Tony is a Geek

Okay, not that one.... How am I only finding out about this now? Yes, you can opt. for MicroPython, if that's your thing... and there are lots of "extra" IoT components that you can add too. I added the SDCard and ILI9341 components to the screen above - you can then link them up to the GPIO pins. You can then write the C code, as you would normally.... and then you can execute the code and DEBUG it normally. This is quite an interesting concept - I am not sure exactly how many times you can re-flash the actual PICO, but it will have a shelf life... and I reckon over the past 2 weeks, I've probably flashed mine about 500 times!  Obviously, this won't replace the need for actual device testing - but, it will help reduce the code / test / debug / get it right cycle and then once happy then extract out. Yes, it also won't cater for custom hardware either - but I do believe it does allow you to upload your existing code / libraries and will include them - I need t...

A great article on what I see as the "Next step....." https://sdtimes.com/ibm-expands-ai-research-support-aging-population/ “For the first time ever, there are more people over 65 than under 5,” Keohane said. “There is essentially a shortage of care providers. If you look at this demographic shift across the globe, this is why a company like IBM is interested in looking at aging. What does the aging demographic shift mean for our clients? We’re in every industry and every one will be impacted.” By combining IBM’s IoT and health care research with their Watson machine learning, Keohane says that the effect this shift will have can be broken down in such a way that it will benefit everyone from the elderly in need of improved care to businesses, now more aware of their customer base. “Aging isn’t a disease,” Keohane said. “We’re all doing it. But it does have impact on health. So could we surround ourselves with emerging technology in the home, while ...

Millimeter-Scale Computing.  Real-life smart dust. The Cubisens TM   platform by CubeWorks enables the first truly autonomous wireless sensing platform measuring less than a millimeter. Cubisens systems are able to sense and process their environment, wirelessly transmit the results or store them for later usage. The versaltility of the Cubisens platform allows multiple units to be combined together to tackle larger monitoring and sensing applications CHECK THEM OUT HERE There is a great article (that led me to the above site), that you can read HERE.   Here's the snippet that caught my attention: ' The idea is to bring neural networks to the Internet of Things. “A lot of motion detection cameras take pictures of branches moving in the wind—that’s not very helpful,” says Blaauw. Security cameras and other connected devices are not smart enough to tell the difference between a burglar and a tree, so they waste energy sending uninteresting footage to the clo...

Well, seeing as I spent quite a bit of time there last year , seems right to post the official news: CHECK OUT THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE "Some clients will be a permanent fixture at IBM offices in Munich. BMW employees will work at the new center to place Watson voice control into cars and explore ways to create personalized experiences." CHECK OUT THE IBM OFFICIAL SITE HERE

I don't know what you were doing a couple of months ago?.... but I know what I was doing with one of those BMW i8s :-) This was my "office desk" There are times I love my job..... "The Internet of Things is transforming our relationship with the physical world. In Munich Germany, IBM is creating a new global center for collaborative innovation side-by-side with clients and partners. IBM will invest $200 million US to make Watson IoT HQ one of the most advanced facilities in the world. BMW is one of the first collocated partners and together, we will start a new pilot program to explore the role of IBM Watson in the BMW i8 hybrid car. BMW engineers & IBM experts will work together in "collaboratories" to explore Watson technologies for personalization of the driving experience. With conversational interfaces & machine learning, cars will get to know their drivers better."

Interesting, Google have announced their new Android of Things : CLICK HERE to access the PREVIEW certainly something to keep an eye on. https://developer.android.com/things/index.html If you have a Raspberry Pi 3, you can download an image and get going pretty quick.  I'll give it a look over the next few weeks.

Zigbee...Zigbee....Zigbee..... yep, I have quite a few of these in my "Arduino" stash drawer. Have you used the Zigbee in any of your IoT projects?  If so.....you might want to read on.... " Within the next few years, billions of IoT devices will densely populate our cities. In this paper we describe a new type of threat in which adjacent IoT devices will infect each other with a worm that will spread explosively over large areas in a kind of nuclear chain reaction, provided that the density of compatible IoT devices exceeds a certain critical mass. In particular, we developed and verified such an infection using the popular Philips Hue smart lamps as a platform. The worm spreads by jumping directly from one lamp to its neighbours, using only their built-in ZigBee wireless connectivity and their physical proximity. The attack can start by plugging in a single infected bulb anywhere in the city, and then catastrophically spread everywhere within minutes, enablin...

If you are not up to much on Saturday/Sunday October 29/30th, get online and join in: " IoT With The Best second edition is a two-day online conference tailored for developers wanting to explore IoT deeper and enjoy an interactive empowering experience while connecting with peers from all over the world.  Join from wherever you may be, the world's top IoT experts to get inspired and learn from their tech talks and masterclasses.  Explore the hardware, software, data and services behind IoT. With The Best is the biggest Online Conference Series for developers. Join 100 IoT experts (CEOs, CTOs, Architects, Researchers and Devs) for exclusive tech talks, live coding and demos on sensors, smart grids, smart homes, smart cities, intelligent transportation, connected devices and wearables. Go further and benefit from 1-to-1 mentoring sessions with the speakers. " CLICK HERE

Some of you might know that I've been building a custom car ( for what feels like an eternity ) and I have kept it really basic with no modern technology at all.  ( Hey, I've seen some of the code you guys (and myself) write, I'm not trusting that in my £100k car! ). Here's a photo of earlier in the year, minus lots of things, working brakes being one of them, hence the custom low-loader delivery truck: Check out the ongoing journey at the website CLICK HERE So whilst I keep Lil'Merc nice and dumb, I do have an MG F, a Subaru Sambar and a shiny new Mercedes c200 company car, that has LOTS of new technology. I went through a cycle of getting various OBDII bluetooth devices for the MG F, only to find that is was built 6 months before that technology was adopted and has a MEMS unit in it, which is not compatible. Sigh.  I even did some diagnostic work with this guys Android app to try and get it to work, with no luck.  So I did what I do best.  I ...

I was invited to do some work at the new IoT Watson offices in Munich : Highlight Towers After work, I was invited for a meal...I was told there was an interesting guy who was going to join the team.  Anyway, due to some error with the restaurant booking, I had the pleasure of being on a 4-person table with John Cohn for the entire evening. I'm not sure who was the geekier / nerdier.  As you can imagine, Arduino's, MQTT, Pi's, Robotics, all-the-IBM stuff and a ton of other stuff was talked about and laughed about.  It was a great evening and helped me to realise, I should stay as I am and not "become what management structures" think I should be. Continue to have fun and actually do that rare thing: ENJOY what you do.  If you do not, stop doing it, do something else.  I know I have fun & actually enjoy what I do. Look forward to some "fun" postings over the next year - rather than "an IBM sales blog" (as a good Friend recently...

Using "Watson Conversation Speech to Text" to control a simple physical IoT device It has been a couple of months since I did anything "exciting", I just noticed this great developerWorks recipe and thought, "Hey, I've got to share that, it's pretty awesome!". So, CLICK HERE TO SEE THE ARTICLE It also contains the code to get you up & running, see section (6) at the bottom of the page.

http://enough.de/en/app-coaching/devguide/ http://enough.de/en/app-coaching/devguide/ "Our free Handbook for App Developers, Designers and Managers We are offering this free, non-commercial book since 2009. The latest 16th edition has been published in late February 2016. It provides an overview on the different mobile technologies and platforms for developers and decision-makers on more than 270 pages. Learn how to enter the app business and how to do your first steps as a developer for iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Firefox OS, Java ME or Windows smartphones and tablets. More than 20 writers from the mobile community share their know-how in dealing with topics such as accessibility in mobile apps, UX design, mobile analytics, prototyping, cross-platform development, native development, mobile web and app marketing. As of today, we have distributed over 80,000 hardcopies. Free pdf and e-book downloads are also available in several languages. " ...

It's all about the IoT..... Apparently, Gartner predicted in November 2015 , that during 2016, 6.4 billion device will be connected to the Internet and will be classified as "The Internet of Things".  By 2020, that figure will rise to 20.8 billion.  Staggering. Just connecting devices to the Internet is one thing, but it will mean that the devices will be pushing a tremendous amount of data around.  I'm pretty sure that being able to make sense of that data, to gain insights from the data is also going to bring great rewards to the companies that get smart to this. Now, as you may or may not know, I've been making "stuff" that we used to call "Client-Server" apps (back in the day), which is great for small proof of concept stuff, ie. getting my robot to send data to a server humming away in the corner of the room, triggering events and sending a signal to activate a solenoid that opens a door before the robot hits the door.  This i...

So, you're a fan of using NodeRed, it's great for doing all sorted of IoT work. It's great.  But......well, it's running on your laptop and that kind of limits the usefulness beyond playing with things locally. Until now!  Now, you can deploy NodeRed to Bluemix .  Yep, that means you can run NodeRed in the Cloud.  Your IoT devices can communicate to the internet and interact with NodeRed.  Now, that makes it a lot more useful! CHECK OUT MORE HERE