IOE

An OTT Lab Update

 

By Leslie Ellis

 

Given that Halloween punctuates the end of this week, it seemed timely to share some changes happening in my small-but-lively over-the-top video lab.

 

Background: The list of technologies, industries and companies that will “kill the cable industry!” is long and established. First there was microwave (a technology), then telcos and satellite (industries), then companies — name any of the OTT constituents. Spooky!

 

Until the OTT chapter, however, it was cost-prohibitive to conduct any kind of local experiment to vet the would-be cable-killers. A microwave antenna farm doesn’t exactly fit in a back bedroom, not to mention the coverage footprints of the subsequent competitors.

 

That’s why, a few years ago, it suddenly made sense (economically and space-wise) to see for myself: What about this growing army of video streamers is better or worse for video content consumption?

 

The lab hit its peak in 2012, with a gadget array so wide, the windowsill could barely hold the associated remote controls.

 

At the end of last year, however, it started to seem like “game over.” Google finally found its way (after countless iterations of “GoogleTV”) with Chromecast, at an astounding low price point —  $35. Between it, Roku, and Apple TV, plus the virtualizing of video streaming into TVs and other hardware gadgets, it started to get dull.

 

(After that, Amazon’s Fire TV came out — too late, but not too little. It remains my personal favorite of the hardware streamers.)

 

So, this year, we made a deliberate shift in another direction: The Internet of Things. Between myself and my lab goddess, Sara Dirkse, we’re gradually gearing up to watch the IOT trajectory, across two specific parameters. One is “stuff that’s actually useful.” The other is “that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen.”

 

Here’s the short list of both, so far. Actually useful: Front-door webcams, to see who’s at the door no matter where you are; beds that conquer snoring partners without the need for pointy elbows; sensors that over-ride the irrigation system on rainy days.

 

On the oddest things we’ve ever seen list: The “selfie sombrero,” a ghastly, hot pink bonnet equipped with a tablet holder hanging from its enormous brim. A connected toilet, which quickly got hacked, enabling anyone to flush, open and close the lid, and activate the bidet. A virtual reality apparatus (“airVR”), which essentially straps your tablet to your face. And, my personal favorite, a “smart wig,” apparently useful for times when you want to advance a PowerPoint presentation by tugging on its (ghastly) sideburns.

 

That’s the Halloween lab update. Boo! We’ll keep the lists growing.

 

This column originally appeared in the Platforms section of Multichannel News.

 

 

Read This Quickly, While We Humans Still Dominate The Internet

By now you’ve heard the hullaballoo around “machine to machine” computing, abbreviated “M2M.” And “the Internet of Things,” or IOT. And “the Internet of Everything,” or “IOE.”

Each characterizes how we’re attaching sensors and controllers to our physical stuff, for access and manipulation from somewhere else: Webcam-watching what’s going on at home. Lowering the heat from work, because you forgot to do it before you walked out the door.

The human math of this “connected everything” world is about to get interesting – or scary, depending on your outlook. Think about it: Seven billion people on the planet. About a third of us (according to an article in United Airline’s in-flight magazine last week) are equipped to use the Internet. That’s about 2.3 billion of us.

Here’s the question: At what point are more sensor-equipped things connecting to the Internet than people? My best guess at an answer: Soon. Maybe even very soon.

Let’s start by eliminating the computing things that connect to the Internet: PCs, laptops, tablets, mobile devices. The “thing” part of the IOT generally means something not originally intended to communicate with anything. Doors. Windows. Furnaces. Dog collars. Coffee machines.

The people who track M2M, IOT and the IOE (Cisco, Machina Research, Zigbee, others) say that already, about 2 billion (non-compute) things are taking regular sips of Internet, to send and receive information about their status.

Two billion devices, 2.3 billion people. See what I mean?

Then factor in efforts like Google Loon, which seeks to connect the unconnected parts of the planet, using balloons. Here’s a description directly from Google:

“Project Loon floats balloons in the stratosphere, twice as high as airplanes and weather. They’re carried around the Earth by winds, and can be steered by rising or descending … people connect to the balloon network using a special Internet antenna, connected to a building.”

Google Loon could keep humans slightly ahead of machines, when it comes to Internet connectivity. But we’re still in a unique sliver of time, right here, right now, where we humans are still the majority.

As someone who studies bandwidth trends, I can’t help but wonder what M2M, IOT, and the IOE will do to the quality and availability of our (human) Internet connectivity. Picture it: All of our digital bits, running like a river, in one direction or the other, over the Big Internet.

On top of that, billions of chatty machines, taking a sip here, a sip there. In RF (radio frequency) terms, it seems kind of like “shot noise” – little spikes of electric charges. Billions of them. In the river analogy, showers of pebbles, relentlessly hitting the flow.

This is where the distinction that is the “managed” network comes into play, of course. The “Big Internet” is unmanaged. Service provider networks are, by design, managed.

So we’ve got that going for us…

This column originally appeared in the Platforms section of Multichannel News.