IoTComplete

Saving Money and Time, and Consumers Will Help Build It

By IoTComplete’s Jimmy Schaeffler

(November 1, 2014: Carmel-by-the-Sea, CA)

The Internet of Things (IoT) is another way of stating the idea that more and more people will use and carry devices on their person, and in their homes and vehicles, and more and more business machines will have many more similar (and more complex) devices. All those devices will in turn communicate with other devices in other machines and other places, all the while analyzing the data that comes from those original devices, typically aimed at making actions and people and machines more efficient.

Yet the real key for humankind is that that collection and analysis be done well, so as ultimately to use this amazing new technology to improve the quality of our lives.

With that in mind, IoTComplete.com introduces our consumer audience to what some of those key improvements are going to represent (in nor particular order). A future IoTComplete.com article intends to examine a similar subject via-a-vis the business community.

• #1  The IoT will allow us to become more efficient. Just one small example of this will be less and less time spent in the auto driving, and more time spent doing other, more productive things, even if that is just reading the news or reviewing emails while traveling between locales at 75 miles per hour.
• # 2  The IoT will make people safer, which means they will have less stress (if they want that), and they will live longer.
• # 3  The IoT will save us money. Overall, things that are done for a given sum today will be done for less money using the IoT. For example, a car run more safely and efficiently because of the IoT, means a car that lasts longer because it is repaired as needed, and it does not fall victim to car crashes.
• # 4  The IoT will lessen the time spent doing chores, thus permitting people to be more productive and, ideally (if they want it), have more leisure time.
• # 5  The IoT will become a greater value. This means that software and hardware that is expensive today because it is rare and difficult to implement, will quickly become less so, meaning quicker implementation of IoT is achieved.
• # 6  The IoT will mean constant, 24/7 connectivity. Note that like several others of these “Likes,” there is also an element of dislike, i.e., many people will not appreciate this level of connectivity. But, for those that do, the stimuli will be awesome!
• # 7  The IoT will mean a much greater sense of knowledge and awareness. Similar to the “Like” # 6 above, information (and entertainment) will be collected, and will be coming and going, incessantly, which means for those who value more data and knowledge, it will be a good time to be a human being.
• Bonus: The IoT will be great fun to develop. That is because not unlike the world of “apps” that are developed and installed in smart phones today, future IoT implementations will be proposed by citizens and welcomed by businesses.

A future IoTComplete.com article will focus on “7 Things About IoT You Are Not Going To Like,” however, to further incentivize people, businesses, governments, and other institutions to maintain a level of optimism and enthusiasm necessary for the maximization of new innovation and investment necessary to get us most deliberately and quickly into IoT, we insist on beginning with the positives.

Jimmy Schaeffler loves to write about The Internet of Things (IoT). That is because there are so many things about it, and importantly, so many good things about it, that people need to learn about. By focusing on the professional consideration of news, opinion, research, and concrete tactics and strategies, Mr. Schaeffler’s aim is to provide a top-level, one-stop resource for publication, consulting, conference and speaking needs. The IoTComplete.com business is designed toward helping companies, governments and institutions grapple with the new realities and planning necessary to thrive in the IoT & M2M era faced by every person and entity globally. Visit www.IoTComplete.com for contact and more details.

Common Sense Hallmarks Are Ubiquity And Affordability

By IoTComplete’s Jimmy Schaeffler

(October 1, 2014; Carmel-by-the-Sea, CA)

People, especially business people, like trends.

They like trends because knowledge of where people and businesses are going creates opportunities, both to make money and to avoid losing money, for example.

With that in mind, IoTComplete.com introduces what is intended to be a regular feature of the site, which is a regular update, of at least a twice-yearly variety, on the most important trends affecting the Internet of Things (IoT).

Note that the numbering of these IoT trends is done for guidance, and not for rating purposes, because we deem it likely too early in the IoT lifecycle to estimate those trends’ relative importance. This is another way of saying: all the IoT trends important right now, which is why we list them.

1)      Building the IoT into things that people use will become the norm, rather than the clear exception it is today. Thus, from the start of the manufacturing process, increasingly engineers and manufacturers will make the implementation of IoT a standard and necessary step in the building of future hardware and software (See, IoTComplete.com, Article entitled “The Internet of Things Lights Your Business… Today”).

2)      That said, security will continue to menace the machines and devices that use the IoT. The security menace, however, will not prevail. That is because, not unlike what General Instrument did with its C-Band services, and not unlike what the North American cable industry has done, pirates can be controlled, especially if you upset their economics (See, IoT.Complete.com, Article entitled “IoT + Security, Piracy, & Privacy: It’s Economically Solvable”).

3)      Certain industries, nonetheless, will favor IoT over others. These industries will include transportation, manufacturing, and medical, because management, efficiency, and scheduling are so critical to these businesses. Some businesses that are much less likely to require IoT implementation at such an enhanced pace are music, religion, and education.

4)     Governments will adapt quickly to the IoT, primarily because running efficiently is a paradigm of good government. This will be the case on the smallest local level, regionally, and nationally. Indeed, really well-oiled national governments will use IoT to connect with other national governments and peoples. Smart cities, like Barcelona, are incorporating IoT to help with projects, such as water and waste management and electric supply. Indeed, because nearly half of all California households do not have water meters – especially in this time of once-in-a-millennium drought – adoption of IoT plans and methods is all the more critical to basic quality of life.

5)      The early chaos of tens of thousands and more IoT stakeholders will subside. Thus, the volume of IoT stakeholders in every subdivision and sub-part of the new IoT industry, all clamoring for a spot in The Land of IoT, will quickly morph as the acquirers consume the acquirees. In the longer term, not unlike the distribution services of Direct Broadcast Satellite (DBS), satellite radio, cable, and Internet Protocol (IP), automobile, fast foods, pharmacological, and most of the video content business today, that consolidation will, within a couple of decades, become a concern.

6)     Bonus Trend:  The Value and Cost-Effectiveness of IoT Will Drive The Acceleration of These and Other Related IoT Trends.

Jimmy Schaeffler founded IotComplete.com based on the idea of exploring as many corners of the Internet of Things as passionately possible. He uses his decades of telecom expertise and professional forces to fully light the burgeoning worlds of IoT & M2M. By focusing on the professional consideration of news, opinion, research, and concrete tactics and strategies, Mr. Schaeffler’s aim is to provide a top-level, one-stop resource for publication, consulting, conference and speaking needs. The IoTComplete.com business is designed toward helping companies, governments and institutions grapple with the new realities and planning necessary to thrive in the IoT & M2M era faced by every person and entity globally. Visit www.IoTComplete.com for more detail.

Getting IoT Ready For Future Versions 2.0, 3.0, and More

 By IoTComplete’s Jimmy Schaeffler

(September 1, 2014; Carmel-by-the-Sea, CA)

A fairly thorough review of much literature available today about challenges affecting the Internet of Things (IoT), makes clear that a better appreciation of and a better response to protecting the network — and its users! — is critical.

That said, it is merely the humble opinion of this author, that we conclude…this is very solvable.

Security Backgrounder

For background, Jimmy Schaeffler has significant history and experience delving into matters of content security, and network protection.

Jimmy Schaeffler and his firm The Carmel Group also have a deep history of involvement in studies of content-related security matters, especially white papers and similar studies, and most intensively as lead expert witness in the California federal court case of EchoStar vs. NDS, and the case of Videotron vs. Bell ExpressVu in Canada.

The Elements of Security

True knowledge of content security points early to the fact that the success or failure of piracy mitigation and elimination efforts is largely a measure of controlling the flow of money to and from the “hackers,” or pirates, themselves. That dynamic has not changed since the 1990s and the early days of the GI VideoCypher encryption process.

Thus, from the days of early Direct Broadcast Satellites (DBS), lessons surface whereby strong security required that regularly funding and regularly switching out smart cards was required in order to make piracy uneconomical for millions of would-be pirates.

It is important also to note that different businesses need different levels of protection. For example, personal security protection for an Internet-connected pill bottle cap (that reminds one to take his/her pills) will vary greatly from that of a Machine-to-Machine (M2M) security protection in a nuclear power plant.

Yet that said, one ready solution is seen in cheaper and more readily-available memory and processing (or “brains”), such that security can be built into even the less critical infrastructures, at multiple levels, meaning there are multiple “security checks” at various processing points in any IoT unit. An example would be the safety restraints in a vehicle, relying not just on one security unit for the entire vehicle or an entire subsystem, but instead relying on multiple “brains” down or up the line, meaning if one fails, there are always others to back it up. In short, IoT engineers need to back up each end device, so that the security lapse can never spread further into the value chain.

Next Steps

Traditionally, one of the better ways to move infrastructure and ideas forward is to create a trade group, which in turn has the capacity to bring competitive factions together, and ideally they then, together, create new standards, based upon longer term common interests.

Failing this intra-industry, more volunteer-like method, governments rarely become involved to set things like new security standards. This, obviously, is a far less preferable direction than that done alone by the industry members themselves.

Conclusions

Without security that minimizes piracy, you can never have privacy.

And even for today’s digital generation, who clearly have not yet learned to cherish their privacy in the way that their parents and grandparents do, a reasonable sum of piracy will become more and more important as every generation ages. That is to say, lest there be doubt: we need less piracy, and we need more privacy.

Better security can be had, we just need to keep thinking about it, keep acting on it, keep funding it, and keep building it. That sum of evil in human kind is there to stay, the hackers are not going away, and the only way to truly thwart them is to put in place security protections, which include education, technology, and penalties/incentives.

Jimmy Schaeffler has harnessed his expertise and professional forces to fully light the burgeoning worlds of IoT & M2M. By focusing on the professional consideration of news, opinion, research, and concrete tactics and strategies, his aim is to provide a top-level, one-stop resource for publication, consulting, conference and speaking needs. The IoTComplete.com business is designed toward helping companies, governments and institutions grapple with the new realities and planning necessary to thrive in the IoT & M2M era faced by every person and entity globally. Visit www.IoTComplete.com for contact and more details.

Further Prepping DISH For Its Future

By IoTComplete’s Jimmy Schaeffler 

(August 7, 2014; Carmel-by-the-Sea, CA)

Missed Signals

As he typically does, DISH Network’s (NASDAQ: DISH) chairman, Charlie Ergen, occupied most of an 80-minute quarterly analyst call on Wednesday, August 6, handling the majority of 60-minutes’ worth of Wall Street financial analysts’ questions, and the bulk of the 20-minutes’ worth of reporter’s “media” questions.

After the call, the media wrote about some to-be-expected topics, such as why DISH didn’t buy DirecTV; what Ergen thinks about Over-The-Top (OTT), broadband, and mobile opportunities; and what happens with the forthcoming spectrum auctions.

Yet, more importantly than most media and analysts observed, Mr. Ergen stated numerous times on the call, that he wants DISH Network to be thought of as a company, and as an equity and/or debt investment, that investors make for the long haul. Especially in that light, most media somewhat dropped the ball on the August 6, 2014, 2d Q DISH analyst call. This is because not a single media writer wrote anything about the details of one of the two core things Charlie Ergen spoke about as having to do with the real long-term viability of DISH Network. And that is because not one media (that we searched for and observed) wrote about (or wrote any of the details about) Mr. Ergen’s comments concerning the Internet of Things (IoT), and its star child, Machine-To-Machine (M2M) businesses.

Clearly, for the long-term, Mr. Ergen and his team are already focusing on IoT/M2M, and how DISH will be ahead of that curve. That is yet another reason why savvy investors – those looking at years instead of days, weeks, or even months – might be wise to reconsider DISH as a long-term play of unique and significant value.

DISH and The IoT/M2M Phenomenon

 Charlie Ergen has always been a visionary. Regular meetings with him through the years have witnessed discussions ranging from future business plans before DISH Network even launched (way back in 1994), to more recent dialogue focused on DISH’s net neutrality, mobile, and broadband futures.

Thus, it is entirely in keeping with Charlie as a Media Soothsayer, that he would, in the middle of 2014, step several feet ahead of the competition (as he did long ago relative to DirecTV and their respective mobile spectrum plays), and already be looking deeply into the IoT.

The DISH-IoT Vision, Inside and Beyond Video

Specific IoT items and examples Mr. Ergen mentioned were first the idea that the computer power inside every consumer device, coupled with the instant and permanent connectivity that comes by way of the Internet, creates a world where that coupling becomes the rule, not the exception.

Within that realm, examples Mr. Ergen offered include a smart phone that is tracked wherever it is carried, and via location based services (LBS), the device then communicates with the smart phone user about products and services and ads for those, such that they can be purchased instantly and shipped, with a single push of button on that amazing smart phone.

That coupling makes the transaction so much more seamless, and a company that owns the pipe used for that ad and transaction, and that has figured out how to effectively maximize revenues — because that company has studied and understands the ecosystem — will have an advantage both in the marketplace and over its competitors. Facebook’s mobile ad revenue increasing in two years from nothing to 62% was cited by Mr. Ergen as an example of this phenomenon.

Opined Mr. Ergen, “…we think it will be important to pay for subscription TV, get pay-TV, get it wherever you are, get it on all your devices, and get ads that are streamed to you that are meaningful to you. Five years from now, you’re just not going to see an ad of an airplane flying with music saying – a branding ad that says ‘fly the friendly skies’– nobody’s going to say that. The ad’s going to say ‘book a ticket, push the button’… that’s going to be a better ad.

“You’re not going to have a Starbucks ad with somebody sitting behind — talking about ‘we brew coffee.’ It’s going to be, push the button to say what size cappuccino do you want? Advertising’s going to change.”

IoT + Video

Moving beyond an IoT focus on video, Mr. Ergen further predicted IoT for strong sums of incredibly valuable data. “The other thing about wireless networks is the number of devices, the number of things that will be connected to the network, that is going to grow by 10 times what it is today. Every car, every pet, every child, every refrigerator, every camera, every security system, every watch, every machine is going to be connected wirelessly to a network.

“Today, you’re seeing growth in wireless on tablets. That’s where most of the growth is coming from. But, in the future, it’s going to be all those other devices,” Ergen added.

Wrapping up the topic, Ergen noted, “…and most people look at the world as it is today, and they say ‘right;’ but I look at it as ‘everything’s going to be connected.’ In my lifetime, the only way you’re going to connect it all is through wireless spectrum. Someday, there will be other ways to do it; there will be photons, there will be some other way to do it. But, in my lifetime, it’s going to be wireless, and you’re going to want to be connected and you’re going to be happy to pay for it.” (See, this website, the article “IoT 101: The 4 Basics“).

It is also interesting to note that the Ergen response was the result of a question asked by the best (and one of the smartest) analyst on the call last week, Craig Moffett (www.moffettnathanson.com),  who also has been focused on the media/telecom space for decades now. Perhaps Craig was testing Mr. Ergen, to see if Charlie really was looking ahead and professing a true passion for, and understanding of, DISH’s longer-term future?

Incidentally, Mr. Ergen has indeed clearly taken these core, highly-recommended steps that literally every business must take, and that were discussed in this www.IoTComplete.com article from last week (See, “The Internet of Things Lights Your Business…Today,” http://www.IoTComplete.com).

Jimmy Schaeffler deploys his expertise and professionalism at IOTComplete.com to fully light the burgeoning worlds of IoT & M2M. By focusing on the professional consideration of news, opinion, research, and concrete tactics and strategies, the IoTComplete.com aim is to provide a top-level, one-stop resource for publication, consulting, conference and speaking needs. The IoTComplete.com business is designed toward helping companies, governments, and institutions grapple with the new realities, strategies, and planning necessary to thrive in the IoT & M2M era faced by every person and entity globally. Visit www.IoTComplete.com for more detail.

By IoTComplete’s Jimmy Schaeffler

(July 15, 2014; Carmel-by-the-Sea, CA)

No less impactful than Thomas Edison’s 1879 prediction that electricity would radically change every business, the pundits today who foresee every business — first in America, and then globally — being remarkably impacted by the Internet of Things (i.e., IoT, which includes subparts known as the Internet of Everything (IoE) and Machine-To-Machine (M2M)), are shining a lot of true light on a technology-centered plant that will grow, grow, grow.

Original All-IoT Projections

Indeed, IoTComplete has recently completed three-, five-, and ten-year projections of IoT device and machine growth, and no less than 22 bil. separate devices in the personal space and 31 bil. in the business machine space — taking the total projection to more than 50 bil. IoT-connected items — are realistic numbers for IoT growth globally by 2020, just 4 years hence.

In this vein, one small space alone highlights the IoT growth potential: between 15 mil. and 20 mil. automobiles are typically manufactured in the U.S. annually these years. Including a mere five sensors (there are actually dozens and dozens more) into every one of those vehicles quickly suggests a very achievable annual foundation of 100 mil. Multiply this tiny part of but a single industry silo, times the at least hundreds of thousands of similar examples, and the realistic light on IoT growth soon gets really visible and really bright.

On the revenue side, calculating pennies of value per device from the same equation above equates to many bils. of dollars, which arguably should be much more when studying the total impact. $15 bil., $25 bil….more, less?!?…it really doesn’t matter, the IoTComplete message is, it’s just a lot of value.

5 Key Reasons

Not unlike the true value of electrical power, the true value of IoT is hard to limit to a handful of reasons. That is because there are truly hundreds and more reasons why this new technology becomes the new way of doing business, in much less than a decade.

Yet, to really focus on the “major macro movers,” as we term them, IoTComplete has deeply investigated the fields of IoT, and found just a handful of hidden treasures. These five core considerations are…

• To understand IoT sooner rather than later means you understand your own business and its opportunities. Specifically, one of the great things you understand is how the scores and hundreds of IoT implementations will impact your own business. One example would be how the IoT will permit your business to get the most efficiency and lowest prices out of its electricity needs, by syncing via IoT capabilities with the local utility company. Another basic opportunity would include the ability to utilize an embedded chip within a package to notify your customer of the arrival date and point of a core part for its $10 bil. auto assembly plant.
• To understand the future of IoT is to understand a (if not THE) # 1 trend affecting your vendors, suppliers, and customers, indeed, affecting all of society and all of the global economy. This cannot be understated. That is because the efficiencies IoT offers, together with an enhanced ease of acceptance and deployment, are driving forces that make “when” the issue, far less than “if.”
• To understand what IoT means to your customers means you have seized an opportunity that might otherwise have been lost to your competitors. This is especially the case in what may well prove to be the most serious of the initial IoT applications, i.e., M2M realizations. And on a consumer level, a sample situation would involve typical plane delay text and/or email notifications that today arrive late, after you are already at the new gate and on the delayed aircraft, instead arriving in time to actually help you travel. Another would be a package delivery service that pings you and efficiently coordinates a delivery to sync when you are actually home to receive the package.
• Getting seriously into the IoT early suggests more quickly helping to resolve the huge issues that threaten to hamper the breadth and speed of both personal and professional IoT growth and appreciation. Put another way, with something this good, something this obvious, and something this inevitable, to wait is to waste, and it will require more energy and passion than you might expect (because its scope, breadth, and impact will be so substantial).
• Follow the key early industry pundits and opinion makers from the start. A handful of top-level companies, and a smaller number of top educational institutions, will have huge sway over key steps just a short time away.

Edison-Like Execution

One thing the Man from Menlo Park, NJ truly understood was how to take ideas from inside the brain to actually practical and massive implementation in that outside world. Companies, governmental entities, and educational institutions have real opportunities — today — to begin the investigation of those real business basics, i.e., the what, where, when, why, how and who of the IoT. From there, steps and strategies toward the development of the IoT arise, most organically.

Because the Iot has so many potential applications, most of which have not yet been revealed and certainly not yet implemented, the future role of the IoT inside and outside every conceivable object and operation, cannot help but remind one of the many successful lessons taught by Thomas A. Edison.

IoTComplete cordially and professionally invites you, our Viewer, our Reader, our Constituent to reach out to IoTComplete, in order to best implement the steps and considerations noted above.

Jimmy Schaeffler is the principal behind the burgeoning new IoT service-provider, IotComplete.com, a Northern California-based entity, focused on the development of and strategies involving future global personal and business technologies…for more information, visit www.IoTComplete.com for contact and more details.

By IoTComplete.com’s Jimmy Schaeffler 

(July 1, 2014; Carmel-by-the-Sea, CA)

Everything in life, from the most basic to most complicated, starts with just one of those two elements: The Basics.

The Internet of Things (IoT), as incredibly complex as it is and will become, is the same animal. It is made up of basics.

Having spent many a presentation in the last year or so, and having read thousands of articles, scores of books, and having spoken to thousands of people on the topic of IoT, I can comfortably say that I have found those IoT basics, and can confidently advance them here.

That said, I would welcome every reader’s comments as to what I got right and what I didn’t, per the blog posting section below (or other Contact page).

The Four IoT Basics

With an understanding of these 4 basic foundational blocks for what makes IoT, a reader/observer can instantly jump to new levels of understanding the Internet of Things, and even the personal and/or business implementation of IoT.

These 4 IoT Basics track the actual hardware and equipment infrastructure that represents IoT. Those are 1) the device itself, 2) the sensor or other monitor on or in the device, 3) the network of wires or cellular or satellite that today distributes or delivers that sensor’s information from the device to the fourth item, which is 4) the server or other computer that processes and applies the data collected from the device.

# 1 Dynamic Devices 

Just what qualifies as a “device” these days, to start the application of IoT?

Honestly, that is a limitless answer, because it is conceivable that the most fundamental of objects could one day be tied to the IoT. Thus, for example, the asphalt on a heavily driven freeway might one day be equipped with a sensor that reads and conveys for subsequent human and/or machine reaction the elements of wear and tear, moisture, temperature, etc. Or, just looking at what is out there in the IoT world today, there are hundreds of sensors in vehicles that measure use and other patterns, conveying that data into the parts of that IoT ecosystem outlined above, and detailed below. These are but tiny examples of how  how dynamic the range of devices is and will be. Indeed, human beings will qualify under the definition of “devices.”

# 2 Sensors and Other Things of Measurement

Attaching or embedding that sensor, which often essentially is a “mini mini-computer,” starts the action chain that frequently starts the Internet of Things.

The real work often turns on a determination of just what size and sophistication that mini computer will take.

# 3 Network

Wireless is going to be the best and most used network for the Internet of Things.

That is because, for now at least, a typical cellular Internet connection is more practical technically, and more affordable construction-wise, between more actual and potential devices and end-servers, than that of a fiber- or a satellite-based set-up.

What will be interested to see in the future, however, will be how that network distribution will change…and it will, immensely (but that is fodder for a future Article by IoTComplete.com). IoTComplete predicts huge shifts toward hybrid infrastructures, converging satellite, cellular, and fiber.

# 4 Server 

The final part of the IoT Basics is the server. This is usually going to be a much more complex computer that receives the data input from the sensor attached to the device and processes it.

In most instances, that processing will be automatic. That is, the program within the IoT server will handle the data input in such a way that less or no human intervention is needed in order to create a reaction to that data. Indeed, that is a great deal of the rationale behind the IoT, i.e., to make the quality of life and of business and personal interactions better, cheaper, safer, and/or more efficient.

Summary

IoTComplete works with its Users/Viewers/Constituents to create and develop not just basic understandings, such as this Article above, but importantly, to create and develop new businesses. Let IoTComplete present an IoT overview for a gathering of your company’s engineers; or invite IoTComplete to create a 2-day workshop on how your company might best implement the Internet of Things into your existing business. From ROI, to finding new investors, IoTComplete has the optimum skill set and bandwidth!

Jimmy Schaeffler is the principal behind the burgeoning new IoT service-provider, IotComplete.com, a Northern California-based entity, focused on the development of and strategies involving future global personal and business technologies…for more information, visit our site at www.IotComplete.com.      

IoTomplete.com cordially and professionally invites you, our Viewer, our Reader, our Constituent to reach out to IoTComplete.com, in order to best implement the steps and considerations described above.