Moto G4+

Well my old LG G2 phone (about 3 years old) finally bit the dust — it was dropping the connection to my provider (ATT) at random times. Not a good characteristic for a phone.

I quickly looked around for an unlocked, Android phone that I could buy outright, without loosing an arm or a leg in the process. I hate paying monthly rent on a phone. I settled on the Moto G4+ with 64 GB of on-board memory. Not sure I needed the 64GB upgrade since the G4 does have a SIM expansion slot that can emulate on-board memory, but I learned a long time ago that you should max out your memory when you buy technology since you may not have the option later.

Naturally, once I bought it the G5+ was announced.

From the time I had it custom configured until the time it was dropped off at my doorstep, it took a week. Not bad, since the device had to be assembled in China. I dropped in my SIM card and was ready.

The first phone I received had an intermittent touch screen issue. It took me 2 phone calls with tech support to convince them I needed a new phone. The first call told me how to do various hardware and memory resets. By the time I reordered, they ran out of some of the parts to configure the phone exactly the way my old one was, but that wasn’t a bit issue for me. My new phone was on its way and I received it in exactly one week.

The Motorola/Lenovo help desk was pretty good (as far as help desks go). I was able to talk with a human within 2 minutes on every call I made — I think there were 5 in total.

• 2 related to the first phone problem
• 1 related to an issue with the re-order – there was a spelling error in my email address
• 2 related to shipping back the old phone – also related to the previous spelling error

Granted, that is not the best track record but each time I was talking with a person who knew what had happened before. They were curious and very helpful (having personally  helped folks on the phone many times in my career, I realize the strain that they can be under, so I may be more tolerant than most).

Overall, this is the best Android phone I’ve ever had, so far. All the important software I had loaded on my old phone runs on this one. The conversion from my old phone to this one was painless, taking probably 2 hours with 1.5 of that being Android loading up the 140 applications I had on my old phone (which it remembered). This process is MUCH better than it used to be.

Anxious for the real release of Windows 10

As everyone knows by now, the new version of Windows will ship the end of July. I signed up and placed some earlier beta build (through the insider program) on a machines back in January but then had to move on to other efforts, so I never really got back to look at it closely. Over the weekend, I downloaded the latest prerelease and loaded it on an eight year old tablet I had sitting in a closet (an HP 2710P with 3 GB of RAM). Since this machine only had 3 GB of RAM, I loaded the 32 bit version.

I was shocked at how well it ran on this old hardware. All the features seem to function well: Cortana, OneDrive (in its new and slightly lobotomized form), Spartan … and even an enclosed version of OneNote. In fact, the machine seemed to work better than I ever remember it running under Windows 7! The pen interface worked well and the calibration capabilities were better than under Windows 7.

Overall, I am anxious to get my hands on the real thing. If it will only run on my Steam 7 (since I don’t have the ‘Get Windows 10’ icon on that tablet).

illustration courtesy of Microsoft

Voice recognition project completed at UTD

Every semester I try and work with some students at UTD by facilitating a ‘capstone’ project. It’s another dimension of my support for STEM education. Yesterday, they gave their presentation to their professor and class.

This semester the project was creating an Android based speech recognition solution to facilitate a Voice-based Inspection and Evaluation Framework. We shied away from using Google’s speech recognition, since we wanted off-line capabilities, as well as enhanced security/privacy. Addressing this expectation was one of the first issues the team had to conquer.

They were able to identify and implement an open source library providing the speech recognition (PocketSphinx). They also used Android.Speech.tts for text-to-speech interaction with the user.

The team created a visual programming environment to graphically define a flowchart and export that to an XML file that the mobile device was able to use to facilitate the inspection process. The mobile application could have a number of these stored for later use.

The end product was able to handle a range of speech recognition needs:

• Yes/no
• Answer from a list of valid responses (e.g., States)
• Answer with a number (range checked)
• Free form sound capture

Overall, I was very impressed with what these students were able to accomplish during the semester and the quality of the Software Life Cycle work products they were able to produce. Naturally, since we didn’t know exactly what they were going to be able to accomplish they used a modified agile approach – since they still had to produce the work products require for the class based on a predefined time table.  We incorporated the concept of designing specific sprints around producing those work products as well as the typical need to define, document and validate requirements.

I started the project while working at HP and Dave Gibson and Cliff Wilke helped facilitate it to the end (they are still with HP).

And not Or

I was in an exchange the other day with some folks talking about their perspective that all companies need to be using cloud computing. I agree, but my view is slightly different. My perspective is that depending on the company’s size, needs and applications they will likely continue to have in house systems. It’s not a choice between things, but a choice among things and an acceptance of the way things are and one answer doesn’t meet everyone’s needs. You can’t look at it as: clouds the answer, now what’s the question?

Mobile computing is similar. It is the future interface of the enterprise, not really something special anymore. Embracing mobile devices and cloud computing will have a game changing effect, but it is not about the infrastructure but what we do with them and people want to do those things everywhere.

There are a number of other trends taking place like the IoT that are also shifting how organizations think about computing. It is interesting how this term is changing and how various organizations are trying to name it. It used to be ubiquitous computing, some call it ambient computing, but most still use the Internet of Things.

In any case the aggregation of sensors, devices, intelligence, and agents will shift how organizations generate value and shift IT to focus on systems of action.

Internet of Things Units Installed Base by Category (in Millions)

Category	2013	2014	2015	2020
Automotive	96.0	189.6	372.3	3,511.1
Consumer	1,842.1	2,244.5	2.874.9	13,172.5
Generic Business	395.2	479.4	623.9	5,158.6
Vertical Business	698.7	836.5	1,009.4	3,164.4
Grand Total	3,032.0	3,750.0	4,880.6	25,006.6

Source: Gartner (November 2014)

Many still look at these opportunities primarily from an infrastructure perspective, but I definitely do not. It is about the business and the hardware side is a small (but necessary) part. Organizations that will compete effectively in the coming years are going to shift their thinking to “and” and not “or” foundation. It is not all about IT, but IT has a role in enabling this flexibility.

By the way the output of the And not Or logic circuit illustration is always a one –> true.

Service Innovations over time…

I was in an exchange with Jim Spohrer (of IBM) the other day about Service innovations and he gave me the following lists dealing with service innovations:

Top Ten Service Innovations in all of History
1. Division of Labor – an entity gets to do more of what they do best, and less of what they do less well
2. Cities – local concentration of division of labor, including security and protection
3. Writing – allows communications over distance and time
4. Written Laws – brings more objectivity into governance and justice
5. Money – brings efficiency into exchange transactions
6. Universities – local concentration of division of knowledge, including preparation of next generation
7. Democracy – collective decision making via voting (citizen -> decision)
8. Republics – two stage collective decision making via voting (citizen -> representative -> decision)
9. Checks – safer than carrying paper money
10. Banks – safe storage of money, and compound interest/loans

Top Ten Service Innovations of Last 100 years
1. Universal Education – increases capability of population, and allows more complex problem solving
2. Universal Service – even rural people can communicate, and have right to communicate efficiently
3. Rural Electrification – even rural people can have lighting and access to modern appliances
4. Credit Cards – convenience and safety
5. Loyalty Programs – incentives for usage
6. Franchises – standard service in multiple places
7. FedEx – overnight package delivery
8. Automobile Transportation – systems of filling stations, roads, laws
9. Internet & Worldwide Web – access to information
10.  Wireless Communication Networks – Radio & Television – conquest of distance and access to service

Top Ten Service Innovations of Last 10 years (or so)
1. Amazon – market for books and things
2. eBay – market for personal stuff
3. iTunes – market for music
4. Etsy – market for home made things
5. Uber – market for rides
6. AirBnB – market for rooms
7. Smart Phones & App Economy – access to information, communications, and other mobile services, including cognitive assistants
8. MOOCs – massively open on-line courses to augment education
9.  Mutual funds – finance investments that provide benefits of diverse portfolios
10. Global IT-enabled Outsourcing – division of labor between nations and large corporations

I’d add 3D printing to this list myself, but that may be just me.

Top Ten Service Innovations that broke out in 2014
1. TransferWise – lower transaction cost of transferring money
2. Coinbase – bitcoin digital wallet
3. Apple Pay – easier to pay money out
4. Lending Club – easier method to get investments in and out (founded in 2006)
5. Quirky – inventor community (started in 2009)
6. Bill.com – small business pay bills better (started in 2008)
7. Betterment.com (investment personal assistant)
8. Kickstarter – crowd funding (I think this actually started in 2009)
9.  Amazon Echo (home assistant)
10. Google Nest (home assistant) (actually the first Nest appears to be released in 2011)

Some things to think about…
What would be on your list? What should make the list for 2015? Do these innovations have anything in common?

First it was Windows and now Office for free on small devices?!?

I mentioned earlier this month my efforts to make a small Windows tablet useful. Now I see a story that Office will be free for small tablets, with an under 10″ screen size. This is definitely Microsoft making a statement that it is serious about getting a beachhead in the mobile space.

I wonder if they have a way of checking to see ways of accessing the ‘display’ from other devices. Or if there will be limitations that only permit editing and not content creation — although that would be rather short sighted if their goal is demand creation.

Networking in Dallas today, talking about mobility

Today, I had the opportunity to sit in on a Dallas Metroplex Technology Business Council meeting where Steve Reiter (EVP of Entegra) presented on: Mobility, the art of the possible. Steve and I go back a long time, so many of the items he discussed I immediately agreed with.

One of the statistics he used (that was new to me) was that there are more cell phones in the world than tooth brushes. Here are the best numbers I could come up with:

There are 7.13 billion people on the planet. 6.7 billion cell phone subscriptions, but only 4.2 billion toothbrushes, based on 2013 estimates. That doesn’t even get into the whole IoT phenomenon.

He mentioned was the need for a re-emergence of Reengineering (remember Reengineering the Corporation?). I’d bet that few if any business processes in corporations were built based on this level of mobility penetration, pointing back to the need to rethink enterprise architecture.

He also mentioned the fact that many businesses look at the capabilities of devices before they assess what they are really trying to do, that is definitely putting the cart before the horse. There have to be better approaches to bring these two trends together.

And the focus needs to be on delivering, what I’ve been calling the Right 6:

• having the right information
• at the right time
• from the right place
• in the right format
• to the right people
• most importantly driving the right result.

Low-cost dongle increases value of <$100 tablets

A while back Microsoft made a policy change that Windows will be free on small tablets. Because of that shift, I purchased an HP Steam 7 tablet for well under $100 (at the time I was working for HP). There are now a number of low-cost tablets on the market from a range of vendors (e.g. Dell Venue 8, HP Stream 8) that run full Windows 8.1.

One of the issues almost all of them have though is a single interface port – a micro-USB. Unfortunately, this is also used for charging and just plugging in a powered USB hub just doesn’t work to allow you to also connect to peripherals. So you can’t charge and access USB devices at the same time!

I came across a dongle from Dell (for about $20) that does exactly what I needed.

It lets me charge the tablet, while allowing me to plug in a powered USB hub and connect a mouse, my phone, a thumb drive… With the use of Mouse Without Borders I can even manipulate the cursor from my other PC – if needed. Right now I have this device controlling my 3D printer. Granted, it does charge it slowly but it is at least enough to keep up once fully charged.

Note the thumb drive attached and the tablet is still charging.

So the addition of the dongle took a nice, cheap tablet and turned it into a general purpose, portable workstation.

7 Questions to Help Look Strategically at IoT

There are still many people who view the Internet of Things as focused on ‘the things’ and not the data they provide. Granted there are definitely some issues with the thing itself, but there are also concerns for enterprise, like the need to monitor the flow of information coming from these things, especially as we begin to automate the enterprise response to events.

A holistic perspective is needed and these are the top issues I believe an organization needs to think through when digging into their IoT strategy:

1. What business value do the devices provide – independent of the data they collect?
   Having said that it is not really about the devices, it remains true that the devices should be delivering value in themselves – the data may be just a side effect of this role. Understanding those functions will increase the reliability and usefulness of the data over the long haul. No one wants to put an approach consuming a data stream just to have it dry up.
2. What access will the devices have to the enterprise?
   Is it bi-directional? If it is the security risk of the devices is significantly higher than those that just provide raw data. If a positive feedback loop exists, it needs to be reinforced and secure. If the data flow is too narrow for this level of security, the need for bi-directional information flow needs to be scrutinized – if the interaction is that valuable, it really needs to be protected. Think about the issue of automotive data bus attacks, as an example.
3. If attacked, how can the devices be updated?
   Does the devices support dynamic software updates and additions, if so how can those be delivered, by whom? Users of devices may download applications that contain malware, since it can be disguised as a game, security patch, utility, or other useful application. It is difficult for most to tell the difference between a legitimate application and one containing malware. For example, an application could be repackaged with malware and a consumer could inadvertently download it onto a device that is part of your IoT environment. Not all IoT devices are limited SCADA solutions, they may be smartphones, TVs… pretty much anything in our environment in the future.
4. How will the data provided be monitored?
   Wireless data can be easily intercepted. When a wireless transmission is not encrypted, data can be easily intercepted by eavesdroppers, who may gain unauthorized access to sensitive information or derived behaviors. The same may be true of even a wired connection. Understanding the frequency of updates and shifts in data provided is usually an essential part of IoT’s value, and it should be part of the security approach as well.
5. Can any personal or enterprise contextual information leak from the device connection?
   I blogged a while back about the issue of passive oversharing. As we enable more devices to provide information, we need to understand how that data flow can inadvertently build a contextual understanding about the business or the personnel and their behavior for other than the intended use.
6. Is the device’s role in collecting information well-known and understood?
   No one like the thought of ‘big brother’ looking over their shoulder. People can easily feel offended or manipulated if a device enters their work environment and provides data they feel is ‘about them’ without their knowing this is taking place. A solid communications plan that keeps up with the changes in how the data is used will be a good investment.
7. Who are all the entities that consume this data?
   As IoT data is used to provide a deeper contextual understanding of the environment, the contextual understanding may be shared with suppliers, partners and customers. These data flows need to be understood and tracked, like any consumer relationship, otherwise they may easily turn into a string of dominoes that enable unexpected shifts in results as they change. Awareness of enterprise context management will be growing in importance over the coming years – note that was not content management but context management.

All these issues are common to IT systems, but with an IoT deployment, the normal IT organization may only be able to influence how they are addressed.