Google Developing 'Brillo' OS For Internet of Things

An anonymous reader writes: A new report from The Information (paywalled) says Google is working on an operating system called "Brillo" that would be a platform for Internet-of-things devices. It's supposedly a lightweight version of Android, capable of running on devices with extremely limited hardware — as little as 32 MB of RAM, for example. The company is expected to launch the code for Brillo at its I/O event next week. This is particularly relevant now that Google has acquired Nest, Dropcam, and Revolv — a trio of "smart home" companies whose devices could potentially by unified by Brillo.

Comments

32MB?

[SuricouRaven]

32MB? Bah. I remember the days when you could fit a whole OS in a hundred K! And 640K was enough for anyone!

On a more serious note: The 'internet of things' hype is supposed to be about putting sensors in just about everything. 32MB is a lot of data for a sensor.

Re:32MB?

[Sebby]

32MB is a lot of data for a sensor.

Not if you're a spy agency.

Re:32MB?

[NotInHere]

No, the sensors are already there. The 'internet of things' hype is about giving control over machines and private information from sensors to large companies.

Re:32MB?

[phantomfive]

For comparison, here is a typical microcontroller with a few kilobytes of RAM. No wonder the Nest is so expensive.....it's vastly overpowered for what it does.

Re:32MB?

[bug1]

Not if you're a spy agency.

Such an old fashioned term, they called advertising corporations now.

Re:32MB?

[thegarbz]

IoT is nothing of the sort. A few questionable corporations are creating that product that way but just because it says IoT doesn't mean that you need to give anyone else data.

Re:32MB?

[NotInHere]

Yes it doesn't mean, but when it says "google", your data land at their servers. And from a security standpoint, they have control.

Re: 32MB?

[93 Escort Wagon]

I shudder when I think about Google wanting to embed a Java runtime in my coffee pot and microwave...

Re:32MB?

[chipschap]

I can beat that :) I started on an IBM 1620 (in 1966) with 2k of core memory --- old fashioned doughnut core. 2k was the "big" machine, by the way.

Re:32MB?

[thegarbz]

That's the typically over generalized anti-Google crap we've come to expect.

Just like Chromium and Android varieties don't communicate with Google there's no reason to expect that every device like this will either.

Yes it's likely that many such devices will, but I'll reserve freaking out for facts and data rather than anti-corporate speculation.

Re: 32MB?

[mrchaotica]

The trouble is that just about every fucking "IoT" device is designed to communicate over the Internet to the manufacturer's servers, even when it would make more sense for it to just communicate with a base station/server over the LAN and have the data never leave your house. Allegedly it's for ease of use, but that's bullshit -- it's for data-mining.

Re:32MB?

[lister king of smeg]

Could you tell us which percentage of Chrome-based browsers and Android phones do not communicate with Google?

From your misleading post it sounds like the number should be 90. If that was so, nobody would care, but the reality is the other way around.

well my amazon tablet runs android and doesn't use google services for anything but search and i was given the option to pick theirs amoung a list of several competing services. Same with chromium I choose to use google search because the competitors are shitty and/or and even more evil.

The ultimate...

[Sebby]

... spy OS.

Re:32MB

[serviscope_minor]

32MB is not "extremely limited hardware". I've programmed on devices with 32KB of RAM before.

That's nothing! I've programmed on a device with 64 bytes before! Specifically a PIC12F675. I think some of the attiny and PIC10F have even fewer bytes (32?).

But yes, typical things like radio microcontrollers (like the TI and Nordic ones) have RAM measured in the tens of k, and those are the backbone of small, low power wireless devices.

Sigh

[ledow]

"as little as 32 MB of RAM, for example"

I'm getting old.

My first full PC had 2MB of RAM.

My first computer had only 48Kb of RAM.

Hell, I have an "computer" next me to capable of connecting to the Internet (even to act as HTTP server, DHCP client, NTP client, etc.), controlling relays, performing some computations, etc. It has 32Kb of Flash, 2Kb of SRAM and 1Kb of EEPROM. It's called an Arduino UNO.

By comparison, then, 32Mb is over 1000 times more than needed for IoT crap.

Re:32MB vs 10KB

[ArcadeMan]

U.S.A.: 32MB
China: 10KB

Guess who's more efficient and guess who's trying to cram spyware into everything.

I'll get that right away

[PopeRatzo]

Google is definitely the company I want making the OS that will be in every fucking electronic device in my house, because they're so serious about my privacy.

Re:I'll get that right away

[thegarbz]

You jest but I'll bite. Google most definitely care about your privacy. In the number of companies willing to share your information with 3rd parties Google is right at the bottom of the list for one simple reason, control. There are a lot of companies out there that share the data they collect. Google keeps the data and provides an API to let someone target your anonymised data set.

Google is the number 1 offender for collecting my private data.
Google is also the number 1 company I trust not to simply sell it or share it.

Correctly named?

[chrism238]

Shouldn't we call this Brillio Beta, so that we can all invest heavily in it for 2 years before Google changes their mind and withdraws it?

Re:Correctly named?

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet it gets scrubbed.

32*M*B?

[Mirar]

I regularly work with devices having 32*K*B or RAM. That talks TCP/IP. (And much smaller than that, but they do very limited amount of networking, like CAN.)

And I remember running Linux on devices with a lot less than 32MB...

What's the challenge with 32MB? And how is that extreme in any way?

Are they serious?

[rev0lt]

32MB of RAM? Many semi-modern UNIX systems can run with that amount of RAM without any modification... Many IoT applications require an OS that can work with 32KB, not 32MB.

Re:Are they serious?

[Cederic]

All of them. Why are you asking such a silly question?

Re:32MB

[larwe]

There are plenty of single-chip solutions that incorporate a micro, radio, and sufficient flash+RAM to implement an entire wireless sensor. Look at the ESP8266 for example, which is becoming very popular in makerspaces. https://www.sparkfun.com/produ... - you can easily source a complete module for under $5 at retail. Note that the external chip is the application code, which gets loaded into on-chip SRAM at boot time. It's unclear how much RAM is in it; definitely not megabytes, though. The chip has a 64K factory-programmed ROM with basic UART-to-WiFi functionality, but it can also boot a user application off external SPI flash. This new thing from Google appears to be trying to take the scaled-down code in the Chromecast and scale it down further (https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Chromecast+Teardown/16069 - Chromecast has quite a bit of memory in it).

IoT -- more gadgets, less intelligence?

[swb]

Some devices like Nest seem to add more intelligence to things we already use, but some devices just seem to add gadgets without actually making things more intelligent.

Where are my outlets with an integrated, network accessible power meter? Or the smart electrical panel that can have circuit priorities and acceptable power source types assigned to it so that when I run off a Tesla PowerWall I get maximum utility from the power? Or even the main power meter that lets me see my electrical utilization in real time?

So much of the IoT just seems to be about adding new gadgets whose utility seems limited while ignoring the rest of the house which is dumb.