Internet of Things Conference 2015

Posted on Wednesday, October 14th, 2015

On September 24-25, Applied Research and Innovation sponsored the ‘Internet of Things 613’ conference on behalf of Algonquin College.

Internet Of Things Conference 2015

Interactive Media Design student, Jordan Koski, at the ARI booth which featured projects such as RCbenchmark and Carrot to show visitors at the IoT 613 conference.

Probably the most significant thing about the ‘Internet of Things’ conference is the buzzword itself. Rob Woodbridge, moderator of the ‘Future of IoT’ panel discussion, summed up IoT as the term that encompasses what has been going on for quite some time, including embedded computing, wireless communications, mobile apps and of course the internet. What is new is that the threshold for entry has been made extremely low in terms of cost, ubiquity and ease of use. The cost of broadband internet access and device technology are way down, and smart phone penetration is way up. The one liner for IoT is ‘anything that can be connected will be connected’ – anything with a sensor or an on/off switch.

This of course has big implications for things that relate to us in ARI. All those cell phones, Fitbits, coffee makers, toasters and washing machines will be generating gigabytes of data – which of course will need ‘Big Data’ analytics to extract any meaningful value. IoT also has an obvious need for User eXperience design, so that humans can actually understand the results.

Items of Interest

  • Electric Imp
    • Electric Imp is an ‘Internet of Things’ PC with Wi-Fi on a SD chip. It uses a smartphone app to connect the chip to the network by just flashing a light at its optical sensor – no wires required!
  • IoT 613 Start-up panel
    • Start-up entrepreneurs who shared about what worked for them that led to create a successful business.
  • IMS – Blake Currie Automotive – automotive telematics
    • Innovative motion sensors that are attached to cars. The main clientèle of this technological solution are insurance companies who uses the data to determine insurance premiums.
  • Jim Boland’s Presentation – IBM Analytics
    • Talking about Bluemix – IBM open-source IoT project. It’s a set of ‘freemium’ open-source software modules to build IoT and Big Data apps including Watson Analytics.
John Omura
Design Centre Project Manager

 


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