Month: April 2020

COVID-IoT Day

We’ve been celebrating #IoTDay since 2013, and this year is certainly the most particular, as we and our fellow global citizens all find ourselves impacted by COVID-19, declared a pandemic four weeks ago. Social distancing and stay-at-home measures mean that many people experience a sense of physical isolation, while the Internet of Things (IoT), which today we celebrate, is very much about physical connectivity.

We would have loved to welcome everyone to celebrate #IoTDay2020 in our reelyActive Parc living lab which we share with GénieLab, and that is why our initiative this year is as close to the real thing as we could get: a walkthrough of the space and its many radio-identifiable and connected “things”, augmented by a novel web application which displays their digital twins based on real-time proximity.

What’s exciting for us this year, and as you might recognise in the video, is that for the first time we can share a broadly accessible IoT experience. The reason we can do this is because of standards: there are almost certainly Bluetooth devices around you, these have digital twins (in some form) online, and you have a connection to the Internet and experience browsing the Web. We simply stitched all that together: Web meets IoT. The missing link all these years was Web Bluetooth Scanning, which allows a web browser to radio-identify the devices associated with people, products and places in proximity.

Imagine if that missing link was developed and made available almost five years ago when it was first announced (as Scanning for nearby BLE advertisements)? Imagine if the average person’s first IoT experience was simply clicking a “What’s Around Me?” button while browsing—both physically and online—a shop, allowing them to find what they’re looking for with the optimal combination of both feet and thumbs!?! Imagine if by the Web’s thirtieth birthday it had already extended to the physical fabric of our daily lives.

Imagine if the average person readily embraced the IoT as a logical extension of the Web.

We emphasise that what if? scenario because it is not difficult to imagine how a truly widespread adoption, understanding and acceptance of the IoT would greatly benefit all humanity as we collectively combat the current pandemic crisis. Consider the quote at the top of this article by Kevin Ashton, who coined the term Internet of Things in 1999, in the context of the global situation as of April 2020. Does it apply equally well to the traceability of infected patients as it does to the supply chain of personal protective equipment? It sure does.

And, fortunately, people are taking note and initiatives are taking shape. Countless independent groups have formed to tackle peer-to-peer mobile interaction detection, equipment tracking, occupancy analytics and more. We’re supporting them as broadly as we can by documenting best practices, accelerating our open source software development, sharing experiences, and of course continuing to evangelise our vision of ubiquitous machine-contextual awareness (i.e. Web + IoT) at the service of humanity.

Today, on IoT Day 2020, take the time to explain to a friend or colleague the Internet of Things in light of the current pandemic. When we emerge from this crisis, together we’ll emerge stronger, more receptive and better connected than ever, both figuratively and literally.

Oui, oui. Our office is Crap!

We kicked off 2020 in an awesome new space which we called Parc (Parc Avenue Research Centre). Perhaps because we were so backed up with work in Q1, we neglected to translate the name to French. To kick off Q2, today on April 1st, 2020, we proudly invite you to say “bonjour” to Crap, the «Centre de recherche de l’avenue du Parc» !

Crap:   le centre de recherche de l’avenue du Parc

For those less familiar with the linguistic dynamics of our native Montréal, just over half of all citizens speak French as a mother tongue, one in eight speak English as a mother tongue, and countless other languages make up the significant balance. At the office we typically speak French, when conducting international business we communicate in English and at home, often something else! The beauty of this balance being that we can offer our guests either a tour de Crap or a Parc tour, as they prefer!

That being said, the COVID-19 pandemic means our guests can’t enjoy immersing themselves in our Crap experience for the foreseeable future. Nonetheless, to celebrate this Crap announcement, we’d like to share what you can expect on a Crap tour, once we’re back to regular life.

As you pass through the Crap entrance, your senses are likely to be overwhelmed by PP (Présences Périphériques), a generative art installation that transforms ambient wireless packets into sound and light sequences. In fact the entire entrance is packed solid with works by Crap artists, including the imposing face of AI See You, reminding each of us how AI is beyond Crap, pervasive in our daily lives.

Next, as you pass into the open office space, your gaze may shift to the Crap displays which highlight just how much Crap is connected. One displays the digital twins of the Crap occupants, another uses Sniffypedia to display what else our Crap contains. In this Crap corner you’ll find the reelyActive workspace where the team often work on their stools.

We share Crap with our Crap colleagues génielab., and, when their team are making a big push, you can often find their Crap projects spread throughout the rest of the space. We’re not ashamed to welcome visitors in such a Crap state as it is very much part of the Crap culture of a living lab where continuous change and emergence are celebrated, not suppressed. Otherwise we’d be showing our guests the same Crap over and over!

A Crap visit wouldn’t be complete without a peek down the hall into the workshop where one can close the door and literally make Crap without disturbing others. Next door, a sound studio is taking shape from where, once complete, signature Crap sounds will surely emanate. There’s also a Crap conference room, but, for now, it is just that: a conference room. But perhaps that will change if one of us has some Crap idea by the time we are once again able to welcome Crap guests!

That said, you’d be foolish not to add yourself to our Crap waiting list, which has been impacted by the pandemic, so get in touch! We look forward to welcoming you sooner than later at our Crap front door, the movement of which is detected by our Crap technology (really, it is). By then we’ll have plenty of Crap analytics to share with you too!

Crap jokes aside, stay healthy and maintain a sense of humour: Ça va bien aller!