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IEEE Top Ten for 2015

Posted on February 3, 2015 by Rick

IEEE Top 10 Tech predictions for 2015

4) Industry will tackle Software-defined Anything (SDx) interoperability and standards:Software-defined networking’s programmability will turn various network appliances into a warehouse of apps. Several standards groups are working on interoperability issues, including the Open Networking Foundation (ONF), the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).
5) Cloud security and privacy concerns grow: The celebrity photo hacking scandal and iCloud breach in China in 2014 has brought cloud security to the forefront for 2015. Enterprises are moving workloads to the cloud and expecting enterprise-level security. To avoid system fragility and defend against vulnerabilities exploration from cyber attackers, various cybersecurity techniques and tools are being developed for cloud systems.

www.biosciencetechnology.com

IoT effects in manufacturing

Posted on February 3, 2015 by Rick

To nobody’s surprise, the Internet of Things is the biggest technology shift effecting manufacturing in the coming year.

Just how widespread will the IoT be in 2015? An Embarcadero Technologies survey conducted by Dimensional Research reveals that 77% of development teams will have IoT solutions in active development in 2015, compared to only 12% in 2014.
…
Quite possibly the biggest advances happening in IoT are happening right here in the manufacturing sector. Earlier this month, GE Reports released their article “The Future of Big Data: Beyond the Internet of Things,” which argues, “The IoT is ultimately about connecting devices to people… But there’s another, arguably deeper change taking place: the Industrial Internet. It’s less about remote control and more about machine intelligence and allowing things like wind turbines, locomotives and jet engines to talk and understand each other.” GE alone is already using the Industrial Internet to power railroads, pipelines, power grids, and subsea wells.

www.manufacturing.net

FedEx to pilot electric trucks

Posted on February 3, 2015 by Rick

FedEx to pilot electric trucks in partnership with Tesla co-founder.

“Besides the fact that modern cars are already very clean, your average Toyota Camry driver only uses about 600 gallons a year, while a garbage truck will use 14,000,” says Wright, a soft-spoken New Zealander with a passion for sports cars.
“It makes the most economic sense to focus energies on a sector where you can displace the most fuel,” especially true now that gas has plummeted to under $50 a barrel, says Wright. “When you switch a garbage truck to electric power, you’re saving about $50,000 in fuel and $30,000 in maintenance a year.”
Companies gradually are buying Wright’s pitch. His electric powertrain start-up, Wrightspeed, last year contracted with FedEx to retrofit 25 of its medium- to heavy duty-trucks with battery-powered engines that can be recharged through regenerative braking or by small turbines fueled by natural gas or propane

www.usatoday.com

Oldest tattoos ever found

Posted on February 1, 2015 by Rick

Turns out body augmentation and body art is older than we thought. Much older.

By using an innovative non-invasive photographic technique, European researchers have managed to locate and map the extensive set of tattoos on the exquisitely preserved remains of Ötzi the Iceman. Remarkably, they even found a previously unknown tattoo on his ribcage.
Ötzi’s frozen remains were discovered by two German tourists in the Ötzal Alps on the border between Austria and Italy in 1991. He lived around 3,300 BCE and represents Europe’s oldest natural human mummy. Because he was so well preserved in ice, he has provided anthropologists with a slew of information about Copper Age (or Chalcolithic) humans.
His tattoos are no exception. They’re amongst the oldest tattoos ever documented in the world, and they’re proving to be quite fascinating.

+ Ötzi’s tattoos were not applied by needles, but by making incisions into which charcoal was rubbed.
io9.com

That messy desk is killing your productivity

Posted on February 1, 2015 by Rick

That messy desk is hurting your productivity.

The disorganized accumulation of papers and coffee cups scattered across your desk may help you project the impression that you’re working at full throttle, but in fact it’s probably dragging you down. We’ve found that people sitting at messy desks are less efficient, less persistent, and more frustrated and weary than those at neat desks.
But wait, you may say. No one who has worked in a busy office for more than a week can possibly keep a neat desk — the work comes at you too fast. Or you may say that you like your mess, that it’s as comforting as a little nest. To which we say yes, it can be challenging to keep a desk neat. And yes, a mess can be comforting, even freeing, in a sense: You don’t have to worry about things becoming disordered, because they’re already disordered.
But look at the data.

hbr.org

Startup claims to be able to monitor the Internet of Things

Posted on February 1, 2015 by Rick

A small startup claims to be able to monitor the Internet of Things.

Bastille Networks measures the typical radio-frequency signature of all the devices in an office—sensors, industrial control systems, employees’ phones, their fitness bands, Wi-Fi routers, and so on. If anything unusual develops, because a sniffing device has been placed in the office, for example, or because someone appears to be remotely accessing an Internet-of-things-connected device for malicious purposes, Bastille can tell the IT staff. Bastille has been testing its technology with some financial services companies since December and plans to make its technology available to other companies in late 2015.
Atlanta-based Bastille, founded last year, can spread its radio-frequency sensors throughout an office to monitor connected devices that operate over communication protocols like Wi-Fi, Zigbee, and Bluetooth low-energy, as well as over cellular networks. The company’s software can determine where these devices are located to within three meters. In the pilot test, CEO Chris Rouland says, the sensors are being placed in areas considered most important to secure, like data centers and executive offices.

www.technologyreview.com

Boeing 747 for the next Air Force One.

Posted on February 1, 2015 by Rick

Seems like a reasonable choice, when your only alternative is made by the French.

The Air Force said Wednesday that the Boeing 747-8 will serve as the next presidential aircraft.
“The presidential aircraft is one of the most visible symbols of the United States of America and the office of the president of the United States,” Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James said in a statement. “The Boeing 747-8 is the only aircraft manufactured in the United States (that), when fully missionized, meets the necessary capabilities established to execute the presidential support mission, while reflecting the office of the president of the United States of America consistent with the national public interest.”

www.kansas.com

The Uber of Shipping

Posted on February 1, 2015 by Rick

The Uber of Shipping (Shypping?)

The way the app and service works is this: You snap a picture of the thing you want to send, enter in the relevant shipping and payment details and request a pickup. A guy from Shyp will pick it up — you can even track his or her movements with the app — package it and ship it for you. The cost is $5 plus the retail rate of the shipment, which is often on par with what UPS or FedEx would quote you.

www.engadget.com

Boeing beats, gets cash

Posted on February 1, 2015 by Rick

Boeing beats profits estimates, is flush with cash. (Can’t help but wonder why it’s so agonizing for them to procure goods and services from strategic vendors, just sayin’.)

Fourth-quarter profit excluding pension expense was $2.31 a share, Chicago-based Boeing said Wednesday, topping the $2.10 average estimate among analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Free cash flow this year will be about $6.2 billion, according to the company.
Investors have been waiting to see Boeing start generating more cash from its plane orders and stem losses on the 787 Dreamliner. The jetliner is the first built of composites rather than the traditional aluminum and entered commercial service in 2011, more than three years late.

www.bloomberg.com

Alcohol sales soar in pre-blizzard planning

Posted on January 28, 2015 by Rick

Online alcohol delivery app, Drizly, notes that orders have increased 477% in the northeast in the day leading up to the blizzard. This apparently due to residents stocking up on essentials. (via @FiveThirtyEight)

Drizly, an on-demand app for alcohol deliveries, says orders in NYC and Boston are up 477% since 2pm ET compared to a normal Monday. That’s nearly six times as much as usual.