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Max Hemingway

Tag Archives: IoT

BBC Micro:Bit available for the masses

29 Wednesday Jun 2016

Posted by Max Hemingway in IoT, Micro:Bit, Programming

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Development, IoT, Micro:Bit, Programming

MicroBitIts been a while now since the launch of the BBC Micro:Bit and its mission to provide year 7’s with the platform.  It is only recently being made available to the general public in batches of 90 , however this has now shifted to being able to purchase single units and development kits are also being produced/made available for pin outs and expansions. I’ve seen several dates for availability in several online shops from end of June to end of July. Most places have the Micro:Bit on pre-order only at the moment, but peripherals are available to ship.

Coming in at around £13.00 for a board its more expensive than the Pi Zero at £5.00. I was expecting something of a similar price bracket. There are some interesting projects already appearing on the web.

(Other online outlets are available) One outlet stocking the Micro:Bit shortly https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/microbit

I have placed a pre-order for one to have a go with, so will post some more about it once received. Im looking to use the Micro:Bit and Pi Zero to help my Scout Group with their Digital Maker and Digital Citizen badges.

digital

In the meantime here is an example of use from Chris Swan programming a game of Simon on it. http://blog.thestateofme.com/2016/05/15/microbit-simon/

 

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Pi Zero gets a Camera

16 Monday May 2016

Posted by Max Hemingway in Development, IoT, Open Source, Programming, Raspberry Pi

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Development, IoT, Programming, RaspberryPI

PIRaspberry Pi have just released another 30,000 Pi Zero Units to the marketplace. Finally I have managed to order one after having the Pi Zero on my wish list for sometime now.

The demand for the Pi Zero has meant that they do not stay on the shelves long. This has created a high cost market for them on popular auction sites and suppliers have been limiting people to 1 unit only when they order (if in stock).

The folks at RasperryPi are using a different manufacturing process to that of the Pi 1,2 & 3 to keep costs down, however it looks like they are hopefully going to be keeping up with the demand.

“There are roughly 30,000 new Zeros out there today, and we’ll be making thousands more each day until demand is met.”

Thank you RasperryPi

So whats new with this Pi Zero?

The Pi Zero has had a bit of a revamp between manufacturing batches and now contains a camera connector. source: Raspberry Pi Blog

The camera connector is about £4.00 which is the same cost as the Pi (£4.00). Then there is the cost of the Camera (approx £23.00), however it does make a low cost camera unit and opens up the possibilities of the Pi Zero.

Picture below from Raspberry Pi Blog: source: Raspberry Pi Blog

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Just awaiting the postman now then time to do some more development stuff.

 

 

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Build 2016 Resources

07 Thursday Apr 2016

Posted by Max Hemingway in Development, IoT, Programming, Raspberry Pi, Security, Tools, Windows

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Architecture, Coding, Development, DevOps, Innovation, IoT, Knowledge, Open Source, OpsDev, Productivity, Programming

Following the latest Build 2016 conference Microsoft have new released a number of resources and videos on Channel 9, providing 49 pages of videos and presentations.

Lots of learning available.Code

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IoT Standards & Manifesto

08 Tuesday Mar 2016

Posted by Max Hemingway in IoT

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IoT

Agile has had its own Manifesto (Agile Manifesto) since 2002 that has been signed by numerous people. IoT has now got its own Manifesto (IoT Manifesto).

ThingsAt a time of the growth of the IoT and lots of Standards Groups forming and guiding the way forward, there is a lot of ground to cover before an IoT Manifesto can really be in a place to influence the industry as the Agile Manifesto has.  For me for this to hold weight, it needs to have buy in and be signed by the industry vendors who are currently guiding the IoT and producing products for the IoT. Last time I looked there were 285 signatures and growing.

The one item on this new Manifesto that I do agree with is “We keep everyone and everything secure”, however the definition of secure does need to be defined. As outlined in a previous set of blog posts, “IoT Device Security Considerations and Security Layers“, this is a vast area to design and build against.

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Early view of the Raspberry Pi3

27 Saturday Feb 2016

Posted by Max Hemingway in Development, IoT, Programming, Raspberry Pi, Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

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Development, IoT, Programming, RaspberryPI

PIThe Register has an article on the new Raspberry Pi3 which is currently going through FCC testing and certification.

The Pi 3 Model B otherwise looks pretty much like 2015’s quad-core 32-bit ARM Cortex-A7-based Raspberry Pi 2: it sports a familiar Broadcom system-on-chip, HDMI port, SD card slot, wired Ethernet socket, and 40 general-purpose IO pins, all in a credit-card form factor. – Source The Register

Not much is know from the rest of the submission about its features, however Wifi and Bluetooth onboard it will be interesting to see what other things have been built in as the details of this version are released by RaspberryPi.

 

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IFTTT – SMS when exiting a Location Recipe

19 Friday Feb 2016

Posted by Max Hemingway in IoT, Social Media

≈ 1 Comment

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IoT, Social Media

SignsIn another step on my journey in the IoT (Internet of Things) I recently decided to use one of the digital recipes from IFTTT (If this then that) to use the location service to send a text to someone when I have left a particular zone.

The actual configuration of this task is very easy using either the web or mobile tool.

Using the tool in this example, I chose the recipe ingredients that related to my mobile. In this case an Android phone.

The interface takes you through an the process by clicking the relevant icons and entering some simple information. I have flow charted the process below:

IFTTT

You can install the application on your mobile and sign in so that it knows about the tool. Its also important that when using location recipes that you also turn on the Location/GPS function on your device.

I tried this recipe yesterday and it worked well. However it didn’t activate straight away from leaving the location zone that I had set up. I’m assuming that this is something to do with the polling or location services on my mobile. To test this I have set up a couple of other similar recipes to see if I can make the text message a bit more instant. This will be tested over the next week.

The text message itself can contain a number of parameters “I exited an area {{OccurredAt}} via Android {{LocationMapUrl}}”  which did put some context into the text message.

{{OccurredAt}} provided a date and time

{{LocationMapUrl}} provided a location in google maps

You can remove these from the message if they are not needed.

There are lots of sample recipes and ones created by others that you can reuse, or the site has the ability to create your own.

 

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Self Driving Office Furniture

17 Wednesday Feb 2016

Posted by Max Hemingway in Innovation, IoT, Robotics

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Innovation, IoT

ChairsWatching the news this evening an interesting article was shown.

Long ago when I was at school at the end of the day we had to tidy the classroom and put the chairs onto our desks. What if the chairs could do this themselves? well put themselves under the desk in a tidy fashion at least.

Nissan have the answer to the under the desk part at least. They have recently created the Intelligent Parking Chair which puts it self back in place after using it.

You Tube Video of Chairs in action

This is based on technology from their driver-less cars, using sensors and cameras to move the chairs back to their position. The video shows people in different rooms clap their hands and the chairs move back. This illustrates applications that car manufacturers are starting to apply from their R&D into the driver-less car innovations. Maybe a different command is needed rather than clapping hands as it conjurers an interesting scenario following an announcement at the board table and everyone applauding.

Other innovations are already starting to be available for home and office, such as the Tesla Battery.

Linked to the IoT and secured properly, these R&D Innovations could bring some interesting revolutions to the home and office spaces.

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PI Zero Stock & Project Competition

06 Saturday Feb 2016

Posted by Max Hemingway in Development, IoT, Open Source, Programming, Raspberry Pi, Uncategorized

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Coding, Development, IoT, Programming, RaspberryPI

PISince its launch the Raspberry PI Zero seems to be in high demand with its low price of under £5.00 for the base module. The official suppliers are still out of stock with no view as to when they may receive their next shipment. They fly out as soon as they come in

This makes the PI Zero Stock literally Zero!

The unofficial supply chain of place such as Ebay are now up as high as £42.00 with sellers caching in on what is supposed to be a cheap computing platform.

Hopefully the stock levels will come back to a level to stem/curb the high prices coming in.

But why so popular – this is mainly due to the cheap price of the computing module and has captured the imagination of hackers, developers and hobbyists.

There are a wide range of interesting projects appearing on the net such as:

  • Pi Zero Synth
  • Pi Zero Projects

Hackaday and Adafruit have joined up to create a new competition looking for the best Raspberry PI Zero project.

The platform is ideal for IoT development of small modules, sensors and other projects. The other forms of the Raspberry PI is already being used for IoT projects such as a Home Heating Control Device.

It will be interesting to see what comes out of the competition and the next innovation. One competition I shall be watching with interest.

 

 

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Flying Pi IoT Robot Wars

15 Friday Jan 2016

Posted by Max Hemingway in IoT, Programming, Robotics, Wearable Tech

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3D Printing, IoT, Robotics

MachineWith the announcement of the Return of Robot Wars on the BBC rebooted for 2016 the buzz around what can be achieved with today’s technology is hotting up.

The inner geek in me is slightly excited and have already over thought some elements of of it. Here are some of my thoughts as today’s tech involves and computing costs come down. The original shows aired in 2001 to 2004. Most of the robots used radio controlled servos to control the arms and functions of the robots. 12 years later the world of robotics has moved on.

  • With IoT could we see a future where a house robot is controlled by a viewer (maybe a competition winner) and using IoT connect and control functions of the robot.
  • Instead of the standard Radio controllers used in the original series there will be more contestants controlling using mobile devices or wearable technology.
  • Robots could have more sensors linked by IoT technologies to register battle damage.
  • Drones that also take off from the robots and battle or separate drone battles. This would need a lot of perspex around the flying area though.
  • Teams could be 3D Printing a multitude of spares and patches to repair their robots between bouts.
  • Teams can also use 3D Printing to help create component parts with their designs.
  • Internal components could be powered by low cost £5.00 Raspberry Pi Zero

Will be interesting to see what the new robots can do and what the build / control rules about robots will be.

A category in Robot Wars to help enable and encourage STEM initiatives would be a good.

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An A-Z Guide to being an Architect

07 Thursday Jan 2016

Posted by Max Hemingway in Architecture, Big Data, Cloud, Development, DevOps/OpsDev, Enterprise Architecture, Governance, Innovation, IoT, Open Source, Productivity, Programming, Security, Social Media, Tools

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Architecture, Cloud, CPD, Data, Development, DevOps, Innovation, IoT, Knowledge, learning, Open Source, OpsDev, Productivity, Programming, Social Media

Back in 2008 Microsoft published An A-Z Guide to ABCBeing an Architect in their Architecture Journals.

Here is my take on an updated A to Z Guide to being an Architect. A couple of these may be similar.

A – Architect

Having the right level of skills as an Architect or engaging an Architect with the right level of skills will depend on the work needing to be undertaken. There are several types of Architect with some specialising in certain areas and others being multi domain skilled. The list below covers some of the different types of Architect- this is not an exhaustive list:

  • Enterprise Architect
  • Information Architect
  • Solutions Architect
  • Software Architect
  • Systems Architect

B – Blueprints

Following Blueprints and Patterns either published by vendors (such as the Microsoft Blueprints) or developed internally around your products and services will ensure repeat-ability and cost control around the design process.

Some examples showing different pattern types can be found at Architecture Patterns

C – Contextual Web Era

The up and coming 4th Platform area is the Contextual Web Era

  • 1st Platform – Mainframe Era
  • 2nd Platform – Client Server Era
  • 3rd Platform – Cloud Era
  • 4th Platform – Contextual Web Era

This is an up and coming era with lots of new innovation and developments. Keeping up with developments is key going forward for any architect to understand designs/solutions, art of the possible now and future, innovation and for developing roadmaps for solutions.

D – DevOps

To quote Wikipedia – “DevOps (a clipped compound of “development” and “operations”) is a culture, movement or practice that emphasizes the collaboration and communication of both software developers and other information-technology (IT) professionals while automating the process of software delivery and infrastructure changes”. Having knowledge of DevOps, OpsDev and Agile assist with Architecting a solution for a business understanding their practices and modes of interacting with technology to meet business requirements. A Good book on the subject of DevOps is “The Phoenix Project” by Gene Kim.

E – Enterprise Architecture

EA (Enterprise Architecture) is a blueprint that defines how a business can meet its objectives and strategy. This is achieved by conducting analysis, design, planning, recommendations and implementations through an Enterprise Architecture Framework

Enterprise Architecture Wikibook

F – Four Two Zero One Zero

42010 is the ISO Standard that most frameworks adhere to. Working to a Framework brings structure to your designs and life cycles.

There are a number of frame works available such as:

  • DoDAF
  • MoDAF
  • TOGAF
  • Zachman
  • Other Frameworks are available

Enterprise Architecture Wikipedia Book

G – Governance

Governance is an important part of architecture as it

  • Ensures Conformance
  • Controls Variance
  • Maintains Vitality
  • Enables Communication
  • Sets Direction
  • Issue Resolution
  • Provides Guidance and Prioritisation
  • Promotes Best Practise
  • Minimises Risk
  • Protects IT environments from tactical IT changes, project solutions, and strategic proposals that are not in an organisations global best interest
  • Controlling Technical Diversity, Over-Engineering and Unnecessary Complexity
  • Ensures projects can proceed quickly & efficiently
  • Control over IT spend
  • Quality Standards
  • Efficient and optimal use of resources and increase the effectiveness of IT processes

H – Hands On

It is important to be current and understand the technologies you are architecting. There are lots of options available to get your hands dirty using technology from using Cloud Servers to virtual machines on your compute device. There are other computing devices such as the Raspberry PI that provide a cheap alternative to standing up small farms to learn on.

I – IoT

IoT (Internet of Things) is where physical things are connected by the internet using embedded sensors, software, networks and electronics. This allows the items to be managed, controlled and reported on. My blog posts on IoT Device Security Considerations and Security Layers goes into more detail on this subject.

J – Juxtaposition

Juxtaposition is something an architect should be doing to compare things/items/artefacts etc.
noun;
1. an act or instance of placing close together or side by side, especially for comparison or contrast.
2.the state of being close together or side by side.

Source:http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/juxtaposition

K – Knowledge

I would class Skills with Knowledge. It is important as an Architect to ensure that your skills/knowledge are up to date and where you are unsure of a technology, you have a plan to address and skill up. Build a good CPD (Continuing Professional Development) plan and work towards completing it.

L – Language

With the move to cloud it is important to ensure your scripting skills are up to date as most cloud platforms use scripting to assist with the deployment of environments. This is also true of other DevOps/OpsDev applications. If you are unsure on what to learn this guide may help you – Learn a Programming Language – But which one?

M -Micro Segmentation

Micro Segmentation allows a business to use Networks, Compute and Storage to automate and deliver complex solutions by carving up and using the infrastructure. This segments part of the infrastructures to specific functions/tasks. It can also be used in a security context to segment networks, firewalls, compute and storage to increase security and reduce cyber attacks.  VMware have produced a book “Micro Segmentation for Dummies” that can be downloaded from here.

N – Next Generation

Next Generation refers to the next stage or development to something such as a new release of hardware or software. Next Generation is becoming a common term now to define products and artefacts, an example being Next Generation Firewalls.

O – Open Source

Open Source has been available for a long time with software such a Linux, however there is a bigger shift towards using Open Source and acceptance by businesses. Some examples of Open Source that is now mainstream within business include;

  • Ansible
  • Chef
  • Docker
  • Puppet

P – Performance

Performance can cover people as well as solutions / systems. Performance metrics should be set out at the inception of an engagement then monitored and reported on. This will be a factor in driving Continuous Improvement going forward as well as forecasting / planning for future upgrades and expansion.

Q – Quality

Quality is a huge subject and has a lot if standards governing it and how it affects all aspects of business and architecture. Knowing which standards and how they affect a solution will assist in the whole architecture lifecycle. There are also a number of tools available to help you;

  • Architecture Frameworks
  • ITIL
  • Six Sigma

There is also a level of pride and satisfaction in producing a quality solution and system achieving the objectives and requirements set out by the business.

R- Roadmap

Any architecture/solution should have a roadmap to set out its future. Roadmaps should include items such as:

  • Current state
  • Future state
  • Innovation
  • Upgrades / Releases
  • New Features / Functions
  • End of Life / Replacement

S – SMAC

SMAC stands for Social, Mobile, Analytics, Cloud. SMAC is an acronym that covers the areas and concepts when these four technologies are brought together to drive innovation in business. A good description of SMAC written by a colleague can be found here Acronyms SMAC.

T – Transformation

The majority, if not all systems will undergo a form of transformation. This may be in the form of a simple upgrade or to a complex redesign and migration to something else.

U – UX

UX (User eXperience) affects how people interact with your architecture / design and how they feel about it (emotions and attitudes). With the boom in apps and the nearing Contextual Web Era, UX is one of the most important factors to getting an architecture used. If your users don’t like the system they may find something else to use that they like.

V – Vision

Understanding the vision of your customer and their business is the driving factor for any architecture.

On working with your customer you should look to become a Trusted Advisor and also with your colleagues. A great book on the subject is The Trusted Advisor by David Maister. The book covers 3 main areas which discusses perspectives on trust, the structure of trust building and putting trust to work.

W – WWW

The internet is a key delivery mechanism for systems. Knowing how this works and key components to the internet should be understood such as:

  • IPV4 – IPV6
  • DNS
  • Routing
  • Connectivity
  • Security

X – X86

X86 – is a standard that every knows as its one of the most common platform types available.

Y – Year

Year is for the longevity of the solution you are designing. How many years are your expecting it to last What are the Business Requirements, statutory obligations, depreciation etc that need to be planned in. Consider things like End of Life, Maintenance and Upgrades on hardware and software from a solution point of view.

Z – Zero Defects

The best solution is the one with zero defects, but reaching this goal can be a challenge and can also consume a lot of expense. The best way to ensure Zero Defects is to use:

  • Best Practice
  • Reference Architectures
  • Blueprints/Patterns
  • Checklists
  • Reuse
  • Lessons Learnt

This is my current A to Z and some of the entries may be different in your version so “What is in your A to Z of being an Architect?”

I will look to write some further blog posts on the areas listed in this A to Z

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