Google I/O: Seamless Integration: Watch, Tablet, PC, Glass, Smart Home, Smart Car

Google I/O, the company’s annual developer conference this week had many interesting announcements. The key point is the concept of the multi-device ecosystem, with the smart watch at the center for notifications, and seamless communication and content-sharing between all platforms: watch, PC, tablet, Glass, TV, smart home, and smart car (eCar).

The statistics are impressive, and have long surpassed Apple: Google Android has 1 billion active monthly users. One company initiative is Android One, a sub-$100 platform for roll-out to the world’s 5 billion currently without smartphones. The major new change with Android is the next version of the operating system, now having progressed up to the letter ‘L’ but whose candy-name like Kit-Kat for ‘K’ has not yet been announced (Lollipop? Licorice? Laffy-taffy?). L’s look and feel, and “material design” concept is different. It is much more like Windows with moving, self-resizing squares per priority and current activity, and 3D layers so some on-screen objects persist.

Some of the most innovative announcements pertained to Android Wear, wearable computing platforms like the smart watch and Glass. Android Wear feature notifications from the phone and tablet directly bridged to watch, and novel glanceable contextual apps developed specifically for wearables, for example being able to tap your phone to order a pizza or a Lyft ride. Android Auto is another expected announcement, with 40 partners in the Open Auto Alliance, and 5 car manufacturers planning to launch vehicles with Android Auto in 2015.

Rethinking Major Web Properties in Glassware

Google Glass is starting to become even more exiting as a platform as more developers are investigating the functionality and building new apps.

A few key elements are that first it is important to recognize that Glass is a completely new and different technology platform. Glass is not just a cell phone for your face or another smartwatch, but a true cognitive augmentation platform and a critical moment in the continuous always-on information climate. A higher-resolution experience of life could be available in an information-rich environment. The eyes and ears senses are always on and augmented. Passive information can be ambiently contributed to any situation in real-time.

The current applications for Glass include picture-taking, video, maps, directions, search, and hangouts, but as usual with a new platform, the future apps that will harness the functionality in new ways are yet to be imagined. For example, what are some of the new ways of being social in the moment? 

All major web properties will need to rethink themselves in Glass – what is Glass-Instagram, Glass-Facebook, Glass-CRM, Glass-Tivo? 

App creation could ramp up quickly as development can be either native Android (Glass runs on the Android O/S), or standard web (e.g.; html5, css), particularly with this weekend's release of the Mirror API.

Sensor Mania – The SmartWatch Arrives

The wireless Internet of Things is slowly rolling out – smartwatches (Pebble, Basis) have been some prominent arrivals alongside Google Glass.

A variety of two-way communication from each device type has been a quickly realized need that is starting to appear in SDKs and APIs. Pebble in particular is doing a lot to stimulate use and application development through developer community resources, an online codesharing cloud, meetups, and hackathon events.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the smartwatch rollout and actual use in applications (Figure 1) is the notion of a [seamless] interoperable computing system where the smartwatch, cell phone, and PC communicate together and perform different operations at different times like message alerts and data syncing. A future with a distributed on-board (e.g.; on-human) computing environment can be imagined with many different special purpose devices providing key functionality, all communicating with a utility device for power and connectivity.

Figure 1: Pebble Watch Faces / Apps

IOT Appliances Blur the Distinction between Matter and Man

The growing wireless Internet of Things (Sensor Mania!) could bring a ‘Cambrian explosion’ in wearable computing and the number and types of Internet-connected sensors, devices, hardware platforms, software programs, and end-user applications.

There could be an adjustment period as humans adapt to an Internet of Things (IOT) landscape with more kinds of data and different mindsets, activities, behaviors, and perspectives when interacting with these data.

Whole fields of study previously limited to self-reported information such as psychology could be radically supplemented and transformed with objective metrics obtained from the IOT.

The IOT is in the early stages of modulating data onto the world of existing artifacts.

Increasingly objects may be able to collect their own data and act on it autonomously with pre-set limits and degrees-of-freedom algorithms.

Eventually, the IOT label could become a redundant demarcation as all human-manufactured matter in the future could have integrated sensors and microprocessors.

A next generation of sensors and microprocessors is already being developmentally fashioned from organic, inorganic, and hybridized material, using cutting-edge technologies for manipulating organic and inorganic matter such as synthetic biology and molecular nanoelectronics.

Distinctions between man and machine, and subject and object could blur further as IOT appliances eventually create a layer of exosenses to greatly extend current human capabilities and the ability to integrate with the outside world.

More information: "Sensor Mania! The Internet of Things, Wearable Computing, Objective Metrics, and the Quantified Self 2.0"

Sensor Mania! The Explosive Growth of the Wireless Internet of Things

The Internet of Things (IOT) is the idea of everyday objects being interconnected network devices by having embedded sensors and communicating wirelessly with the Internet. An increasing trend is for real-world objects like buildings, roads, household appliances, and human bodies to become connected to each other and the Internet via sensors, tiny microprocessor chips that record and transmit data such as sound waves, temperature, movement, and other variables. Vernor Vinge has estimated that 5% of human-constructed objects have embedded microprocessors.

Some of the most familiar Internet-connected devices are computers such as laptops, servers, smartphones, and tablets (e.g.; iPads, etc.) but the IOT concept is much broader. One way of organizing the IOT is by market segment where there are three main categories: 

1. Monitoring and controlling the performance of homes and buildings - Some of the basic IOT applications underway in the connected home and buildings include temperature monitoring, security, building automation, remote HVAC activation, off-peak electricity use for non-time critical activities, and smart power meters. The worldwide use of smart power meters is expected to grow from 130 million in 2011 to 1.5 billion in 2020. 
2. Automotive and transportation applications -  Some of the many automotive and transportation IOT uses include the Internet-connected car (syncing productivity, information, and entertainment applications), traffic management, direction to open parking spots, and electric vehicle charging. It is estimated that 90% of new vehicles sold in 2020 will have on-board connectivity platforms, as compared with 10% today. In industrial transportation, train operators like Union Pacific use IOT infrared sensors, ultrasound, and microphones to monitor the temperature and quality of train wheels. 
3. Health self-tracking and personal environment monitoring - One of the biggest IOT growth areas is measuring individual health metrics through self-tracking gadgets, clinical remote monitoring, wearable sensor patches, WiFi scales, and a myriad of other biosensing applications.