A team at Stanford University have built a very small passively powered single chip radio with a 50cm operating range at 24GHz/60GHz and 12Mbps data rate, all in a 3.7mmx1.2mm footprint.
Although the original release is light on detail (and the IEEE paper isn't freely available) there is some additional information from Amin Arbabian, one of the developers of the radio.
Compared to mm-sized passive radio solutions in the same category this system provides an order of magnitude range enhancement while improving input sensitivity.
The authors believe this radio is a fundamental building block in developing a workable internet of things, by providing a ubiquitous short range networking component which does not require an external power supply or other components.
He thinks this technology can provide the web of connectivity and control between the global Internet and smart household devices. "Cheap, tiny, self-powered radio controllers are an essential requirement for the Internet of Things," said Arbabian
(Originally spotted via hackernews)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 11 2014, @04:13AM
But can they make a radio out of a coconut? [torontosun.com]
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 11 2014, @04:18AM
Trackin devices in every white boy. Bama gonna be the biggest slave owna OF ALL TIME. Black Man iz on top!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 11 2014, @05:59AM
(Or is there at least a Linux driver available?)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by novak on Thursday September 11 2014, @06:10AM
Ok, passively powered radios are legitimately cool. I'm not saying I wouldn't play with this. It's almost cool enough for me to forget why I hate everything about the internet of things. But not quite:
1. 99% of things that are getting an internet connection derive no benefit from it. Why would I need a wireless refrigerator or an internet connected smoke alarm? I just can't fathom in what way that would be useful (while at the office I can check if my home is burning down!). I recall seeing an article (http://blog.legalsolutions.thomsonreuters.com/law-and-techology/refrigerator-latest-computer-security-threat/) about how appliances with an internet connection were part of a massive spam campaign, and thinking that of all the people out there predicting the future it was hilarious how Douglas Adams was the one getting it right.
2. Security. I am a big fan of simplicity, but in technology, features sell. Security is completely unknown and usually unknowable to the end user (There's been a lot of noise lately about default security holes in home routers- how many end users could possibly know that, especially when they bought them 5 years ago?). I wish there was a system by which products were certified, giving some indication of security. All you have to go off of now is that maybe the manufacturer puts the word "secure" on the box, so it must be secure. As it is, things are dumped into the wild, unpatched, improperly used, and never thought of again. When every object in your house is internet connected, updating and securing things will be even more of a pain. You thought cleaning out a toaster was bad, wait until you have to reflash the firmware. No one is actually going to do that, and I feel sorry for the people who do. But hey, at least they won't get a virus in their thermostat that turns the heat off in the winter.
At this point I feel obligated to say "Get off my lawn."
novak
(Score: 3, Interesting) by q.kontinuum on Thursday September 11 2014, @07:22AM
[zynism]You think they will be connected to YOU? If current technology [forbes.com] is any indication, the connection will go to amazon, they can send you an offer to re-purchase a list of all the books you bought from them before. At a discount! And your fire insurance might want to cancel the contract before you place a claim...[/zynism]
I share your concern there. Of course, if everything is connected to the internet, it could auto-update, works like a charm for my XBMC-based media-center. The trouble I would expect is that vendors will not provide security updates long enough and that most vendors of commodity goods have no clue about internet security in the first place.
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday September 11 2014, @03:09PM
Within the context of a fridge, don't you think offers of Tuscan Whole Milk, 1 Gallon, 128 fl oz [amazon.com] makes more sense?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Thursday September 11 2014, @03:26PM
That was about the fire alarm. In that case the fridge will most likely be destroyed as well, so Amazon would probably sell a new fridge (and other furniture) instead.
But I have another idea: I could create an Android-App which monitors the email-account and triggers a fire-alarm if one gets a bulk of these kind of offers!
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 1) by novak on Friday September 12 2014, @04:21AM
I think in general you make some decent points about legitimate uses for this sort of thing. I would be much more interested in remotely controlling devices to reduce power draw than putting RFID tags on my food, but to each his own. However, this:
If you are double-dating, the picture frames could identify the right partner at the house door (her/his smartphone wifi mac address, face recognition or finger-print sensor in doorknob) and update all the picture-frames accordingly.
Is both startlingly accurate and legitimately chilling, especially combined with your earlier comments about how everything will be connected to amazon's (or whoever's) server. Think about how your beautiful mood-set living room would change with a few google ads embedded in it. I hope we can make a better future than that one.
novak
(Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Friday September 12 2014, @06:05AM
Lets enter The Century of The Geek. Technically less adept consumers will get their Google advertisement, while the geeks learn to control the technique. So the geeks will get the n-dating and automated mating-optimized mood-setting of the environment while others drown in advertisement etc. Maybe Darwinism is not dead after all, intelligence can be a procreational advantage and an idiocracy-like [wikipedia.org] future can be avoided ;-)
Of course, I jest. This kind of tinkering will be prevented by some DCMA-like laws and protection mechanisms in the chips.
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 2) by geb on Thursday September 11 2014, @11:51AM
I think we can all agree that the term "internet of things" is crap, most of it is hype, and it's going to lead to a lot of really dumb consumer products. However, I can certainly imagine good uses for this sort of tech.
Say you pair this comms system with a few cheap sensors and a suitably durable coating, manufacture them by the billion to get the price down to around the same level as RFID tags, and then sell them to farmers who can scatter them on crops. Instant, realtime mapping of soil temperature, moisture, and acidity? I don't see any reason why not. You could sell exactly the same system to keen gardeners, or jam a spike with one of these sensor packs into every tree of an orchard, or clipped to the ear of every cow in a herd... Farm automation could be made substantially easier with cheap universal monitoring of just about anything.
Fire alarms and safety systems would be another good case, but not for in the home. In a large industrial context, you usually use a complex network of heat detectors and air quality monitoring gas detectors. They're expensive, bulky, and so are used mainly to cover risk hotspots. Drop the price, drop the size, and you could slap little heat sensors over every square metre of a refinery if you wanted to. You wouldn't want to use this kind of semi-secured network for controlling equipment, but news like "oh shit, we are on fire!" does not need to be kept to a secret network.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Thursday September 11 2014, @03:03PM
Old is new. See home automation or smart home. This has been around for decades. They just changed the name to reignite the hype to attract investors.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 11 2014, @12:54PM
While I also don't see the use of an internet-connected fridge (I generally know what's in my fridge anyway), I indeed do see an advantage of a network-connected smoke sensor. And if it were just to replace that "My battery gets low, and no, I don't care that it's in the middle of the night and the batteries would work quite well until tomorrow morning, especially if they were not wasted for that middle-of-the-night battery alarm" beeping with an automated mail telling me to change the batteries, reserving the beeping to actual fire. Or even just for getting the current time through NTP and delaying that battery beep to the morning.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by LoRdTAW on Thursday September 11 2014, @03:17PM
The main problem with IOT is the myriad of devices that will all use different methods of communication and interfaces. If the device is a server then undoubtedly it will need to poke holes through your router using uPNP. Will vulnerabilities be patched for 5yo devices? If they transmit data to/from external servers on the internet to avoid the uPNP disaster how secure is that? Will the service provider secretly sell my useage data? Will they inform me of breaches? And what about unifying the device interfaces? Can I easily view all of my connected devices from a unified dashboard? Or will each vendor have all different methods of viewing data using apps or web pages making my life more complicated than it needs to be?
You know what? No thank you.