Intel: Grab these platform shoes and dance to OUR Internet of Things standard The Internet of Things is becoming the Standards Wars of Things: Intel has now thrown its hat into the ring with its own IoT Platform to connect stuff end-to-end. Announced in the past few minutes at a morning presentation in San Francisco, the platform will describe how to hook up gizmos on the edge – the sensors, the …
Accenture, NSA pals Booz Allen Hamilton, Capgemini, Dell, HCL, NTT Data, SAP, Tata Consultancy and Wipro
Some (if not most) of these are to be (IMHO) avoided at all costs.(esp Tata & Wipro who seem to employ lots of IT Staff who are little more than indentured {redacted} IMHO)
If choosing Team ARM means avoiding this lot, then where do I sign?
Not to mention that the protocols mentioned are verbose and text-processing intensive. Not what one wants in a sensor that should run on battery or harvested energy.
An earlier el Reg article (which I'm too lazy to look up) made a compelling argument for a 3-layer IoT.
1. Sensors and controllers continue to be low-power, using high-volume microcontrollers, bare-metal programming, and lightweight proprietary protocols.
2. A gateway product (embedded SoC with RTOS) provides the integration point at which sensor/controller functionality is exposed using standard protocols. This sits within the customer's network and supports direct access from customer devices (computing and mobile).
3. The "big cloud" is mostly useful for analytics or as a higher-level integration point. For example to forward traffic between the on-site sensor gateway and mobile devices when the user is off-site.
The key point made in that article is that bandwidth is more expensive than processing power; thus uploading untold millions of sensor readings to a data centre for hypothetical future data-crunching is neither cost-effective nor energy-efficient.
The thing x86/Intel has is a standardized hardware platform. You can already use the same Linux kernel on all x86 devices. The buses are auto discoverable, so you don't need device tree. At the moment loads of the internet of things are made as throw away black boxes, so it doesn't matter that it runs a unique kernel on unique hardware. Only that is really stupid. These things are computers, on our home networks. I don't want computers running out of date software on my network. Much less ones with manufacturer's firmware which has the manufacturer's best interest at heart, not mine. There is already cases of that being abused and we only just started this. No, as these are computers they should be updateable, with options for alternative firmware (like OpenWRT which is the best router firmware I've ever seen). For this to really take off, you need standardized hardware and auto-discoverable devices/buses. But ARM isn't there yet, and lots in that world still don't get why they should be because they are still thinking throw away black boxes and not about updates and a long life.
I grew up on Acorn, so I want to support ARM. But I just can't right now. Intel's x86 platform is just better. Standardized, open drivers, better value for money. ARM is just cheap enough to be throw away, but you don't want throw away devices on your home network.
No, as these are computers they should be updateable [...]
Updateable? You mean like my few years old laptop that started flat out refusing to show anything using WebGL both in Firefox or Chrome (both used to work fine) because they both insist on using newer display drivers now that just aren't available for my "obsoleted" built-in video card...? Being able to resist the hamster-wheel of continuous SW/HW upgrades is nothing but a nice myth for anything you want to keep running that isn't stashed away in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door. I should know - I'd prefer to never update anything unless I have to, and I constantly find I DO have to (including upgrading the HW more often than not).
You should rarely need to upgrade the hardware to update the software. Right now, you have to because each smart device is a throw away device.
What I want is standardized hardware, with open drivers that the vendor supports for an reasonable amount of time. The community can pick it up after that if it's open and there is enough community. Intel is a boat load closer to this world then ARM.
We also need software components to be made with updating in mind.
I'm afraid that is what we need if we are going to have a home full of devices on the internet.
To be honest, I think a lot of things shouldn't be smart, and what is made so, the smart should be separate so can be upgraded without the whole thing needing upgrading.
Sadly, with human nature and our society as it is, we will be exploring all the ways it can go wrong before we even start to take a longer view then throw away devices. As it is, I'm expecting home appliance malware, whole home network infections, buying new cars because of software issues. As well as services smart things use breaking because the vendor wants to change the protocol (looks at BBC).
I can't see how this would work reliably if it relies on the cloud. Thinking of a home or small office. The sort of things they are talking about being part of the IoT need to have guaranteed access to their controlling server. All control stopping if your internet connection goes down would make it a non starter in almost every circumstance I can think of. Yes external access is needed for some aspects but it shouldn't be relied on for basic control.
Why on earth would you open your home/car/business/physical premesis to the internet. For fucks sake, we have been "doing" computers for over sixty years now and we still can't get bloody security right.
Microsoft want us to use their IOT crapware, Jeez, give it a rest. The company that brought you networking without passwords want you to use their shit. Ha ha ha ha. And I am a staunch MS defender.
"Hi Dear, I'm home after a busy day at the office. I would like a nice cold glass of something from the Fridge".
"Sorry my love, I've got a chicken in there cooking for dinner."
"?"
"Some prick hacked the fridge and turned it into a microwave."
"!"
"They also did something strange to the internal door locks. I received an email with a demand for $300.00 so that we can get the decrypt code to unscramble the locks so that we can get the kids out of their rooms".
"What happens if we don't pay?"
"There is an automatic timer which will set the ensuite toilet to overflow and fill their rooms until they drown. And, clever bastards, as the kids are treading water trying to get a last breath of air, the light fittings will explode and shred their eyes."
"What about Skynet? What has it done today? Seen any Terminators?"
"Who gives a fuck? True evil is just mundane. Give me the money."
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