Internet of Things
In our increasingly connected world, isn't it about time the humble street sign received a high-tech upgrade? That's certainly the thinking behind Points, the newest project from Breakfast, a New York-based design group. Points is an internet-connected directional sign that pulls data from social media and spins its arms up to 360 degrees to aim in the direction of a location or event. Read More
The August Smart Lock is a new product by designer Yves Béhar and technology entrepreneur Jason Johnson, which updates the humble door lock for the "Internet of Things" era. The device can be retrofitted to existing deadbolts and employs Bluetooth Low Energy technology in order to pair with an iPhone 4S or iPhone 5, and allow access for you and up to 10 of your iPhone-wielding friends. Read More
Three years ago, Google's Eric Schmidt announced that every two days, more information is created than was the case from the dawn of humanity up to 2003. According to IMS Research, by 2020 web-connected devices will create 2.5 quintillion bytes of information every day, with 22 billion internet of things devices up-belching information to the web. To marshal all that data, IBM has come up with a platform it calls MessageSight, which will allow any one organization to pool information from up to a million sensors and devices, at a rate of 13 million messages per second. Read More
What do you get if you cross a Raspberry Pi computer with an Arduino microcontroller? It might be an awful setup for a joke, but it's an enticing question if you're an electronics hobbyist or Internet of Things doer. Happily, thanks to Udoo, this is now a question with an answer. The mini PC combines the best of its predecessors in a compact PC-on-a-board with four times the power of a Raspberry Pi with all the functions of an Arduino Due microcontroller. The tinkerers of the internet have made short work of Udoo's Kickstarter target with 53 days remaining. Read More
Pinoccio is a new Internet of Things-friendly microcontroller designed to get home-brew electronics projects talking to the internet and, usefully, each other. Pinoccios come with or without Wi-Fi capability, but can wirelessly natter away with each other by low-power radio using mesh networking. And an in-built battery untethers your projects (hence the name, d'uh). Think of these as Arduino's roaming gossipy cousins, then. Read More
Humans and machines: this was the central theme of this year's Technology Frontiers, a two-day conference where technologists and thinkers from all walks gathered to speak to an audience of businesspersons in the underbelly of a London hotel. For those that didn't catch the live stream, Gizmag has collated the stand-out quotes that raised IQs, eyebrows and laughs among those assembled. Read More
The common thing amongst the various smart light bulbs we’ve seen recently, such as the Lumen, Philips hue, LIFX and INSTEON, is that all the enabling wireless technology is built into the bulbs themselves. This means that when the bulb inevitably fails, you’re faced with replacing the whole expensive kit and caboodle. Spark overcomes this problem by separating the expensive wireless components from the bulb, thereby allowing a standard bulb to be connected to the internet. Read More
This is a charming idea. The Good Night Lamp is actually a set of table lamps that you distribute among friends or family. The lamps communicate remotely so that as a lamp is turned on or off by its owner, that action is replicated in the others, giving illuminating little insights into the comings and goings of loved ones – even those on the other side of the world. Read More
A common theme in any form of entertainment depicting the future is the use of a remote to control everything – futuristic houses are often shown with the owner turning the lights on before they even arrive. Turns out, using the internet to control our houses is not too far away. A group of researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute for Communication Systems ESK in Munich, in collaboration with the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Mathematics ITWM in Kaiserslautern, have developed a new power outlet that supports the brand-new IPv6 Internet protocol. These new outlets, known as the wireless smart socket, could very well revolutionize the way we turn things on and off in our homes. Read More
Our lives are very connected these days. You can check in on friends and family, your car and your home within seconds by typing a few words and pushing a few buttons. Despite this, there are still many pieces that remain cut off from our networks by physical space. The Knut sensor hub aims to connect a few more of those pieces. Read More
