It is always fun when developers build interesting tools on top of new innovations and products. Google released voice search for the desktop during its big search announcement on June 14 and since then a group of developers have been dreaming up new ways to make it useful and fun.
The product that emerged is called the Verbalizer out of the labs of Breakfast, a group of inventors in New York City. Verbalizer is an open source developer board that is functions as a microphone that will work with Google voice search and can be manipulated look like almost anything to perform searches.
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Breakfast says that, out of the box, touching any spot on the Verbalizer device will trigger a Google voice search from up to 10 meters away. So, imagine a computer monitor hanging on a wall in your living room. A construct could be set up where to cue the Verbalizer when you walk in the room and ask it to search for anything on the Internet, without sitting down to a keyboard.
Here is how Breakfast describes the Verbalizer:
"The Verbalizer connects wirelessly to your computer via Bluetooth and when triggered, opens google.com in a new tab and activates Voice Search. An audio notification is played signaling Google is ready for your query, which is spoken into the on-board mic. The board is Arduino compatible and we left some I/O pins open, so it's easy for anyone to jump in and create something nutty with it."
Breakfast held a working group earlier in the week so developers could put Verbalizer through the paces and create new uses for it. See the video below for what they came up with.
China's inland and maritime rivers and canals are now part of the Internet of Things. The Chinese maritime authority has outfitted cargo and passenger ships with RFID chips and has placed RFID readers at strategic locations.
Now, keeping track of the identify of ships, their speed and what they carry is automated, at least for a segment of the populous country's water traffic. Almost all waterways Grade IV and higher have been equipped, according to the People's Daily.
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The Maritime Safety Administration of China made this announcement recently, explaining that the tags use the Automatic Identification System, a maritime Internet of Things platform designed to track waterborne traffic.
The Maritime Safety Administration asserts that China will have 134,000 ships carrying the Automatic Identification System by July of next year.
Machine to machine (M2M) communication, from automobile monitoring systems to card-swiping dongles to Web-connected home appliances, something many people have been excited about for years, is finally hitting mainstream markets in a big way. But connected devices could be surpassed in importance by passive tracking of connected objects, due to cost and scaling constraints.
Mark Roberti, founding editor of the publication RFID Journal, writes in an editorial this month that while M2M communication has great potential, the "real value" for sensor technology lies in machine-to-object communication. The costs associated with requiring machine devices to actively transmit data about their status back to another machine (power, broadcast, etc.) will likely limit the deployment of that type of communication to contexts where fluctuations in data are extremely valuable in-and-of themselves. Using low-cost transponders to passively monitor changes in the status of objects will become far more common and important, Roberti argues.
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In order to illustrate his point, Roberti offers the example of a company that would monitor the amount of liquid in a container. You could put a wireless sensor in the container that would send a message back to a server periodically with information about how much liquid was inside, but that would be expensive. (If you came here to read about Facebook and Twitter, bear with us. "Liquid in a container" is relevant and points toward a very exciting future.)
Such a vision raises questions of consumer privacy, data ownership, silos vs effective cross-company development platforms, corporate vs consumer power and much more.
He continues:
"On the other hand, a firm could put passive ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) transponders inside a container at various levels. Since the liquid would interfere with the ability to read the tags, a company could determine liquid levels by ascertaining which tags can and can not be read...you can't put a Wi-Fi transmitter or a cell phone on every box of Tide detergent, bag of Granny Smith apples or Van Heusen shirt. Low-cost RFID tags will, one day, be put on all of these things, enabling M2O communication."
Leading wireless industry analyst Chetan Sharma detailed a similar vision to us in an interview earlier this year. (How 50 Billion Connected Devices Could Transform Brand Marketing & Everyday Life.) Sharma talked with us about cereal boxes with sensors inside them. Manufacturers could monitor those sensors to know when to prompt you to order more cereal (online, cutting out retail middlemen altogether) and to offer social, nutrition and communication features online or on your mobile device regarding your favorite brand of breakfast food.
Roberti says this will be a defining opportunity for the rest of the century.
"This change - enabling computers to see and understand what is happening in the real world - is enormous. Most people have yet to grasp it, seeing RFID as a more expensive alternative to bar codes. They don't comprehend that when computers can automatically collect information regarding what is happening in the world, new insights and business strategies then become possible. And the companies that leverage these capabilities most effectively will be the big winners in the century ahead."
Such a vision raises questions of consumer privacy, data ownership, silos vs. effective cross-company development platforms, corporate vs. consumer power and much more.
For now, though, let's simply consider that machine-to-object communication may, according to one very informed perspective, be the biggest game in town above and beyond social data and machine-to-machine communication in the fast-approaching data-centric future.
Perhaps it's time to start thinking about your machine-to-object strategy.
Can 'things' be social? That's been one of the most contentious questions around the Internet of Things (when real world objects are connected to the Internet). Several startups have tried to do this, including StickyBits, TalesofThings and Itizen. I've been skeptical of these efforts in the past, but a new product called ThingLink is taking a slightly different tack - and they may just be onto something.
ThingLink allows you to tag and link things in images. For example: tagging a chair inside an image, giving some information about its design, and linking the chair to the store that sold it. ThingLink calls this an "interactive hotspot." While the concept of tagging things in photos isn't new - Facebook, Flickr and others have been doing this for some time now - ThingLink's tagging is richer and offers a lot more information and linking possibilities.
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Why is ThingLink richer than tagging photos in Facebook? Because in addition to tagging an object within an image and linking it to a social network or web site, ThingLink can integrate information, videos and sound inside that image. So for example you can view a video from YouTube or listen to music from SoundCloud by hovering your mouse over a thing in an image and clicking a 'play' button.
(each round dot in the screenshot above points to a 'thing' with more information and links)
ThingLink: Much More Than Socializing Objects
ThingLink has evolved somewhat since we last mentioned them, back in February 2010 when it was in a private beta. At that time ThingLink's Ulla-Maaria Engeström explained that Thinglink was focused on defining the relationships people have with things - who made them, who designed them, who manufactured them, who sells them, who owns them, who likes them. She said that ThingLink was the "social graph of things" and that "every thing has their own social network."
Thinglink began in 2005 by giving things identities via their product codes, a.k.a. Unique Identifiers.
ThingLink is now public and it's not so narrowly focused on socializing objects, although that is still part of the plan. The main benefit to ThingLink seems to be that it offers granular contextual information about objects inside images, which is of most immediate benefit to retailers and suppliers. I think this is a much more viable business prospect than enabling social networks around objects, which is both a crowded market (StickyBits, TalesofThings, Itizen) and one with a dubious outlook. ThingLink has their sights set on a broader range of commercial use cases, which I think is very smart.
The below image, from a Tumblr blog called lovegolf, is a great example. It shows a variety of golfing equipment used by the professional golfer Michelle Wie. When you hover over each object, you get information about the object and optional links to more details. This image features a video of Wie and a link to her Twitter account (which you can follow from within the photo).
ThingLink is aiming to attract retailers and suppliers to tag their products in images and drive people to buy them. The company claims that their "average in-image campaign click-through rate (CTR) ranges from 1.5% to 5%." ThingLink also allows you to track how your tagged images are shared around the Web.
Can ThingLink Find its Market?
ThingLink reminds me a lot of Apture, a product we use on ReadWriteWeb to offer more contextual information. When you highlight a word or phase on our site, you see a 'Learn More' button which - when hovered over or clicked on - pops up a box with additional information like photos, videos and external links. In some ways, ThingLink is like an Apture for images.
Just as Apture has found a ready market in media publications and professional blogs, I believe ThingLink has a potentially large market in retailers and suppliers. It will also be useful for bloggers or media publications which use imagery a lot, such as food bloggers.
ThingLink currently offers plug-ins to the major blogging or publishing tools including Wordpress, Blogger, Tumblr and Drupal. I set it up on my Tumblr blog in a few minutes, so it's easy to get started.
If you want to test out ThingLink for yourself, follow these instructions:
Today at the Microsoft Mix event, an annual showcase of its latest web and mobile technologies, Microsoft announced an SDK (software development kit) for its motion-controlled gaming system Kinect. After launching in November 2010 on the Xbox, Kinect became the fastest selling electronics device ever - eclipsing the iPad in units sold. News of the Kinect SDK for Windows first came out in January and today Microsoft announced that it will be released in spring. The SDK will enable third party software to hook into Kinect. In other words, Kinect becomes a platform.
Nobody can accurately predict what apps will successfully use Kinect technology, but Microsoft showed a glimpse of the possibilities today with a Kinect-controlled armchair. What's most intriguing though is the probability that Kinect will become integrated into Microsoft's Windows OS and lead to the Next Big Thing in web user experience.
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It's easy to dismiss the Kinect armchair as a gimmick. Also, do we really need a chair that makes us even more lazy? Cue our future selves, as depicted in the Disney-Pixar movie Wall-E. But the technology behind the chair is really intriguing.
We're currently running a series about the evolution of the user experience in the post-PC world. The touchscreen is the primary user interface for a lot of these developments, thanks to the popularity of the iPhone and other smartphones that came after it. The Kinect SDK opens up the possibility that the next wave of innovation in user experience could come from motion controls, including gestures and sensors. Microsoft recently released details of "the guts" of Kinect technology, which shows just how sophisticated it is.
Kinect could well become an integral part of the Windows Operating System in the near future. Gesture controls will likely become as important as mouse controls in Windows. Indeed, at some point they will probably usurp the mouse. Anyone who's seen the movie Minority Report can easily visualize that.
At the very least, Kinect will be an important part of the Internet of Things in the near future. Imagine controlling the Internet-connected devices in your house - which soon will be everything from your fridge to your TV - using gestures. This is the kind of future that the Kinect SDK could eventually bring to reality. Developers have already been experimenting with motion-controlled concepts, so the SDK will make that exploration even easier.
It's important to note, however, that when Microsoft releases the Kinect SDK in spring, it will be restricted to use in non-commercial applications only. Also it will only run on Windows 7, the latest version of the Windows OS. So, initially at least, commercial and non-Windows apps cannot be created.
Microsoft is likely working out a way to license the technology, which may well be as a part of the next major Windows OS release. It obviously wants to make money from the Kinect technology, so releasing it on a non-commercial basis buys them some time to work out how to do that.
Let us know in the comments any ideas that you have for using the Kinect SDK.
Today at the Microsoft Mix event, an annual showcase of its latest web and mobile technologies, Microsoft announced an SDK (software development kit) for its motion-controlled gaming system Kinect. After launching in November 2010 on the Xbox, Kinect became the fastest selling electronics device ever - eclipsing the iPad in units sold. News of the Kinect SDK for Windows first came out in January and today Microsoft announced that it will be released in spring. The SDK will enable third party software to hook into Kinect. In other words, Kinect becomes a platform.
Nobody can accurately predict what apps will successfully use Kinect technology, but Microsoft showed a glimpse of the possibilities today with a Kinect-controlled armchair. What's most intriguing though is the probability that Kinect will become integrated into Microsoft's Windows OS and lead to the Next Big Thing in web user experience.
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It's easy to dismiss the Kinect armchair as a gimmick. Also, do we really need a chair that makes us even more lazy? Cue our future selves, as depicted in the Disney-Pixar movie Wall-E. But the technology behind the chair is really intriguing.
We're currently running a series about the evolution of the user experience in the post-PC world. The touchscreen is the primary user interface for a lot of these developments, thanks to the popularity of the iPhone and other smartphones that came after it. The Kinect SDK opens up the possibility that the next wave of innovation in user experience could come from motion controls, including gestures and sensors. Microsoft recently released details of "the guts" of Kinect technology, which shows just how sophisticated it is.
Kinect could well become an integral part of the Windows Operating System in the near future. Gesture controls will likely become as important as mouse controls in Windows. Indeed, at some point they will probably usurp the mouse. Anyone who's seen the movie Minority Report can easily visualize that.
At the very least, Kinect will be an important part of the Internet of Things in the near future. Imagine controlling the Internet-connected devices in your house - which soon will be everything from your fridge to your TV - using gestures. This is the kind of future that the Kinect SDK could eventually bring to reality. Developers have already been experimenting with motion-controlled concepts, so the SDK will make that exploration even easier.
It's important to note, however, that when Microsoft releases the Kinect SDK in spring, it will be restricted to use in non-commercial applications only. Also it will only run on Windows 7, the latest version of the Windows OS. So, initially at least, commercial and non-Windows apps cannot be created.
Microsoft is likely working out a way to license the technology, which may well be as a part of the next major Windows OS release. It obviously wants to make money from the Kinect technology, so releasing it on a non-commercial basis buys them some time to work out how to do that.
Let us know in the comments any ideas that you have for using the Kinect SDK.
For online radio service Pandora, the car was a logical place to take their web app. At a SXSW Interactive panel on connected cars, Jessica Steel of Pandora noted that radio is already a well established experience inside a car. "50% of all radio listening happens in the car," she said, so it was "a really important strategic destination" to bring Pandora into the vehicle.
This is the fourth post in our series looking at how the user experience (UX) of consuming media has changed with the increasing popularity of devices other than the PC. So far we've looked at music on smartphones, news apps on the iPad and RSS Readers on smartphones. Today we go well outside the traditional PC world, where the Web has only just begun to make inroads: the car.
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Pandora inside cars is an extension of its usage on smartphones. The app itself actually runs on a smartphone, although the user interaction is handled within the car dashboard - care of technology provided by car manufacturers like Ford and Chevrolet.
Jessica Steel, EVP of Business and Corporate Development at Pandora, explained the evolution. Pandora launched in 2005 as a Web browser service. After that, smartphones were an important extension for the company - beginning from when the iPhone was launched in 2007. On any given day now, she continued, "half of peoples' listening [on Pandora] is happening on a smartphone."
There are over 50 million people using Pandora on a smartphone, according to Steel, and "they're carrying that experience into the car." The company's challenge is to make listening to Pandora in the car "as seamless as interacting with radio in the car has always been."
To do this Pandora has invested in partnerships, such as Ford Sync, Chevrolet MyLink and others. The aim is to take the "command and control" of the app the user is carrying on their smartphone and "move it back into the head unit [of the car] - where it belongs." So from the dashboard of the car, the user can pull up the station list, select a station, thumb up a song, discover music and more. Here's a video demonstration from Ford (it starts off by demonstrating the old method, then moves to the newer dashboard integrated technology):
Although features like thumbing up or down a song aren't necessarily mandated by Pandora for their partners to include, both Ford and Chevrolet provide the main Pandora features. The only real difference is that the app is 'driven' from the dashboard, rather than the phone.
Development Environment Isn't Easy
Although we're focusing on the user experience in this series, it's worth pointing out that it takes a lot more effort to bring web apps into an environment like the car. The development platform in any given car is usually not as simple as on a smartphone like Android.
Steel explained that for just a single car line for one automotive OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer), there may be 3 or 4 suppliers that Pandora needs to work with to make the product work.
"It's a big investment" in terms of engineering resources and effort, but "there's nothing more strategic" right now to Pandora than to make that investment.
Driver & Passenger Safety
A big part of the SXSW panel on connected cars was about how to ensure the safety of users in the car. As we all know, smartphones and other Internet-connected devices can be a distraction from other activities. Nick Pudar,
VP of Business Development at
OnStar (a subsidiary of GM), commented that driver distraction is a key issue with car apps.
Because radio was already a mainstay in the vehicle, Pandora felt that they were not pushing new behavior. However, Jessica Steel emphasized that interactions have to be as seamless for Pandora in the car, as on a traditional car radio. To do this the company invested in a technology it called Pandora Link. Steel explained that this "allows the manufacturers of radio head units to write the software to take over control of the phone; and put the command and control of Pandora back into the head unit."
Here's Pandora integrated, in the latest touchscreen format, inside Chevrolet cars (skip to 1:20 for the demo):
It's interesting to note that Pandora itself doesn't control the user interaction of its app inside the car. In fact, the OEMs are the ones making the decisions about user interaction for Pandora in the car. This implies that the user experience is slightly different in each model of car, which is an issue that web apps in cars will need to be wary of. Inconsistent user experience has traditionally been a common form of frustration for consumers in the computing world.
Conclusion: Get Ready For Hundreds of Connected Devices!
The car is just one example of real-world objects becoming increasingly connected to the Internet, part of a trend we track closely at ReadWriteWeb called the Internet of Things. Indeed, Pandora is already on "200 plus home consumer electronics devices," according to Jessica Steel. Including a refrigerator!
Do you use Pandora inside your car? If so we'd love to know about your user experience, in the comments.
Every Thursday evening PT we'll be reviewing Internet of Things developments from the past week. Internet of Things is a term for when everyday objects are connected to the Internet. It's becoming an increasingly relevant trend for the Web and media, so we want to keep you updated with the latest news. Tune in every Thursday evening for our updates.
This week we discuss the impending Internet address apocalypse, RFID's sweet spot, why the U.S. is behind China on IoT, emotional sensors, and more!
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11 More Days Until the Internet Runs Out of (IPv4) Addresses
We're talking about IPv4 addresses, Internet Protocol version 4. There is a new version, IPv6, but it requires work from ISPs and others to enable it. The reason why this is important is that the Internet of Things is leading to a huge increase in IP addresses. Basically, every object connected to the Internet requires at least one IP address. So the adoption of IPv6 is a key technology in the Internet of Things.
RFID: Retail is the Sweet Spot
According to a report on WTN News, demand for RFID will continue to mature in 2011 - especially in the retail, healthcare, banking/financial and aerospace sectors. Joe Pleshek wrote:
"Retail [...] is currently the sweet spot for RFID, especially with apparel retailers, who are applying RFID to individual garments to limit out -of-stocks, reduce shrink and re-direct labor from the back room to more customer-facing roles."
Drew Nathanson, senior RFID analyst and director of research operations at VDC Research Group, expects the retail industry to consume at least 3.4 billion RFID tags by 2014 - up from 400 million in 2011.
Sensors Getting Better: Emotional Sensors
An interesting report from MobiHealthNews this week discusses the latest in sensor innovation. According to Dr. Joseph Kvedar, director of the Center for Connected Health at Partners HealthCare System in Boston, an area to keep an eye on in sensor technology is what he calls "non-physiologic" sensors. By that he means sensors that are not measuring something physical. He cited a couple of products that do emotional sensing: Cogito has a product that can predict mood by sensing a user's voice over the phone; and Affectiva has technology to pick up a person's emotional state either by facial recognition or by a more traditional armband sensor (see image to the right, via MobiHealthNews).
Kvedar noted that "we've had too limited of a view of what we can collect from patients remotely and these emotional sensors add a whole new dimension to the objective data part of the connected health story."
Why the U.S. is Behind China in IoT
We've reported on the China government's forward thinking in the Internet of Things. In a recent post by Ron Callari on the blog inventorspot.com, Robert Kong Hai, an American writer and author living in China, neatly summarized why the U.S. is falling behind China:
"You can't rely on the US government to push this technology. It's the private sector that has to step up. Remember, in China it's the total opposite. The government jumps in and the private sector take cues from the government."
Kinect may be the Key to Control Your Internet of Things
Earlier this week we reported that Microsoft is preparing an official Software Developement Kit (SDK) that will let 3rd parties build any Windows software to include Kinect control support. Kinect is a motion-control interface for games, much like Nintendo's Wii system. This has implications for all Internet-enabled objects in your household. Forrester analyst James McQuivey said at the end of last year that "Kinect is to multitouch user interfaces what the mouse was to DOS." He expects Kinect to be "a transformative change in the user experience, the interposition of a new and dramatically natural way to interact -- not just with TV, not just with computers -- but with every machine that we will conceive of in the future..."
New AMD Chips Enable Visual Computing in Embedded Systems
Mike Vizard at CTOEdge reported this week that "the world of embedded systems is going to get a whole lot more visually-oriented." He pointed to Advanced Micro Devices unveiling its G-Series of accelerated processing units (APUs). These add graphics functionality into an embedded processor, which can be deployed almost anywhere. Vizard noted that Microsoft uses AMD processors in its Surface systems, the touch-screen table interface.
"According to Cameron Swen, senior product marketing manager for AMD's embedded solutions division, the world of embedded systems is about to become more visual because people want to interact with these systems, whether they are deployed on a factory floor or your living room. That means these systems will increasingly need to support touchscreen interfaces that allow customers to manipulate graphical images."
Connect Your Mailbox to the Internet
We're not talking about your inbox, we mean Ye Olde Mailbox - you know, where all your bills get delivered. As RWW's Mike Melanson reported today, Make Magazine has hacked together a system that sends push notifications to your iPhone every time a letter arrives. The project uses a switch in the mailbox to sense whenever the door is opened.
That's a summary of some Internet of Things highlights from the past week. Feel free to share in the comments other interesting Internet of Things developments that you spotted this week.
Correos, Spain's postal authority, in conjunction with the company Macanudos, has released a QR-coded stamp that you can scan with your mobile phone.
Although it is not the first such stamp to be released by a national postal organization, it is the first is available to private companies to use for promotion.
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Macanudos is a mobile marketing company out of Granada, Spain. They are working with the Spanish post office to extend a postal campaign begun in 2007. That campaign allows private companies to promote their brands in conjunction with the country's stamps. First out of the gate is a QR proof-of-concept, said the company's press release.
"The Spanish postal stamp consists of a QR code that, when scanned with a mobile phone and with right software will redirect the phones browser to an Internet address in which the user will be able to view a video, in this case, about the Alhambra of Granada."
"Tu Sello," or "Your Stamp" is the program that allows private companies, as well as independent governmental and non-profit organizations, to take advantage of the ubiquity of stamps to promote themselves, thereby shoring up the post office's bottom line as well. You may be able to scan future letters in and from Spain to get deals on ski equipment or information on wines from local vintners.
Pachube Founder & CEO Usman Haque called this "a major step in making the 'internet of things for consumers' a reality."
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We've long been a fan of Pachube (pronounced Patch-Bay) and named it one of our Top 10 Internet of Things Products of 2009. Pachube is an open platform for sensor data. We first reviewed it in May last year and since our last update in October, Pachube has followed through on Haque's promise to develop a viable business model. The Current Cost partnership is a part of that evolution.
The Move From Experimental to Commercial
One of the most exciting things about covering the Internet of Things, is watching the slow but gradual move from experimental apps to commercial ones. I watched - and blogged - this same evolution in the years before Web 2.0 existed (2002-2004) and it's happening again in 2010 with the Internet of Things. Startups like Pachube are literally inventing the business models as they go.
As we've noted in previous posts, up till now Pachube has been mostly used for experimental applications. However, Current Cost may be its first important commercial case study. The Current Cost 'Bridge' enables users to analyze their energy use via a website dashboard, on iPhones and other smart phones, and via Google's energy service, Google PowerMeter.
Pachube is being used for data management on the Bridge, enabling the device to deliver tracking, notifications, comparison tools, and more. The Bridge also has "enterprise level features" such as privacy groups, statistics API, user management and a device provisioning server.
Pachube's New Revenue Models
Pachube now has what it terms a "corporate" service - essentially a third party service for companies that want to connect devices to the Internet. For example Pachube provides bulk accounts to "web-enable thousands or millions of devices," such as electricity meters. Other services include delivering 'out-of-the-box' tools for consumer-facing companies, building communities around
products, and developing branded web portals for manufacturers.
In addition, Pachube has added premium accounts to its consumer service offering. These include "value-added features" such as privacy options, statistics/aggregation, greater bandwidth,
history and search.
It's great to see Pachube develop its business and we'll continue to track its efforts!
China's inland and maritime rivers and canals are now part of the Internet of Things. The Chinese maritime authority has outfitted cargo and passenger ships with RFID chips and has placed RFID readers at strategic locations. 
Machine to machine (M2M) communication, from automobile monitoring systems to card-swiping dongles to Web-connected home appliances, something many people have been excited about for years, is 
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This is the kind of future that the Kinect SDK could eventually bring to reality. Developers have 
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Earlier this week we reported that 
This week at the 2nd annual 
