In years past, building a smart home has been expensive and complex, to say the least. Now however, with the rapid increase of technologies that allow devices to communicate and interact with others well, in the form of the silly/well known by you, acronym, IoT (Internet of Things), this cost has been drastically reduced and […]
By Viktor Petersson Screenly Over the last few years, we have seen many cases of digital signage players being hacked for fun, profit and even propaganda. Hardcore porn shown on hacked billboard in Malmö Cyberattack claims multiple airports in Vietnam Hacked digital signage displays porn in Union Station Hijacking the Outdoor Digital Billboard – By […]
At my institution, we began putting our AV systems on the network over a dozen years ago. The advantages were simply amazing. In fact, we take so many of these for granted today, we forget some of them. For example, when was the last time you thought about how amazing it is that you can […]
Crestron today accepted the 2018 Microsoft Global Partner of the Year Award for Internet of Things (IoT) in a ceremony at the Microsoft Inspire event in Las Vegas. Microsoft recognized Crestron for providing solutions in IoT in the form of Crestron XiO Cloud built on the Microsoft Azure platform. Crestron XiO Cloud is designed for […]
“The Internet of things is a network of physical devices, vehicles, home appliances and other items embedded with electronics, software, sensors, actuators and network connectivity which enables these objects to connect and exchange data.” Each “thing” is uniquely identifiable through its embedded computing system but is able to inter-operate within the existing internet infrastructure. If this […]
A few weeks ago it came out that in November of 2017, fitness tracking company Strava released a heat map of where its users have logged activity around the world. The map is a pretty nifty picture of where people like to exercise, but it included some data that the U.S. Military would probably rather […]
Monday morning, I woke up to the dulcet tones of my smart lock locking itself… over and over (and over!) again. We cleaned the touch screen, we replaced the batteries, we gave it a stern talking to… eventually my husband pulled the radio out and it settled down. My lock is basically working, for now. […]
Dave Evans, co-founder and CTO of Stringify and former chief futurist at Cisco (where he coined the term “The Internet of Everything”) will deliver the CEDIA 2017 Opening Keynote. Evans’ keynote “The Internet of Intelligent Things (IoIT)” will hone in on the next phase of IoT, which will be about adding intelligence to connected things and how these advances will open up vast new opportunities […]
In 2016 some industry self-appointed pundits in the AV-industry were overusing the trite term known as the “Internet of Things” (aka IoT) way, way too much last year. I keep seeing content marketing and blogs using the term — as if we are really part of it. We aren’t. Thank God we are in 2017 […]
In sales, your best client is likely the one who buys repeatedly and recommends you consistently. For a long time, I had two of my best clients fit this description while I was in sales; one was a large airline, the other was a large church. What these two organizations had in common was a […]
Do you remember the 2002 movie by Steven Spielberg, “Minority Report?” This futuristic film featured Tom Cruise as the main character, PreCrime Captain John Anderton, who is the subject of a murder prediction based upon visions of the “Precogs.” And since, in the movie, the PreCrime police department has the authority to imprison would-be murderers, […]
A couple of years ago, I was on an AV podcast and someone asked me if I would ever put a smart lock onto my house. I said I’d need to think long and hard about the security aspects of it before I considered it. Flash forward to today, and I just put in an […]
On Fri., Oct. 21, a company in small Manchester, New Hampshire was the focus of a DoS internet attack. While the city it is located in is small, the company, Dyn, is not. It provides DNS (Domain Name Server) service to a large part of the country. By attacking this company the hackers effectively shut […]
The “Internet of Things” is a buzzword in the world of information technology. What still has to become part of the general knowledge is already a long known term in expert groups for a new development boost. Everyday objects become intelligent and communicate via the internet. According to visionaries until 2020 50 trillions of such […]
With the Internet of Things (IoT) encroaching further and further into the lives of the masses on a daily basis, one key element is becoming more important than ever — encounterability and controllability. This involves not only the macro scale of energy sources to power skyscrapers and corporate campuses, food and water resource management and […]
Gamechanging – when one refers to the term, mistakenly in most instances, they are referring many times to a product (or “the box”) rather than a solution. I had such an instance in a meeting with representatives of a major industry company who were telling me about all the great capabilities of their new corporate […]
Let’s face it, after last year’s IoT keynote, with all of the discussions that followed, more research was certainly necessary in terms of making the subject more relevant to the commercial side of the industry. In the residential/home automation space there is a solid built approach for things connected, however the IoT approach for the commercial integration market has […]
If you are looking for a good source of information and body of research on all things business and technology, arguably there is not a better resource than Gartner. It is definitely worth a few minutes to go to their technology page once a week and browse or even to sign up for their email alerts and […]
For the longest time (12-15 years?) we have been talking AV/IT convergence. Some will even refer to it as IT/AV. Why? Well, if I was to surmise I’d say that those who are may still be trying to bring validation to this concept, the merger of IT and AV where now AV takes the second player […]
A number of big industry names, including Microsoft, Samsung and Intel, team up to form the Open Connectivity Foundation (OCF), an entity with plans to create unified Internet of Things (IoT) solutions. IoT is expected to drive the future of the connected home. Other OCF founding members include Cisco, Electrolux, General Electrics, ARRIS and CableLabs. […]
As stated in my previous blog, “Baffling” Backdoor Cyber-Talks, numerous people in the industry through discussion as well as writing got right out and on top of a major story in the industry. Again, my hats off to them and this now leads to my next discussion on the matter of security. With the AMX […]
The Internet of Things (IoT) just got one step closer to reality. The Wi-Fi Alliance recently approved a new low-powered long-range Wi-Fi standard they are calling 802.11ah or HaLow for short. Announced at CES this year, this new standard promises to make IoT possible on a large scale. One of the biggest hurdles to IoT […]
OK, so before you go saying AV/IT and the -c- word (over ten years going now) is here, hold on a minute. I read in many corners of the industry, as well as hear the discussions that AV – we still have a problem. IT is laying in wait and even moving into our territory to do […]
I wrote a blog recently So What Should Go Under the Tree This Year? The Drones Discussion Continues and yes while it was mostly targeted to (as it states) drones discussion, there was mention of one of the hottest toys currently on the market. In fact this was the blog’s ending with a link to a […]
Virtual Anatomy 101 Robert Hasel had an idea about how to change the teaching of human anatomy for medical, dental, and health science students which, instead of cutting into a real human corpse, involved wanting his students to get immersed via virtual and augmented reality. Hasel is associate dean for simulation, immersion, and digital learning […]
IoT Continues to Open Pandora’s Box According to a PricewaterhouseCooper’s report (from October 2014), more than 20 percent of U.S. adults own at least one wearable, and soon we’ll be using them at home and work for a variety of purposes, with as many as 50 billion new connected devices by 2020. The Internet of Things has of […]
The Ultimate Drone? Qualcomm Technologies, the $26 billion (2014 sales) wireless chip company is looking for a new market to consume Snapdragon 800 series SoCs (system on a chip), in large part due to the persistent market strength of the iPhone which only makes use of some of Qualcomm’s technology (even though there is usage of the chip in the […]
This Thursday night, when the defending Super Bowl champion New England Patriots take the field at Gillette Stadium to host the Pittsburgh Steelers, each player on the field will be equipped with a set of RFID sensors about the size of a quarter in his shoulder pads, each emitting unique radio frequencies. Gillette Stadium, as […]
Google Life Sciences to Focus on Diabetes Outcomes Through Data and Disease-Centric Approaches Earlier in the week, it was reported in WIRED (and other publications) that the newly created Alphabet holding company’s Google Life Sciences has its first big mission — developing new ways to treat and manage diabetes. In a sign that the company is serious […]
While I’m currently in the process of writing a blog article on the opening keynote at InfoComm 2015, I decided to also finish working on a blog I had begun prior to the show. It involves the subject matter of a highly popular recently released sci-fi film, and a New York Times article written by the the moderator […]
I was on the phone last night with a colleague (who prefers to remain nameless) from the computer networking world. He’s both a scientist and an engineer I respect, so when the conversation turned to the future of wireless media and the wireless network in general, I grabbed a pen. We discussed the implications of […]
By Brad Grimes InfoComm International Great seeing all of you packed into the opening keynote panel, Tuesday afternoon of InfoComm 2015 in Orlando. As you know (and for those of you who weren’t there, you may have heard), the topic was the Internet of Things. Seems a little far afield for an AV industry confab. […]
