This installation makes it rain data from the cloud

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Where is the cloud? What does it look like? And, what exactly is the big data that we store there?

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Let’s face it, not a day goes by that you don’t hear words like “big data” and “the cloud.” These ambient terms have been immersed in our modern-day vocabulary, but in many ways these buzzphrases still remain distant and abstract. Jingwen Zhu, a Master’s student at NYU ITP, started asking herself those questions upon hearing various lecturers discussing how big data is affecting our lives. In an exploration as what big data in the cloud would actually look like if it were tangible, the Maker crafted her vision as an interactive data exhibition. The aptly dubbed Big Data Cloud obtains data from users, and gives the information data back to them.

“In this installation, people are not only encouraged to interact with the cloud, but also interact with the data,” Zhu explains. “In our daily life, we are interact with big data every day. We provide our data to the cloud, and get data back from it. Yet this repeated occurance falls to the background because we use big data so often that it goes unnoticed. By creating the Big Data Cloud, I provide people with a visible and tangible experience of interacting with big data, and let them to rethink about how big data affects our lives.”

How it works is simple: When a user comes under the cloud, a mobile device drops down from the cloud with a question displayed on the screen. Once the user types the answer to the question, the phone “uploads” the information back into the cloud. After some thunder and lightening, the cloud begins to “rain” just as it would in a summer night’s storm. However, the big data rain is in the form of a printed roll of paper with the users’ answers to the question instead. What’s more, the most frequently repeated words are also projected as “puddles” on the ground. Users can play either with the projected raindrops, or read all the answers on the receipt.

In order to make this concept to a reality, the Maker designed a 3D polygonal cloud comprised of folded paper to enclose her device and suspended it from the ceiling. Embedded within the paper cloud are a stepper motor connected to an ATmega328 board, a projector and a thermal printer.

The stepper motor coils the phone up and down from the cloud, while the mobile device itself is attached to a piece of fishing wire — this enables the phone to be drawn back up into the cloud. A Processing sketch using a Temboo Google Spreadsheets Choreo acquires the data that the user entered, which allows the newly-acquired data to be both projected onto the ground as at the user’s feet and printed from the thermal printer. Using  the program, Zhu was able to write the visual effect of the cloud and count the word frequency, before arranging and displaying the terms in different sizes. Meanwhile, an ultrasonic sensor within the printer can detect when someone puts their hand above it, thereby causing the machine to print the content, which of course, is decided by the distance.

When all is said and done, this impressive project is a great physical representation of how we send and retrieve data from “the cloud.” Interested in learning more? You can learn all about the project as well as access a step-by-step breakdown of the build here.

16 tech trends Andreessen Horowitz is most excited about

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This list lets you inside the mind of Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. 

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One of, if not the, most prominent VC groups in Silicon Valley has revealed the hottest tech trends changing the world right now. For those wondering, that firm is Andreessen Horowitz and we’re referring to no other than its “16 Things” list. The breakdown, which highlights the most investable spaces at the moment, unsurprisingly includes Internet of Things, digital health, crowdfunding, and security — a couple of areas in which we know a little something about.

“We don’t invest in themes; we invest in special founders with breakthrough ideas,” Andreessen Horowitz writes. “Which means we don’t make investments based on a pre-existing thesis about a category. That said, here are a few of the things we’ve been observing or thinking about.”

While the list — which includes several themes that were evident throughout the CES 2015 show floor — will likely change over time, it does provide a nice glimpse into the firm’s thinking at the start of this year. Just in case you don’t feel like clicking through and navigating a16z in its entirety, here’s a brief overview of those breakthrough areas.

Virtual Reality

“VR will be the ultimate input-output device. Some people call VR “the last medium” because any subsequent medium can be invented inside of VR, using software alone. Looking back, the movie and TV screens we use today will be seen as an intermediate step between the invention of electricity and the invention of VR. Kids will think it’s funny that their ancestors used to stare at glowing rectangles hoping to suspend disbelief.”

Sensorification of the Enterprise

“For enterprise, the value of the sensors is in being a shortcut for the user interface, potentially even replacing typing so we can concentrate on the easy, fun, creative things.”

Machine Learning and Big Data

“The key here is in more automated apps where big data drives what the application does, and with no user intervention.”

Full Stack Startups

“The old approach startups took was to sell or license their new technology to incumbents. The new, ‘full stack’ approach is to build a complete, end-to-end product or service that bypasses incumbents and other competitors.”

Containers

“The next step in containerization is treating the datacenter, with all its containers, like one giant computer or server. Many applications today are really just distributed systems: Applications aren’t necessarily confined to just one container.”

Digital Health

“Tomorrow? To understand your personal diagnostic data, you might soon depend more upon an iPhone app developed in a garage than on your local MD.”

Online Marketplaces

“We’re continuing to see tremendous innovation in marketplaces. The first generation of net companies saw a few big horizontal marketplace winners like eBay and Craigslist. But entrepreneurs are continuing to create the next generation of online marketplaces.”

Security

“There are two things now driving the security industry: (1) The bad guys are already inside. (2) New platforms — cloud and mobile — have arrived… Both are forcing a different set of technologies, and the creation of new kinds of companies.”

Bitcoin (and Blockchain)

“The clock has just begun on Bitcoin’s acceptance more broadly. Crash or no crash, we should expect a significant increase in the level of institutional adoption this year. Specifically, a large number of companies will put together groups focused on what Bitcoin means to them.”

Cloud-Client Computing

“Endpoints aren’t just phones; they could be wearables and other small devices and screens connected to the internet. Beyond the devices themselves, it all adds up to a massive amount of compute power. The next decade of computing will be about doing something with it.”

Crowdfunding

“Crowdfunding is going somewhere it never has — into the mainstream. That, in turn, will change all sorts of other things.”

Internet of Things

“Something often overlooked when we talk about all the shiny new connected gadgets emerging out of the Internet of Things is what happens to all the old things. I’m fascinated by the power of adding multiple sensors to old things and then connecting them to the Internet…. With the IoT we’re headed to a world where things aren’t liable to break catastrophically — or at least, we’ll have a hell of a heads up.”

Online Video

“What we do know is that online video is far from done… so it will be interesting to see what even a little competition will do here.”

Insurance

“Insurance is all about distributing risk. With dramatic advances in software and data, shouldn’t the way we buy and experience our insurance products change dramatically? Software will rewrite the entire way we buy and experience our insurance products — medical, home, auto, and life.”

DevOps

“The rise of the hyperscale cloud datacenter has now made this job much harder as developers have had to hack together tools and complex scripts for pushing code to thousands of pancake servers. This complex cloud infrastructure — coupled with the growth of the DevOps movement today — has opened up many opportunities, starting with helping developers and companies to manage the entire process … to much more.”

‘Failure‘

“The goal is not to fail fast. The goal is to succeed over the long run. They are not the same thing.”

What is Ambient Security?

New technology and business buzzwords pop up constantly. Hardly a day goes by that you don’t see or hear words such as “cloud”, “IoT,” or “big data.” Let’s add one more to the list: “Ambient security.”

You’ll notice that big data, the cloud, and the IoT are all connected, literally and figuratively, and that is the point. Billions of things will communicate with each other without human intervention, mainly through the cloud, and will be used to collect phenomenal and unprecedented amounts of data that will ultimately change the universe.

As everything gets connected, each and every thing will also need to be secure. Without security, there is no way to trust that the things are who they say they are (i.e. authentic), and that the data has not been altered (i.e. data integrity). Due to the drive for bigger data, the cloud and smart communicating things are becoming ambient; and, because those things all require security, security itself is becoming ambient as well.  Fortunately, there is a method to easily spread strong security to all the nodes. (Hint: Atmel CryptoAuthentication.)

Big Data

At the moment, big data can be described as the use of inductive statistics and nonlinear system analysis on large amounts of low density (or quickly changing) data to determine correlations, regressions, and causal effects that were not previously possible. Increases in network size, bandwidth, and computing power are among the things enabling this data to get bigger — and this is happening at an exponential rate.

Big data became possible when the PC browser-based Internet first appeared, which paved the way for data being transferred around the globe. The sharp rise in data traffic was driven to a large extent by social media and companies’ desire to track purchasing and browsing habits to find ways to micro-target purchasers. This is the digitally-profiled world that Google, Amazon, Facebook, and other super-disruptors foisted upon us.  Like it or not, we are all being profiled, all the time, and are each complicit in that process. The march to bigger data continues despite the loss of privacy and is, in fact, driving a downfall in privacy. (Yet that’s a topic for another article.)

Biggering

The smart mobile revolution created the next stage of “biggering” (in the parlance of Dr. Seuss). Cell phones metamorphosed from a hybrid of old-fashioned wired telephones and walkie-talkies into full blown hand-held computers, thus releasing herds of new data into the wild. Big data hunters can thank Apple and the Android army for fueling that, with help from the artists formerly known as Nokia, Blackberry, and Motorola. Mobile data has been exploding due to its incredible convenience, utility, and of course, enjoyment factors. Now, the drive for bigger data is continuing beyond humans and into the autonomous realm with the advent of the Internet of Things (IoT).

Bigger Data, Little Things

IoT is clearly looking like the next big thing, which means the next big thing will be literally little things. Those things will be billions of communicating sensors spread across the world like smart dust — dust that talks to the “cloud.”

More Data

The availability of endless data and the capability to effectively process it is creating a snowball effect where big data companies want to collect more data about more things, ad infinitum. You can almost hear chanting in the background: “More data… more data… more data…”

More data means many more potential correlations, and thus more insight to help make profits and propel the missions of non-profit organizations, governments, and other institutions. Big data creates its own appetite, and the data to satisfy that growing appetite will derive from literally everywhere via sensors tied to the Internet. This has already started.

Sensors manufacture data. That is their sole purpose. But, they need a life support system including smarts (i.e. controllers) and communications (such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and others). There is one more critical part of that: Security.

No Trust? No IoT! 

There’s no way to create a useful communicating sensor network without node security. To put it a different way, the value of the IoT depends directly on whether those nodes can be trusted. No trust. No IoT.  Without security, the Internet of Things is just a toy.

What exactly is security? It can best be defined by using the three-pillar model, which (ironically) can be referred to as “C.I.A:” Confidentiality, Integrity and Authenticity.

CIA

Confidentiality is ensuring that no one can read the message except its intended receiver. This is typically accomplished through encryption and decryption, which hides the message from all parties but the sender and receiver.

Integrity, which is also known as data integrity, is assuring that the received message was not altered. This is done using cryptographic functions. For symmetric, this is typically done by hashing the data with a secret key and sending the resulting MAC with the data to the other side which does the same functions to create the MAC and compare. Sign-verify is the way that asymmetric mechanisms ensure integrity.

Authenticity refers to verification that the sender of a message is who they say they are — in other words, ensuring that the sender is real. Symmetric authentication mechanisms are usually done with a challenge (often a random number) that are sent to the other side, which is hashed with a secret key to create a MAC response, before getting sent back to run the same calculations. These are then compared to the response MACs from both sides.

(Sometimes people add non-repudiation to the list of pillars, which is preventing the sender from later denying that they sent the message in the first place.)

The pillars of security can be  implemented with devices such as Atmel CryptoAuthentication crypto engines with secure key storage. These tiny devices are designed to make it easy to add robust security to lots of little things – -and big things, too.

So, don’t ever lose sight of the fact that big data, little things and cloud-based IoT are not even possible without ambient security. Creating ambient security is what CryptoAuthentication is all about.

15 emerging technologies CIOs must watch through 2020

Aside from keeping the lights on and ensuring that all of the enterprise’s IT ducks are in a row, CIOs continually need to stay abreast of emerging technologies. According to a recent study from Forrester, CIOs that want to maintain their relevancy within an organization not only need to keep each these next-gen innovations on their immediate radar, but determine how to best apply that set of tech to stay competitive amidst the changes.

Forrester recommends CIOs adopt a customer-centric approach when making these decisions, in what the research firm dubs the “Age of the Customer.” What this means is that the CIO isn’t only required to become fully cognizant of the latest in mobile, social, big data and the cloud, but how and where the Internet of Things, wearable and other digital solutions fit into the bigger picture.

To assist these executives with the exponentially growing list of technologies and their potential applications in the business setting, Forrester has broken them down into to four main innovation groups. As the analysts note, here are the key 15 trends enterprise architects must watch over the five years.

Emerging business solutions enable new ways of doing business

1. Customer analytics solutions help firms deeply understand what their customers need and when they need it; emerging technology packages help firms develop a complete contextual view, without lots of custom plumbing.

2. Digital experience solutions offer a cockpit for managing the customer life cycle; these provide an integrated environment for firms to manage customers, content, segments, and offerings.

3. Customer-driven design solutions enable collaborative experience design with customers; experience designers will get a rich environment to learn, test, and iterate with more customer input.

4. Internet of Things solutions offer packaged business process and integration; combining sensors, networks, platforms, and integration will accelerate IoT value and speed implementation for specific business scenarios

Emerging interaction technologies create news ways to engage customers

5. Next-generation connectivity enables a wide range of new digital endpoints; very low-power wireless technology will expand the types of devices that can connect, while cutting costs dramatically.

6. Wearable technology creates many new information sources and displays; new gadgets are adding rich info collection or display on, in, and around the body, expanding digital reach.

7. Natural user interfaces offer new methods for interacting with computing experiences; beyond point, type, and touch, people will be able to talk, wink, wave, and be tapped.

Emerging aggregation and delivery technologies drive contextual engagement

8. Real-time sourcing and delivery technology brings insight to the point of decision; marketing and operations will have deeper contextual insight from fresh data for engagement.

9. Advanced analytics technology allows firms to cull deeper insight from more data; analysts and data science teams will get better and faster at teasing understanding from piles of diverse data.

10. Digital identity management technology helps firms and individuals control access across channels; employees and customers will more easily gain access to services they need or want, in line with the dynamic privacy and security concerns of our digital world.

11. Software acceleration platforms and tools help firms continuously deliver; firms will experiment with application development and delivery to maximize engagement and value.

Emerging infrastructure technology creates a powerful and agile foundation

12. Advanced silicon devices offer new levels of computing, energy efficiency, and sensors types; reductions in silicon device size will enable improvements through 2020, when limits appear.

13. Software-defined infrastructure will enable flexible, easy data center adjustments; abstracted hardware controlled by powerful software will create flexible, agile infrastructure.

14. Cloud integration tools will integrate apps and management across cloud and on-premises; hybrid architectures will become easier to design and operate as tools take shape.

15. Big data management technology provides a flexible, affordable foundation for insight; technology managers will embrace this software as the only affordable way to meet business demands for more insight from more data.

To read more, access the entire Forrester blog post and report here.

Sullivan says the IoT is becoming a reality

Patrick Sullivan, VP of Marketing at Atmel’s MCU Business Unit, hosted an Internet of Things (IoT) Engineering Summit co-sponsored by Xively at EE Live! 2014.

Essentially, the Internet of Things (IoT) refers to a future world where all types of electronic devices link to each other via the Internet. In 2009, there were 2.5 billion connected devices; most of these were mobile phones, PCs and tablets. By 2020, there will be over 30 billion connected devices of far greater variety.

“IoT is definitely a mega-trend in our industry. Everyone is talking about the IoT, it is everywhere,” said Sullivan. “That is why numerous companies are working to set up specific business units to manage various aspects of the Internet of Things.”

However, Sullivan noted that while the IoT is well on its way to becoming a reality, only a minority of devices are currently connected to the Internet.

“The IoT is still in a relatively nascent stage. Nevertheless, the Internet of Things will quickly evolve as it becomes a particularly explosive market. Security and privacy are going to be especially critical for the IoT, specifically when it comes to wearables,” Sullivan explained.

Atmel-powered Agent Smartwatch

“Similarly, managing IoT-related Big Data will be another challenge for the industry. How does one efficiently store, process, track and analyze terabytes of real-time streaming data – all while tailoring the information for a specific individual? Companies that figure out that formula, namely making IoT data useful and easily accessible for the non-technical masses, will be successful.”

In addition to monitoring exercise stats, wearables like smartwatches or pendants can be used to improve the health of individuals, no matter what their age or level of physical fitness.

“Health insurance companies can leverage wearables such as fitness trackers to monitor individual heath in real-time, with healthy lifestyles helping to drive down premiums. Obviously, such devices must be easy to use and comfortable to wear,” he noted.

Atmel-powered Amulyte pendant

“Health-based wearables can also help doctors more easily monitor and analyze a patient’s blood sugar, heart rates, sleep patterns, exercise and daily activities.”

Smart energy platforms is another topic Sullivan discussed, as designing an efficient, connected grid will go a long way in helping to reduce waste in residential and commercial buildings.

“Pumps, gas-lines and related infrastructure will ultimately be connected to the IoT, helping utility companies to pinpoint issues before they become a real problem for people,” Sullivan added.

Image Credit: Daimler

“We’ll be seeing the very same approach when it comes to next-gen vehicles, as both cars and trucks roll out of the factories loaded with advanced sensors to help alleviate traffic and significantly reduce accidents, whether on a crowded city street or fast highway. For example, your car will tell you, perhaps via a HUD (heads-up display) when a specific route is jammed and automatically choose another route. Your car will also talk to other vehicles, helping to avoid collisions.”

Last, but certainly not least, Sullivan talked about the automated IoT home, which, in the not too distant future will be protected by smart locks, cleaned by intelligent vacuum cleaners and filled with connected appliances such as intelligent lighting and thermostats, washing machines, refrigerators, coffee makers and ovens.

“The IoT will play a big part in connected homes, providing instant market intelligence to companies and remotely alerting users when their refrigerators are empty, clothes are clean, coffee is hot, food is ready, house is too cold and room is too dim,” he concluded.

Interested in learning more about the IoT? You can check out Atmel’s recent IoT SoMa panel on the subject here and our extensive Bits & Pieces IoT article archive here.

Analysts see 152 million connected cars by 2020

A recent study conducted by IHS Automotive has confirmed that there will be 152 million actively connected cars on global roads by 2020 – representing a mere fraction of the estimated 18 billion Internet of Things (IoT) devices on the planet.

The car-to-x system warns of road works, congestion, obstacles and dangerous weather (courtesy Daimler).

In addition, the study estimates $14.5 billion of value (generated) from the OEM connected car landscape across a variety of Big Data assets found in the connected car. These include diagnostics, location, user experience (UX) /feature tracking and adaptive driver assistance systems (ADAS)/autonomy. Significantly, the technology growth is expected to drive sales, value-added services and customer experience in the already lucrative sector for years to come.

“Traditionally Big Data has focused on the ‘4 V’s’ – volume, velocity, variety and veracity,” Mark Boyadjis, senior analyst of infotainment and Human-Machine Interface (HMI) at IHS Automotive, explained. “But without understanding the fifth ’V,’ value and the value proposition, the collection of data from the connected car is literally a waste of time. It is important to understand how data from intelligently designed systems will drive billions of dollars of annual revenue between data assets, analytics and end-user services.”

According to Boyadjis, IHS Automotive estimates (conservatively) that more than 480 terabytes of data will be collected from the OEM connected car landscape in 2013 via millions of small data transmissions sent via more than 26 million connected cars. Meanwhile, a combination of increased connected car sales and a growing scale of information coming from connected cars will result in the collection of some 11.1 petabytes of connected car data by 2020.

In addition, the rate at which the data is flowing from the connected car landscape continues to dramatically increase, with approximately 30 terabytes of data projected to be collected each day from the 152 million connected cars on the road in 2020, or about 350 megabytes per second, compared to about 15 megabytes per second in 2013.

In the Daimler Car-to-X system, obstacles are shown on the vehicle’s display (courtesy Daimler).

Currently, the majority of connected car data is used internally for diagnostics, location, speed and vehicle status. However, by 2020, industry analysts expect four core categories of data to be most the critical: diagnostics, location, user experience/features and adaptive driver assistance systems/autonomy data. Because they will require so much more volume and variety, ADAS/Autonomy is expected to be the largest and most expensive data category in the future.

“The most important challenge this industry has in front of it is organizing systems and defining roles in Big Data from the connected car. Who owns the data, the pipe, and the analytics is still yet to be determined, [yet] will have to be before connected car data can be put to work efficiently,” Boyadjis added.

As we’ve previously discussed on Bits & Pieces, there are quite a number of IoT opportunities on the automotive horizon for MCU makers like Atmel.

“The Internet of Things is going to be a huge boon for companies like us that make both microcontrollers and radio chips,” Atmel’s Paul Rako explained in a Bits & Pieces blog post back in October. “[Recently], I read that you can consider an automobile just another ‘thing’ in the IoT, [with the] American National Traffic Safety Board (NTSB) encouraging manufacturers to design cars that communicate with each other to make them safer. When the auto industry is ready, Atmel will be there to enable the technology.”