Category Archives: IoT

Big Data – 4V’s + Verification

27 Monday Apr 2015

Posted by in Big Data, Data Science, IoT

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IBM have released an Infographic on the “Four V’s of Big Data” which covers:

  • Volume – Scale of Data
  • Variety – Different forms of Data
  • Velocity – Analysis of Streaming Data
  • Veracity – Uncertainty of Data

4-Vs-of-big-data

There should be another V for “Verification” which covers the questions you ask of the data in order to obtain the results. A check should also be made on the data to look at the inference of the results as different views or questions asked in a slightly different way could produce completely different outcomes in the data.

Having the right data is important and ensuring the data gathered and collected is relevant to the business questions you are asking. Two stats in the infographic stick out for me on this:

  • $3.1 Trillion a year on poor data quality
  • 40 Zetabytes of data created by 2020

Perhaps with the right Verification there may not be so much uncertainty (Veracity) and a huge saving to businesses reducing a high loss in money, time and incorrect data.

Faster Smaller Raspberry Pi Cluster

18 Saturday Apr 2015

Posted by in Innovation, IoT, Programming, Raspberry Pi

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Following on from my blog “Race to the largest Raspberry Pi Cluster“, James J. Guthrie has built a 3 node cluster out of Raspberry Pi 2’s using 3 nodes, out performing the 64 node cluster.

The Iridis Pi has a peak CPU performance benchmark was around 1 GIGAFLOPS (floating point operations per second)

The cluster presented here is made of 3 second generation Pi’s (nodes) and has a peak performance of over 3 GIGAFLOPS.

A short paper on the cluster can be found at the link below.

http://personal.strath.ac.uk/james.guthrie/jabopi/

PI

IoT Operating Systems

14 Tuesday Apr 2015

Posted by in Architecture, IoT, Programming, Security

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A recent paper from the Cornell University has been published that covers a “Survey of Operating Systems for the IoT Environment“. (IoT = Internet of Things). Things

It looks at the Operating Systems produced for the chipsets used in IoT sensors, RFID and devices.

The paper lists the following Operating Systems and provides an overview of their capabilities and aligned chipsets.

The paper is worth a read if you want a good overview of IoT Operating Systems and their capabilities.

Source: http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1504/1504.02517.pdf

Open Source, Open Human, Open Data, Open Sesame!

30 Monday Mar 2015

Posted by in IoT, Open Source, Wearable Tech

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Opeopenn Source is a term that is now common place  meaning access to the inner workings of a thing to allow a wider community of people to help develop and take it forward. A good example of this is in software. The Internet is full of Open Source Software projects that people are developing and collaborating on, sharing data.

A project by the Personal Genome Project is now looking to take the idea of Open Source to the next level with Open Humans. The project is looking for volunteers to Open Source themselves and publicly share data about their health to further science and medical fields. The project does state though that you can choose what data you share.

Open Data is a term relating to data that can be shared openly and freely. An example of this are the data sets freely available by governments such as Data.gov and Data.gov.uk.

By 2020 it is predicted that with a world population of 7.6 billion, there will be 50 billion connected devices. That’s 6.58 connected devices per person. Some people have that now with phones, tablets, wrist devices, glasses etc. Each device capable of producing a lot of data on usage, actions, etc. How much of this data will be private vs open is yet to be determined and the ability to opt in and out need to be clearer for people to understand.

A report in todays BBC News claims that yet more personal data is being sold illegally. This time pensions data (Pension data ‘sales’ investigated by watchdog) . However as we take more steps towards the IoT (Internet of Things) are we able to keep track of our data and how it is used or are we heading towards an Open Sesame bonanza of data treasure being opened, taken and sold on.

Open Sesame is a magical phrase used by Ali Baba to access a secret cave of treasure. In this case the treasure is data!

Race to the largest Raspberry Pi Cluster

16 Monday Mar 2015

Posted by in Architecture, Cloud, Innovation, IoT, Programming, Raspberry Pi

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The humble Raspberry Pi has been around for some time and its popularity is growing again with the latest release of the Pi and is a great development platform for the Internet of Things both cost wise and its sheer versatility from basic programming and running Minecraft, to hosting a Docker server.

GCHQ have recently announced the clustering of a 66 node Pi cluster called bramble. They have just pipped the University of Southampton who built a 64 node Pi cluster out of the Pi and Lego.

Some other earlier attempts have seen a 32 Node Cluster Beowulf from the Boise State University.

However it would appear that a 120 node Cluster is currently being developed.

With the 32 node cluster costing roughly the same as a PC, this technology has certainly brought high powered computing into the reach of most people today and the applications going forward are huge for development of solutions.

IoT Cloak of Invisibility

10 Tuesday Feb 2015

Posted by in Cloud, Innovation, IoT, Security

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With the upsurge in the IoT (Internet of Things), wearable tech and the desire to be constantly connected within the world, there is also now an emerging market of other things to protect yourself as security devices.

Once such item is an RFID Blocking Wallet that protects your debit and credit cards from giving off data or paying for things that you were not aware of – “Contactless ‘charging errors’ at Marks and Spencer”.

Redcoat

Maybe going forward may see a “Cloak of Invisibility” not as a garment to turn is completely invisible to the naked eye, but more a garment that blocks our signals from the IoT providing a high level of personal security or as a “Firewall Blanket” or a “Firewall Coat/Garment” maybe letting certain of your information through. Providing a layer of protection and security to the user.

I see this as maybe working at a thread level within the garment using low level power flows to disrupt the signals of the IoT or being used to broadcast a blocking frequency, only allowing certain frequencies/digital pulses out and in.

As the IoT develops, I’m sure the level of personal security will as well.