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Archive for January 12th, 2017

Reverie: All That Glitters is not Past

Thursday, January 12th, 2017

 


As we embrace a New Year
, it is always a toss-up as to whether we are drawn to look to the past to understand our future, or to the future itself. The blank page. The untested waters. The mysterious frontier. Danger and opportunity seemingly mixed in equal proportions within the murky fog a-swirl in that not-so-crystal ball.

It’s within that spirit that I recalled this week a reverie that unfolded several years back while sailing the waters of Lake Gatun midst the Panama Canal. A reverie that attempted to synchronize the muscular optimism at the turn into the last century with the somewhat more tenuous outlook at the turn into this one.

That earlier reverie was tempered by remembering innovations such as the Vienna Secession, Futurism, Fin de siècle, Dada and Cubism – movements that propelled some observers from the nineteenth century into the twentieth – could hardly be said to reflect a stridently cheery outlook. Inversely, the angst and anxiety that oft-times characterize the narcissism of our own here-and-now – trends that have sometimes accompanied our complex journey from the twentieth century into the twenty-first – are profoundly repudiated by the engineering marvels that define this equally muscular New Age.

In truth, the past was never as rosy as we remember and rarely does the future fulfill our darkest premonitions. It’s simply the nature of the human comedy that we so thoroughly believe they do.

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UNH-IOL tackles IoT: It’s a jungle out there

Thursday, January 12th, 2017

 


Are you building the IoT?
Then you already know it’s a jungle out there.

Happily, the University of New Hampshire is offering an interesting service that should help. They’ll test your IoT device to see if it meets current Internet Protocal standards. Of course, understanding such a service presumes there are any standards in the first place – there are many, some very controversial – and also presumes you know how those standards are described within a veritable jungle of acronym-laden jargon.

But before we run through that rain forest of gobbledygook, let’s first review what the goals of the UNH InterOperability Lab are in establishing their IoT IP Testing Service. Those goals were laid out during an online press conference in December  when the folks at the lab explained what they want to accomplish: Foster industry-wide collaboration, provide an extensive testbed for evaluating IoT devices, and train the engineers of tomorrow who want to help build the IoT.

These are clearly commendable goals, and the people behind the effort seem nothing if not cheerful and upbeat, but to fully understand what they’re doing you’ll first need to slog through the acronyms. Buckle your seat belt, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

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