Hobgoblins, Eye of Newt and USB Gremlins
Posted by Mike Fahrion on Thu, Oct 27, 2011 @ 04:00 AM
We are spirits
in the material world
-The Police
Dear Friend and Subscriber,
Halloween and its less-famous counterpart, All Saints Day, are both celebrations of the invisible and immaterial.
There is more to the world than what you can see and touch.
I wrote that in my Halloween e-letter 5 years back – I’m recycling because it ties in nicely with today’s rather phantom-like topic.
I’ll start with the philosophical, then we’ll talk tech.
Forgive my geek profiling, but we Engineers aren’t exactly thought leaders in the shadowy world of cultural and emotional change. That’s ironic because engineers are the force that starts the avalanche of change. Hunters to farmers, farms to factories, laborers to knowledge workers. All instigated by engineers without even a premonition that their designs - innovative applications of current technology - were the equivalent of kicking a rock over the edge of a mountainside – triggering landslides of change throughout society.
We’ve done it again.
Historically, decades or even generations passed before history was able to look back and identify the resulting dramatic shifts in society. That implies that you and I might not know if we’re in the grips of one of those otherworldly events right now.
Spooky.
I bet I’d scare the britches off some if I told them that we are smack in the middle of what history will call the biggest and fastest transition in our society yet. It’s a Trick or Treat paradigm. Those spooked by change will have a rough ride. For change thrill-seekers – hang on to your broomsticks.
We’re in the middle of a new world of transactions that exist only in an ethereal world. Embedded sensors everywhere. Machines connecting automatically. Real life data tagging massive databases in real time. These ghostly transactions already rule our economy. And with just a bit of imaginative conjuring (and one eye of newt), I foretell that this is just the beginning of things to come.
The ability for machines to talk to each other is no longer cutting edge – but the critical factors of size, cost, computing power and network reach are enabling a rate of change that is massive – yet most of it is happening quietly behind the misty shroud of technology.
I had the opportunity to spend last week on the far side of the former Iron Curtain. As my passport was scanned by the grim-faced customs agent I pondered which event created more automated communications – my traveling through customs or my last Redbox movie rental. (I pondered, but I did not ask).
Or, think about what happens when you drive through an automated tollway. A scanner ID’s the RFID tag in your car. A camera captures an image of you, your car and your license plates. Image processing instantly reconciles your plate against multiple databases – some of which you voluntarily signed on to. Matched data is reflected on your financial account, which pulls automatically from your credit card as needed. Exception notifications are sent via email, which you may receive on your phone within seconds. Imagine what time and man-hours that process would have consumed 5, 10 or 20 years ago?
It wouldn’t be hard to write a chapter – or even a book – playing out all of the creative, innovative and sometimes frightening extensions of that simple transaction above – all using technology that’s readily available today to gather data and assemble a tremendous amount of business intelligence.
Interesting stuff. Think of it as a parallel to the heyday of factory automation. In the tail end of the last century we automated manufacturing. Today we’re automating the business and social processes of our lives.
Thrilling? Chilling? Talk back – I’d like to hear what you think of this new wave of automation and where it will take us.
Here’s another spooky topic. More videos from yours truly.If you missed my Ghostbridge video, now is a great time to go check out how you can put in a high performance wireless Ethernet link quicker and easier than you can hang a picture. No wireless Hobgoblins required.
And today a 2nd act. This month’s video is a brain dump of my experience with what you must do to make USB reliable when you take it off the desktop. (And there will be no extra credit points earned for picking out my acronym screw-up). We’re having great success with our line of rugged USB isolators, hubs and converters. More importantly – we’re getting reports back from customers that our USB products are working in harsh environments where all others are failing.
And finally, a treat. Just a couple weeks back B&B Electronics acquired Quatech. This is thrilling stuff. Quatech brings great talent to the B&B family along with a deep range of rugged WiFi products and capabilities, along with a set of solutions and distribution partners around the world there to make it easier than ever to get your hands into the B&B cauldron of goodies.
Happy Halloween!
Mike Fahrion