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Microsoft, Intel, Samsung, Other Tech Companies Form New IoT Alliance (techtimes.com)
The Internet of Things (IoT) is the next step toward technological advancement but it requires a huge effort on manufacturers' and developers' part to make different devices and operating systems to function seamlessly with one another. Now, many of the big names in the industry are banding together to form the Open Connectivity Foundation or OCF to set standards for IoT devices. The lineup includes ARRIS, CableLabs, Cisco, Electrolux, GE Digital, Intel, Microsoft, Qualcomm, and Samsung, which will all work closely with one another to set rules and specifications to guarantee a singular advancement in the field.
Apple's closed connectivity will not be a part of it.
This will be as successful as the HDMI-CEC design.
Does this consortium plan to set standards for security? I'm not convinced that the biggest issue facing IoT is interoperability but rather the security (or lack of it) in many devices. Many of the ideas are very cool, but unless they're secured, IoT devices are backdoors into otherwise secure networks. I'm hoping that the result is an industry standard for IoT security.
Then everyone can use them everywhere. Honest.
>Microsoft
>Intel
If i want a bunch of intimate devices forwarding everything I do to third parties,, and having backdoors I now know who to buy from.
Oh, wait. The aim is to make you a better product for advertisers, and miscreants. That is what you are.
Gotta make sure those backdoors have compatible interoperability.
For Cisco, they already use an IoT standard.. it works great... it's also as easy to implement as H.323 and as well documented as ONCRPC.
Modern app appers know that ONLY apps can app apps, so Microsoft will app Windows for Apps so apps can app apps while apping other apps!
Apps!
For only a nominal fee of $1,000 dollars, you too can become OCF certified! http://openconnectivity.org/jo...
This is a power grab by established giants to prevent an emerging market from getting away from their control. There are no actual IoT entities here: Raspberry Pi Foundation, Arduino LLC, etc. Not even ARM Holdings, whose chips designs will be in most IoT devices. Just the overrepresentation of Cable related companies makes it suspicious.
It's the usual game no? Companies get together to try to lock the market for themselves, i.e. Cartel, constructed with Patents.
The lineup includes ARRIS, CableLabs, Cisco, Electrolux, GE Digital, Intel, Microsoft, Qualcomm, and Samsung, which will all work closely with one another to set rules and specifications to guarantee a singular advancement in the field.
I read that as "pool patents and close the technology against the garage-shop upstarts".
Maybe something like what happened with WiMax. Some friends and I tried to do a garage shop startup with it, but couldn't get chips or timely standards drafts because we weren't one of the large companies that formed the coalition.
Fortunately the three major vendors of IoT systems-on-a-chip (TI, Nordic, and Dialog) are being clueful about getting devices and development kits into any hands reaching for them, at prices a kid in his mom's basement can afford. (TI's first generation had a mandatory tie-in with a $3,000/seat development system from another vendor, but that's not a problem for the others or, I think, TI's latest gen.)
The garage shops (some of whom have customers with products in trial or production) have already stolen a march on the big guys when it comes to IoT. So this looks like, not an attempt to head off, but to co-opt or FUD-out, the horde of independents. A frantic move by the big companies, before they are nibbled to death by ducks.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Hey those are all cable TV box vendors.
IoT... more like "we want you to rent more blackboxes from us"
Specifically, the next step in technological advancement of omnipresent surveillance/"telemetry" and of vendor lock-in and of forced upgrades and of dependency on corporate services. If that sounds good, just wait until some joker writes a virus to make your lightbulbs blink obscene messages in Morse code or pit your heater against your air conditioner.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Would that be a single interface specification for manufacturers to query activity information? A single specification for insuring devices only work with other devices manufactured or licensed by this alliance?
I'd end with </sarcasm>, but anymore that'd just be immediately followed an another <sarcasm>.
From the blurb: "...banding together to form the Open Connectivity Foundation [...] which will all work closely with one another to set rules and specifications..."
Wat?
Having seen the list of corps I've got a hunch about which kind of open they mean.
I think any corporation should be careful to not allow direct influence from state actors, because if a corporation support and/or abide a belligerent party, I for one would perchance be inclined to deem them as as threatening as any enemy combatant (any fighting force at all really).
And, I think if you as a corporation were to keep hidden ties to a government, I suspect that your corporation would be susceptible to a form of blackmailing in which any damning secret could be used against your company by the same state actor.
Why the f**k do we need every f**king thing we own to be web aware?
1. Form a group and make it an official international standard.
2. Have licensing arm (like MPEGLA) to administer the patents from the standard.
3. Profit.
There is not mystery step 2 in this case. It's just like paying taxes, except instead of the government the money goes directly to the international corporations (and a few academic institutions who are in on the scam). The government and the law are just collection agents for the corporations. Combine this with treaties like the TPP and it becomes obvious that corporate interests are intent on dominating, well everything. Sovereign states become the errand boys and actual source of power is privatized.
Why is Snark Required?
A Great Article !
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Half those players were involved in DLNA (DHWG) and look how well that worked out. Hint: most DLNA servers need client-specific profiles to hack the data streams so that they render correctly on the client.
REF: Digital Living Network Alliance
That is a completely ridiculous comment.
I think that you have no concept of how standards groups and certifications work.
Without everyone complying to the same standard AND actually testing the products against said standards, the technology will never take off.
Take Bluetooth for example. In the early days, the BT SIG made folks test the physical layers of the device, but not the profiles. As such, the link layer was great, but using the products sucked. Then they started testing the profile stack as well and things got better.
Now, through the use a free tool, (for members) you can test all the profiles you implement and behold...a working duhicky!
At the moment, there are several firms pushing their own platforms with respect to the IoT and none of these things interact with things from other companies.
This is not good for consumers. In the end, it's also not good for companies.
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We already know we can't trust Microsoft, Samsung, or Cisco for sure, and have good reason to doubt Intel. Now we know we also cannot trust ARRIS, CableLabs, Electrolux, GE Digital, or Qualcomm either.
If I wasn't already well entrenched in my career in IT, I would cut the cord. Alas it's too deeply integrated with my life to do that without starting over from square one. Feeling a bit trapped.
To the panic rooms everyone!
i simply can't believe it. yet another buzzword from some marketing tw/\t trying to sell words. right now everybody wants internet in everything so why don't we invent a word for that and try to sell it? maybe do some t-shirts, badges..
oh your god, why are we feeding these people?
I've been shopping for a new HVAC unit for my home, and I'm shocked that there are very few I can even buy above SEER 16 that do not have mandatory internet connectivity in order to function. They even tried to sell me one that had an "zero-interface thermostat." The thermostat was in the unit and was controlled via smart-phone app - not directly between the phone and the HVAC unit, mind you. The HVAC unit phones home, and the smartphone app phones home, and so I request a temperature from the manufacturer's server, and the manufacturer's server tells the unit what to do. Completely ridiculous and unnecessary.
The IoT is a curse, not a blessing. It's just one more way for manufacturers to collect data about your personal habits and preferences, so they can sell that data to marketers. Of course, then there's government/NSA/etc...
No, the biggest issue is that IoT is a solution in search of a problem. There really isn't that much of a value proposition for the consumer. I don't need my fucking coffee maker talking to my toaster or my microwave or my thermostat or doorbell. I don't need my refrigerator noticing that I'm almost out of milk, and reordering milk from Amazon at twice the price I could pay at the convenience store down the street.
Just one example: An IP-connected thermostat is only marginally more useful than a digital programmable thermostat that is 10x cheaper and has existed for 30 years. How often do you REALLY need to change the temperature in your home while you aren't there? Yes, it's nice to be able to make your home all comfy and cozy for you when you arrive, but are you really fucking suffering now without this ability? So much that it's worth paying more $100 or $200 or $300 for the privilege, as well as creating one more opening for security risks in your network? Don't you usually know when you are going to get home most days, so you could just program a 'dumb' thermostat to ramp up the heat before you arrive?
IoT might evolve into some compelling use case for the consumer someday, but for now it can burn in hell along with those fucking stupid Dash Buttons from Amazon.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is the next step toward technological advancement...
The Internet of Things (IoT) is the next step toward technological enslavement...
FTFY.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
... is there are so many to choose from!
Does this mean SmartThings is becoming the de-facto standard?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
There is a major need for standards and best practices when it comes to security for IoT devices. It seems like there are multiple articles a week on a device that has major security vulnerabilities.
It's the Internet of Things Telemetry.
Your ioT devices will gather whatever information they can from you, but don't worry! the information they send will be securely encrypted, not documented, and sent to several secure services so it can be data-mined.
Never mind the actual function of the ioT device, that is not even secondary.
Gathering whatever information about YOU is what ioT is really about, and monetizing it, so you can pay for your ioT appliance to be more personal.
I'll wait for the Internet of Thongs.
MPEG brought standardized, and well working, video compression, even if there was an extra fee. I remember the mid 90s, and there were all sorts of video formats, such as real media player (pirated tv eps), smacker (warcraft 2 cutscenes), intel indeo, motion JPEG, and others. I think it was worth it.
Microsoft and Intel are the Internet of Thugs
"To find out the true purpose of an 'Industry Consortium', note the major player in the industry that is *not* present."