One IP Per Object

Of Nabaztag and the internet of things

2012-08-14T22:51:00.004+02:00

Daniel Donahoo from Wired.com wrote an interesting article about the Nabaztag and the internet of things. It is worth reading and following some of the links to Ninja Blocks, Twine and others.

http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2012/08/net-of-things/

The Killer App'

2008-01-21T17:38:00.000+01:00

Every new technology needs a killer application to prove itself, i.e., an application that would be very difficult to implement with existing technology that takes advantage of the capabilities proposed by the new framework. With IPv6 the story is not different, as people will question why invest money in changing a structure that still works.

Well, this article by internetnews.com suggests that such an application might be underway. The built-in multicasting capabilities in IPv6 make possible that sensors can warn that an earthquake is on its way.

The unique address also represents a gain in time when propagating the message, as NAT routers always introduce a delay in communications.

The article points that a message is sent from the sensors to the authorities and commercial devices. So how could such a device be?

What about interrupting the gas and electricity automatically?

Real-time is practically impossible with IPv4. Does anybody know if IPv6 somehow works in real-time?

Eye-Fi

2008-01-10T13:04:00.000+01:00

Yesterday Eye-Fi received public appraisal at CES, the consumer electronics show that ends today in Las Vegas.

This very tiny product looks exactly like an ordinary SD card, one of the most popular memory formats for digital cameras, but has a built-in WiFi connection. Not only it sends the pictures you took to your computer without the hassle of connecting the camera to it via USB or removing the card from the camera and inserting into the computer, but you can also configure it to post the pictures directly to web sites like Flickr, Picasa and Facebook.

Configuration is done once and then the rest is done automatically. Although the automatic download to the computer is a very nice application, I have my doubts about the "instant publishing" one... The thing about digital photography is that people don't choose that much, they point and they shoot, maybe three, four times the same thing and one (or none?) of the pictures is good.

And not to mention pictures you don't want to see published... =)

But as far as I could see, it looks very customizable and easy to use, like technology should be!

For more info, take a look at the EyeFi website.

And again the toaster...

2008-01-10T12:16:00.000+01:00

So in the end toasters are really destined to become gadgets instead of simply toasting our morning breads...

Not long ago I've seen in some of these shops with all sorts of creative gifts usually related to home stuff, like picture frames, stylish chairs, kitchen tools and... toasters. These toasters I've seen are able to make drawings such as flowers, a heart, things like that. But in a static manner.

However, as seen in Yanko Design, a concept by Sasha Tseng intends to make things more dynamic. But still, if you are present and you make a toast to someone, it is much simpler to just say your message, right? Or at least one first time it would be nice to write something, but then people would tend not to write anything and just make the toast instead...

So why not combine this with an IP chip? Then you can send messages from the office or from your mobile to the toaster. It is certainly more intrusive than a regular SMS... =)

I wish my heater had an IP address

2008-01-05T18:06:00.000+01:00

What do you wish it had an IP address? Something that you could access remotely from your phone, for instance. Or that could perform an operation by itself?

Since IPv6 gives us almost infinite addresses, this can be a never-ending list. But the first item I want to point out is the heater.

A great part of power consumption in countries where you need heating come from, guess where, the heaters. Even worse if those are electrically-powered.

When you go to work, kids go to school and there is no one in the house for a long period, why leave the heaters on? It is bad for the environment and also for your pocket in the end of the month. But the idea of coming home to a nice warmed place is attractive to most of us.

One solution is to use timers, but what would you do if you change your plans and will come back earlier. Or worse, if you decide to escape for the weekend and the program will turn the heaters on anyway.

No, the idea is not mine neither it is new, but as far as I know, it is far from being widespread even in developed countries.

Wouldn't it be nice to have a microcontrolled heater capable of not only doing the timer functions (after all, most of the time people will come home at the expected time and it would be a hassle to "call" the heater everyday), but that is also a communicative device capable of giving its status like room temperature, power consumption, etc and being controlled remotely?

So what is your wish? Comment!

Manual input

2007-12-28T14:03:00.001+01:00

When checking the net fridge web site, at least this version contemplates the input and consumption of elements in the fridge through manual input. It is nice to have a program for that, but manual input simply doesn't work.

So how to manage all products with minimal effort? The answer is probably RFID, or this is at least the direction main manufacturers are following. This obviously requires that all products have RFID tags on them.

But instead of just adding a tag to each product, and since this is a concept-oriented blog, why not rethinking the whole process? What about designing a state-of-the-art solution that could be also environmental friendly in terms of generating less waste? I believe it is possible.

What if your toaster had an IP address?

2007-12-28T13:31:00.000+01:00

At least some five years have passed since I first heard this question, and I am sure engineers around the world have discussed about it even before. The reason your toaster still doesn't have an IP address is simply because it would be completely useless...

Sixty years after the invention of the transistor, we live in a period that the sky is the limit and only creativity (or lack of) limits the development of new applications. If what you need for your product is not yet available from electronic manufacturers, it is certainly in their road map for the next few years.

A quite cool "super-gadget" available today is the LG Internet Fridge Freezer. But apart from its database of the food stocked inside, it has no reason to be attached to the fridge. Stereo speakers, camera, microphone, cooking recipes, email, all those things you can do if you take your laptop to the kitchen, right?

Not quite.

Although the first concept of a net fridge was actually a laptop adapted to the fridge door, the food database is the example of an application that wouldn't work in a general-purpose computer. Not that it would not run on it, but people simply wouldn't use it. Can you imagine the hassle of bringing your laptop to the kitchen everytime you come from the supermarket or even when you consume something?

Short of ideas for dinner? Combining the info of what is in there and a recipes list, the fridge can make suggestions of possible menus. Your family members could even vote on the fridge for their most loving recipes.

The concept of a family communicating through a device looks very stupid in some cultures and it is true that this should never replace "traditional" human live interaction. But there's never been a more exciting time for technology lovers, because now high-tech is not only practical but also pleasant and easy to use. So back to the recipe-voting system, try thinking of your 5 favorite home-cooked dishes. And now what if you had pictures of these dishes in front of you. And now what if, besides the pictures, you had also a ranking what were the meals you had more often recently... Maybe you can't name your favorite dish, but your history can!

No, I've never seen the LG fridge and I don't know if it does all that. But I know it does other things, like video messaging. The modern version of post-its? No, just a new form of communication, you can also leave a handwritten message on it. That's how technology should be: providing a handful of possibilities that will certainly fulfill your needs.

As for the IP-toaster, I still doesn't know what it would be good for... Any ideas?

Benefits of IPv6

2007-12-28T13:13:00.000+01:00

When one tries to find the benefits of IPv6, the result is a list of technical advantages related to IPv4 interesting only to network managers, except the main feature of allowing an almost infinite number of addresses, thus the name of this blog.

The mission is to promote discussions of possible applications in having one IP per object, not restricted to IPv6, but involving embedded systems in general. It is not a strictly technical blog and anyone interested in the topic can participate.

IPv6 basics

2007-12-28T13:07:00.000+01:00

From Wikipedia:

Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is a network layer for packet-switched internetworks. It is designated as the successor of IPv4, the current version of the Internet Protocol, for general use on the Internet.

The main change brought by IPv6 is a much larger address space that allows greater flexibility in assigning addresses. It was not the intention of IPv6 designers, however, to give permanent unique addresses to every individual and every computer. Rather, the extended address length eliminates the need to use network address translation to avoid address exhaustion, and also simplifies aspects of address assignment and renumbering when changing providers.

It is common to see examples that attempt to show that the IPv6 address space is absurdly large. For example, IPv6 supports 2128 (about 3.4×1038) addresses, or approximately 5×1028 addresses for each of the roughly 6.5 billion people alive today. In a different perspective, this is 252 addresses for every star in the known universe - a million times as many addresses per star than IPv4 supported for our single planet. These examples, however, have an underlying and incorrect assumption that the goal of IPv6 is the dense assignment of unique addresses to every possible entity.

The large number of addresses allows a hierarchical allocation of addresses that may make routing and renumbering simpler. With IPv4, complex CIDR techniques were developed to make the best possible use of a restricted address space. Renumbering, when changing providers, can be a major effort with IPv4, as discussed in RFC 2071 and RFC 2072. With IPv6, however, renumbering becomes largely automatic, because the host identifiers are decoupled from the network provider identifier. Separate address spaces exist for ISPs and for hosts, which are "inefficient" in address space bits but are extremely efficient for operational issues such as changing service providers.

OIPPO what?!?

2007-12-28T11:10:00.000+01:00

Recently my Internet provider announced the implementation of IPv6. Although this provider has a lot of cool stuff included in the price and keeps giving me new interesting topics to learn and investigate, this feature certainly gives rise to a lot of discussions.

Until now mine and the life of the vast majority of this ISP's subscribers haven't changed, but how could they be affected in a near future?

That's what I want to investigate with this blog...