principal Investigator: Alexandre Bayen - Lead Graduate Student: Andrew Tinka - Complete list
Image Credits: University of California Berkeley
Additional Coverage: RedOrbit, CIO, OAP, Smart Planet

A bike with a brain

2012-05-13T12:51:50Z

New York based design studio Breakfast worked with rider Janeen McCrae to enable her bike named "Precious" to share its speed, location, temperature and more to the world as they traveled across the country in 2010 to raise money for the LIVESTRONG charity.

During its 3 month journey data was captured around:

The bike sensor system took several readings from each of the devices and then automatically sent the average values via text messages (for battery and coverage reasons) to be analyzed by the team every 5 minutes or when the rider triggered the system manually via a button on the handlebars.

The uploaded data was then analyzed for accuracy, summarized, and pushed out to a tracking website and to the bikes 1900 Twitter followers with something like "it's been 80ºF with non-stop hills for two days", or "My fav! Downhill, without any of that pesky pedaling".

You can still revisit the route and progress from the trip at: http://yesiamprecious.com/ or learn more the design and development of the sensor systems at: http://breakfastny.com/

Image Credit: Yes I am Precious / Breakfast

Smart Beacon tōd

2012-05-13T11:22:17Z

tōd (pronounced “toad”) is a new Bluetooth 4.0 smart beacon currently seeking manufacturing funding on Kickstarter (2/3 of the way there with 20 days to go as 5/13/2012) from the folks at RowdyRobot. The device is driven by a single coin battery, has an adjustable transmission range of between 3 and 500 feet and enables you to trigger actions and connect real world events via your smartphone, the beacon itself and the tōd Cloud service.

Using three core events of ‘in range, ‘out of range’ and ‘scheduled’ users can create tōd interactions around everyday actions, things, people, and places. Access rights can be customized from public, private or into specific groupings and the app will come loaded with 10 default app setting including Proximity, Location, and social networking.

Example applications include receiving an SMS when your pet has left a certain range of your backyard, locating your car in a busy parking lot, or setting up an email notification alert in case your child doesn't get home from school at a certain time.

There are many apps that do similar, pseudo proximity functions but don't allow for 'set and forget' applications. With the tōd Smart Beacon, you can place it anywhere, set the interactions and permissions you want, leave it be and let it do all the work for you.

Additional Notes:

Developers will be able to create add-on modules like motion detection and temperature sensors for the device
Features a water resistant case and has a battery life expectancy of up to several years
Currently compatible with iPhone 4S, the new iPad, Mac Mini, MacBook Air and the Droid RAZR

Follow the latest news on tōd's development by visiting the team's Facebook page, their Lead Engineer's blog, or help bring tōd to life by supporting it on Kickstarter here.

Additional Coverage: Mashable, Geeky Gadgets, Engadget

Open IoT Modules: 5 questions with Claudio Carnevali of openPicus

2012-05-18T06:54:40Z

This is the tenth segment in the Postscapes Interview Series with some of the top people influencing the Internet of Things.

Claudio Carnevali from openPicus discusses:

How energy harvesting will shape the IoT.
Their open source FLYPORT module.
What everyday applications will first be impacted by the IoT.

Interview:

Who are you, and what do you do?

I’m Claudio Carnevali, co-founder of the openPicus project. I’m an engineer with a deep passion for hardware. Starting from childhood I began making my prototypes and sparks (sometimes) and this eventually led me to found a company that manufactures electronic boards. Playing with the Surface mount technology machines during this part of my life has proven to be very useful in my work today as I always follow hardware developments with the cost/quality vision in mind.

The openPicus project started in 2010 working together with Gabriele Allegria ( Currently the CTO of the start-up). Gabriele is also an engineer and he is more hands on with the software side of things.

openPicus is currently operating as a startup company featuring our Flyport modules and a light software framework, called openPicus framework, that enables a $2 microcontroller to manage applications and connectivity all in one package. Our platform is open source (schematics are available on our website under CC-BY-SA 3.0 Licence) and our community is now made up of more than 3,000 people that are creating great applications running on Flyport.

Flyport is a revolutionary module because it’s very small, low cost and has enough processing power to manage applications like Connected Sensors, Web based interfaces for embedded devices and Internet of Things apps.

How do you view the term “Internet of Things”?

I actually just recently wrote an article on our Blog talking about this:

Instead of Internet of Things my personal way of referring to this concept is the Internet ON Things. From my point of view this small difference makes a big difference on the approach to the subject: Internet On Things puts the Cloud at the center of the new universe of possibilities that connectivity adds to devices and objects. - Full Post

But of course I accept the standard “Internet of Things” definition and I think that the boom of smartphones and low cost mobile internet access is speeding up a lot of IoT applications. I think that the IoT and Home Automation will merge and soon we’ll just talk about “Smart Living”. Everything will be easy to setup and to use and only in that moment we can say that IoT has reached the mainstream stage.

At the moment, except in just a few cases, the IoT is something for Geeks and Hackers that are experimenting with nice apps (some even using our Flyport module).

Where do you see the Internet of Things and its technologies creating the most impact?

I think that the biggest impact will be in people's everyday life. I really don’t think that the fridge will ever talk to my oven (can you imagine how boring that conversation would be? :-)

For example I think that turning on lights at home will be a nice IoT application, and the house will understand and interpret our desire and act accordingly to a policy the user has set on the Cloud or the system has learnt by itself. Irrigation systems may have intelligence on-board taking data about weather directly from the Internet without the need of local sensors. Another example application could be an alarm clock that is connected to Google Traffic, so it knows where I’ve to go next morning and will wake me up accordingly to the traffic situation.

Other applications will be in fitness and healthcare, for example the Nike app for iPod is a great example of IoT that’s already on the market. So as you can see there’s not a revolution on the people needs with the IoT, the IoT will simply make our life “smarter” and more “connected”.

What are you currently working on or are most excited about?

We are really excited at the moment as we just signed an agreement to enter into the EnOcean Alliance. EnOcean has a technology for home automation that is based on energy harvesting. For existing buildings it’s now possible to remove standard switches and substitute them with a batteryless EnOcean compliant version that generates energy from the switch pushing action and sends data by a wireless protocol 868Mhz.

Another benefit is the EnOcean Alliance features more than 300 companies and all of the products are “talking” to each other. This is an area where other initiatives like Zigbee failed, as currently there are not a lot of Zigbee devices really compatible with each other.

I think Energy Harvesting must be the base for the IoT, if you think that by 2020 we are expecting 20 billion connected devices just imagine the number of batteries will be needed! We must finally start thinking about environment and batteries are not eco-friendly.

Shout-outs: Any sites/people/articles or books that have inspired you lately?

I read a lot on the Internet, but the most inspiring stuff has been coming from personal meetings. I've been travelling a lot thanks to my work and I am lucky enough to meet interesting people all the time.

I have never met any Guru, I simply try to enjoy every meeting because from any person it’s possible to learn something or at least to see another point of view. My way of life is: see, understand, think and act!

Thanks for taking the time to talk to us.

If you would like to contact Claudio or learn more about openPicus and the FLYPORT module visit openPicus.com or follow their latest at @openPicus or @akaclaudio.

UrbComp 2012

2012-03-20T08:51:00Z

UrbComp 2012 (International Workshop on Urban Computing) will be held this year in conjunction with the 18th ACM SIGKDD 2012 on August 12, 2012 in Beijing.

The workshop will provide "professionals, researchers, and practitioners who are interested in sensing/mining/understanding city dynamics with a platform where they can discuss and share the state-of-the-art of urban computing development and applications, present their ideas and contributions, and set future directions in emerging innovative research for urban computing. All the papers accepted by UrbComp 2012 will be invited to the special issue on urban computing at ACM Transaction on Intelligent Systems and Technology" (ACM TIST)

Topics of interest include:

Urban sensing and city dynamics sensing
City-wide traffic modeling, visualization, analysis, and prediction
City-wide human mobility modeling, visualization, and understanding
Urban computing for urban planning and city configuration evaluation
Urban environment/pollution/energy consumption monitoring and data analysis
City-wide intelligent transportation systems
Anomaly detection and event discovery in a city
Social behavior modeling, understanding, and patterns mining in urban spaces
Discover regions of interests and regions of different functions
Mining public transportation data, such as ticketing data in bus and subway systems, road pricing data, and taxi data
City-wide mobile social applications in urban areas
Location-based social networks enabling urban computing scenarios
Smart recommendations in urban spaces
Intelligent delivery services in cities
Mining data from the Internet of Things in urban areas

More details about the event can be found at: http://www.cs.uic.edu/~urbcomp2012/

Meet Ugle: Your networked messenger

2012-05-08T10:32:17Z

Ugle is a networked wooden owl designed by Oslo based design-studio Voy that acts as a "decorative personal message system".

Controlled over the internet via your iPhone, Ugle lets you send color coded messages remotely to friends and family at your home. When you select a specific color via the app interface the physical owl will turn its head to match the chosen color and position.

What exactly do each of the colors represent? That is up to each of Ugle's owners to decide for themselves.

Yellow could for instance mean “I’ll be home soon”, while grey might be “Work is boring today” and blue “I’ll make dinner”. Used like this Ugle could be described as a form of slow messaging with a physical, place-specific and glanceable output. The colors could also be connected to other forms of data, like ambient-interface classics such as weather-forcasts, twitter-tags, incoming email etc

Learn more about the project at: http://www.voyoslo.com/projects/ugle/ or see it in action in the video below:

Image Credits: Voy
Via: @Timoarnall

The Disappearing Computer

2012-05-08T08:39:02Z

The Augmented Reality Sandbox funded by the NSF and the sensing technology Touché from the Disney Research team are two projects giving us a glimpse of the next phase of user interface possibilities coming our way. We take a look at them both below:

Touché

Touché is a new capacitive touch sensing technology created by Munehiko Sato, Ivan Poupyrev and Chris Harrison that enables touch and gesture interactivity to be added to materials such as a body of water, a table, or even a user's body. The gesture recognition system can scale with the size of the objects; for example a doorknob enabled with this technology can capture the configuration of specific fingers, while a larger table can track the entire user's presence.

The researchers presented their project findings at this year's ACM CHI Conference where they won a Best Paper award for their work. Additional technical details and a demonstration of the project in action can be seen at: http://www.disneyresearch.com/research/projects/hci_touche_drp.htm

"As powerful and inspiring as this vision is, it imposes a significant problem: how we will interact with computers that are invisible? From the end-user perspective, the interface will appear as a computer as long as there are buttons to press and mice to move, and thus will never truly disappear. Completely new interaction technologies are required, and we hope that this work contributes to the emergence of future ubiquitous computing environments."

Additional Coverage: New Scientist, ExtremeTech, ScienceDaily, Verge, Wired, CNET
Source & Credits: Disney Research

Augmented Reality Sandbox

Inspired by a previous project created by a group of Czech researchers Oliver Kreylos and several partners (enabled by NSF funding) have put together a new version that will eventually be used as a hands-on exhibit at the ECHO Lake Aquarium and Science Center in Vermont. The system uses a real sandbox in combination with a Kinect sensor and a projector to create an interactive topographic map display.

The application will be used as a teaching tool for visitors by enabling them to use their hands and a few tools to shape the sand into unique formations that are then augmented in real time with projections of topographic contour lines and simulated water. The system "teaches geographic, geologic, and hydrologic concepts such as how to read a topographic map, the meaning of contour lines, watersheds, catchment areas, levees, etc." but you could easily see a tool like this be used in other design and engineering professions in early concept development.

Learn more about the projects development at: http://idav.ucdavis.edu/~okreylos/ResDev/SARndbox/ or see it in action in the demo video below.

Additional Coverage: Verge, Engadget, Mashable, Reddit, This is Colossal
Source: Oliver Kreylos (IDAV, UC DAVIS)

Ambient Furniture from MIT

2012-05-08T04:21:15Z

The Ambient Furniture project lead by MIT Media Lab's Tangible Media group Hiroshi Ishii, David Rose, and Shaun Salzberg consists of 6 prototype furniture concepts that mix "apps with the IKEA catalog" to explore ideas on peripheral awareness, incidental gestures, pre-attentive processing, and eavesdropping interfaces when embedded into our everday objects.

Project Description:
Furniture is the infrastructure for human activity. Every day we open cabinets and drawers, share a conversation around a coffee table, relax into a lounge chair, and toss out trash. How can digital technology augment these gestures in subtle and delightful ways?

Skype Cabinet

Description: The Skype Cabinet is always on. No more setup, log-ins, bad lighting, or headphones. Each cabinet is a dedicated portal between you and your closest friendsor family.

Place it wherever you live most and assign a space to everyone you know. The translucent doors glow when your friends are nearby, and you can open the cabinet to start a conversation. With crystal clear sound and perfect lighting, you can share a special moment or just hang out together.

Energy Clock

Description: When you're serious about saving energy a monthly bill doesn't cut it. The energy clock gives you real-time, instant feedback on your household energy consumption. It learns your energy consumption habits, then gives you subtle feedback on how you're tracking against yourself. Sometimes a gentle reminder is all it takes to make a difference!

Location Doorbell

Description: Early evenings are always a little hectic, but family planning just got a lot easier. The Google Latitude Doorbell plays subtle chimes to tell you when someone's on their way, and getting home soon. Knowing that Mom’s ten minutes away lets you put the pasta on at exactly the right time. Each person in the house has their own signature chime.

View the video embedded below or download a project brief/catalog (PDF) for a full description of all 6 concepts. More work from the Tangible Media group can be seen at: http://tangible.media.mit.edu/projects/

Additional Coverage: Paul Franzosa, Boston Globe
Via: @DavidRose
Image Credits: MIT Tangible Media Lab

Facebook Hangers

2012-05-06T02:32:03Z

The fashion brand C&A in Brazil has launched a new 'Fashion Like' campaign for Mother's Day this year that integrates their flagship store in São Paulo to their Facebook page via digital hangers displaying a real-time like counter for each piece of clothing.

Although my current Portuguese skills (campaign video below) are holding me back from getting any more details on the campaign's success you could easily see this type of concept being applied across different retail sectors. DPreviews displayed next to cameras at your local photography store, Yelp scores posted outside the neighborhood Thai joint, or Goodguide ratings next to the shampoo selection at the grocery store.

More details about the project and a few installation shots can be found on the C&A Facebook page.

Object Agency: Meet Brad

2012-05-01T02:19:28Z

I would like to introduce you to Brad. He is a toaster and a member of a new breed of networked "addicted products" created by Simone Rebaudengo and Haque design+research that explore some new ground rules for their use:

You don’t buy one, you ask for one, and try to convince it that you are a good candidate.
You don’t own them, they test you, and decide if you are a good host.
You don’t share them, they share themselves if they are not happy with you.

Today Brad is feeling "pretty useless compared to the other toasters" where he is sitting currently at the Pachube office and if they don't start giving him a fix they could end up being placed on the networks “black toast list” and losing him to someone else better suited to his needs.

Follow along with the project developments at: http://designedaddictions.tumblr.com/ or see if you can convince Brad (@BradToaster) or one of his brothers and sisters to come over to your place at: http://www.addictedproducts.com/

Image Credits: Simone Rebaudengo and Haque design+research

The video below shows how sometimes they can get anxious when another toaster is in use and they are sitting idle, and this clip shows a way in which you can soothe them when they are agitated.

Natural Fuse

2012-04-30T06:08:28Z

Natural Fuse is a project developed in 2009 by Haque Design + Research as part of the Architectural League of New York's Exhibition, "Situated Technologies: Toward the Sentient City" that harnesses the natural carbon-capturing processes of plants as they grow, and uses it in combination with a standard household power socket (limited by the capacity of the plant to offset the carbon footprint) to generate a city-wide network of electronically-assisted plants that act both as energy providers and as circuit breakers.

"Natural Fuses allow only a limited amount of energy to be expended; that amount is limited by the amount of CO2 that can be absorbed by the plants that are growing in the system - natural "circuit breakers". By networking them together, the plants are able to share their capacity and take advantage of carbon-sinking-surplus in the system since not all Natural Fuses will be in use at any one time.

If people cooperate on energy expenditure then the plants thrive (and everyone may use more energy); but if they don't then the network starts to kill plants, thus diminishing the network's electricity capacity"

Learn more at: http://www.naturalfuse.org/ or for background on the design process and experiments you can download the Research Book produced here (PDF) .

Additional Coverage: Instructables, DesignBoom, Usman Haque Video, Sentient City, Presentation Video

Matthew Fuller interviews Usman Haque about the project: Link

Image Credits: Haque Design + Research