Everything Connected at SolidCon 2015
From June 24–26, O’Reilly media hosted SolidCon at the Fort Mason Center in San Francisco. The goal of SolidCon is to articulate and expand how the Internet of Things (IoT) is evolving into a larger than life platform. The event included thought provoking speeches, IoT adapted art installations, remodeled race cars, and an entire manufacturing floor of 3D printers among other novel approaches to engaging with the technical field of connected devices.
My personal IoT journey began last year while living in Shenzhen China where most of the hardware we use in our daily lives is manufactured. At the time, I was pioneering an app to help young Chinese transplants connect offline at social dinners in a strange new city. Food, just like technology is a tool that can be used to communicate and enact change on a large scale due to its universal nature.
I’ve since transitioned from organizing the consumption of food to innovating the production of food. My goal is to bring urban farming to the masses with lo-tech devices that balance and blend our rituals and surroundings.
The IoT revolution amplifies our connection to the physical world with data and automation. The dream of transcending from manufactured scarcity into a reality that we define only by the limits of our creativity is what motivates me to dive deeper into the cultural, economic, and technical implications of giving more power to more tribes of people to design, build, and improve a dysfunctional world.
While I only got to spend one day engaging with other curious vendors and attendees, I was able to compile my experience and thoughts.
“This story is meant to serve as an introductory overview of the moving spheres of innovation that make up the Internet of Us. “
Keynotes
Cory Doctorow, famous author and commentator on technology’s influence on culture asked the question “Who will the internet of things work for?” Tampering with DRM is now a felony offense. Don’t even think about hacking your iphone. Even when companies make faulty products, it’s in their best interest to let people expose the flaws and bugs inherent in the human made design. Cory Doctorow highlighted this problem with outlandish but true examples of sub prime leased cars that break down when their “owners” drive outside country lines, to computers that rig John Deere tractors to be fixed only by paying exorbitant amounts for John Deere corporate to restore the machine. ( Watch the full 20 minute youtube video here )Warning: The suit and LED screen clash is hard on your retinas.
But not all is lost. Cory Doctorow mentions many organizations that are supporting the cause for an open source IoT including his own Electronic Frontier Foundation that is fighting for a more democratic and robust internet.
Be it large corporations or even sovereign nation states, we all need to be vigilant and vocal about the technologies we are increasingly depending on for day to day society to function.
Hardware These are the tangible devices deployed out in the real world. Manufacturing for the past 30 years has been confined to the Pearl River Delta in China. Now 3D printing, low cost microcomputers and open source manufacturing is redefining where and how hardware comes to market.
Wi-Fi Ready Microprocessors At the door, Solidcon was already winning me over with schwag. Every attendee received a free photon, a tiny wi-fi ready microprocessor that retails for $20. The photon was the first product from Particle (formerly known as Spark), a San Francisco and Minneapolis based company that launched out of the Shenzhen hardware accelerator HAX. Right out of the box, Particle gets users hands on with a simple LED tutorial. One drawback to Particle is that the hardware needs to use the Particle specific developer backend which means a new language and a smaller internal ecosystem.
IoT Platforms What infrastructure is going to be powering all these computerized and connected devices? If you are a hardware or software person, you don’t want to worry about buidling all the networking functionality, APIs, device compatibility, and server maintenance. In comes the platforms.
A few (not all) major differentiations between these different platforms are
- What type of computer on a chip your system is based on
- How many devices you are running and for what purpose
- Is this an amateur or enterprise scale operation.
A few of the platforms on hand at the conference were
Resin- Linux based operating system
IoTInventor- Prototyping and deploying DIY devices. Easy to setup, easy to build, just plain easy.
MODE- Started by Twitter veterans that focuses on automation and being developer friendly.
3D Printers FDM is out. Resin is in. Wait what does that even mean? FDM is fused deposition modeling. You have probably seen this with mainstream printers like Makerbot and Replicator where each layer of the mold is added by a robotic arm spitting out hot melted plastic. Resin printing however is a whole different beast. These printers shoot photon lasers through mirrors into a pool of liquid resin to create shapes at higher detail and a faster rate than traditional printers.
Formlabs Their flagship 3D printer is the Form1+ and has been on the market for some time.
Kast- New on the scene, this lower cost resin printer option is launching a Kickstarter very, very soon.
Foodtech I’m always on the lookout for products that bridge the gap between how and where are food is produced and consumed. Here are a few companies that are bringing analytics, insight, and automation to the farm.
TechRice uses an above ground sensor box to monitor metrics like humidity, water level, rainfall, and temperature to help farmers in Japan to better manage their rice fields. The average age of farmers in Japan is over 60 years old. In the U.S. that number is slightly lower at 58 years old. One of the challenges of bringing farmtech to the farm is tech fluency among the older demographic.
Cloudponics is an all in one grow system from seed to fully matured plant. Retailing for $1000 USD, Cloudponics is first focusing on the cannabis growing market. This makes financial sense. The founders reasoned that if you are a heavy consumer, this will pay for itself in a year. You won’t get that kind of return on kale or cucumbers. This is`good timing for the company since a new recipe for using baby marijuana leaves to make a potent THC smoothie has recently been discovered. Also the state of Oregon has just approved a bill that lets citizens grow up to four plants legally!
Popup Factory 游击工厂 is bringing the power of a full scale factory to your doorstep. Similar to local motors in that you become a prosumer, that is someone who is a participant in the design manufacturing and deployment of the product. The popup factory was orchestrated by hardware manufacturer SEEEDStudio with the main objective to showcase the journey from prototype to product using a shared supply chain and agile manufacturing. An entire factory distilled into a one stop shop for anything and everything required to make a physical product a reality.
Partnering with the Popup Factory was Alike to make wearable wristbands that enhance offline interactions. While this bracelet was being 3D printed and assembled onsite at the conference, I was filling out what my hobbies are on a simple app interface connected to a tiny computer chip inside my one of a kind bracelet.
Once the bracelet was strapped on my wrist with an elastic band, I would tap bracelet to bracelet with other people I met to see if we had overlapping interests. If there was an interest match, the bracelet would light up green. If we had nothing in common, a red light would flash. I came to the conclusion that since I didn’t select “security” as an interest, I kept on flashing red when I would meet developers and engineers. Either way this is an ingenious trick to bridge awkward meetings with strangers.
Taking this a step further, it would be great if in the future different social media channels can be linked, so that your interactions can continue beyond the conference enabling better follow up with new friends and contacts.
Looking Forward
As the IoT universe grows to billions of devices running trillions of transactions, the blockchain platform will become more important to ensuring that this new ecosystem and economy remains stable and scalable. For future Solidcon events I would love to see talks and products on not only alternative currencies, but also decentralized automous organizations.
One of the most inspiring and entertaining stories of the event was by Quentin Mitchell, a rally care driver and inventor from Kenya who turns underdog cars into tech infused super beast machines. Including more global voices of how people are using IoT to leapfrog over traditional barriers is riveting and will draw a more diverse crowd as this industry continues to grow the world over.
Thanks to the team at O’Reilly Media for putting this event together, and to all the vendors for entertaining and educating the attendees. Looking forward to more exciting stories as this epic saga of humans and technology converging continues to unfold.
This is an ongoing discussion so please leave your thoughts in the comments section below on the progress and challenges of evolving our society, culture, and economics to a world in which everyone is a creator.
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Thanks for stopping by,
Anthony Paglino
