A lovely things story

So, imagine today feasible situation:

I have internet connection at my home and I have an smart-phone that allows me to be connected to internet in almost everywhere. I participate in some social networks, I have my own blog and I use many kind of services provided by the www-world. My ISP (internet service provider) gave me a wifi router for free when they installed the cable allowing to access wirelessly to internet. (common man – common ISP services). But short time ago somebody told me on a router which besides that functionality it also allowed to build a domestic wireless sensor network in an easy manner. He gave me the name of what he called “a cloud based platform” so I typed it on Google and started to investigate on this product.

Wifi Routers

The first thing I noticed is that if I was willing to create a wireless network of sensors I could do it by downloading and installing a new free firmware (I would call it better "middleware") in the case that I had one of the specific brand of routers listed in their web. In this case I only had to buy a kind of usb antenna and the wireless sensors. But that was not the case and, after making some others inquiries, I finally bought a pack including a router with an embedded sensor network technology, a set of sensors and IP cameras (2 movement detectors, 2 power plugs that allow to measure energy consumption and on/off function, 2 magnetic sensors, 1 CO and smoke detector and 2 cameras).

I substituted the router I had and configured the wifi network and connection to internet. Easy through the web server that all wifi routers include.

To configure the sensor network I have first of all to open a new account in a specific web address mentioned in the documentation. I did. I introduced my personal data and, as I was connected through my new router, the system automatically recognized the gateway (the very router). I named it as “my” home. Now I had a control panel permitting me basically:

1. install sensors
2. manage sensor and scenarios
3. configure performance rules and alerts
4. define my social graph to share information and alerts

Even before starting to install my sensors I already had access to a multitude of them because their owners had labeled them as public. So I could started to configure some scenarios from the information belonging to others entities. I could know the energy consumption of a green building situated in Holland or be informed on the gamma radiations of the surroundings of the nearest nuclear-power facility. I even could know the gps coordinates for each line city bus in Helsinki. I thought this last was useless to me as I do not live there but I thought this numbers could be converted in a real time position on a map and maybe in the future a similar service would be offered in my town.

Windmill

I installed my sensors. The only thing I had to do is to push a button on each sensor to link them to the network. The option for installing sensors on the control panel guided me during all the time and finally asked for a name for each of them. Done. I had the information gathered from my private sensors in the cloud and my private control panel web application was showing it.

The next step was to put the wireless sensors and cameras in the right place inside my apartment. While doing so I already had in mind which would be the rules of performance of the whole system and knew the conditions defining the contexts I wanted to monitor and related actions. I easily created a new scenario and introduced those rules and actions with the help of a rules editor provided by the web application. The web application offered me a set of predefined rules/performances I could choose and configure that was based on the type of sensors I had installed but I preferred to define my own ones. Done, I had now a basic security system installed at my home that would always alert me, and depending on the specific circumstances – predefined context – sometimes will alert to some of my relatives and sometimes to some of my neighbors. The ways all of them would be alerted were through one of several of the following: sms, phone call, mobile&web app and through some traditional social networks. And it took about one hour to install it. Great.

Plug&Play (picture from domotica.net)

At this moment the site suggested me to download and install some smart phone applications. That would allow me to access to the system everywhere and, additionally to the mentioned ways, being alerted by the application too. There was a huge list of applications rated by popularity and classified by phone operating system. There was also an option to show the most suited application depending on the devices I had installed. I used it and I chose the most popular one. That app basically implemented the same functionality than the web app I already was using. The scenario and the rules I created through the web browser were already there.

Android Market (picture from islabit.com)

I thought the best was the price: compared to what was being offered by some security companies, the equipment cost to me around 60% less and the service ten times less. I have not an alert center service but I was alerted directly and some relatives or neighbors at my discretion. It was enough to me.

But the best was arriving.

I soon realized (well, I already knew) that I could add other kinds of devices non related to security issues. I bought two temperature&humidity ground sensors to install in the base of some plant pots I have in the balcony so, with an electronic valve I also bought, I could water the plants, only when they were thirsty!. I talk about this to a friend that run a little winery that have his own vineyards and uses to stress the stocks to obtain a better quality. Fortunately there is a router with embedded 3G technology that has no need of land communication network. He is trying the system now and the last time we met he was delighted by the first results and by the dramatic reduction of costs compared to other similar systems he had been offered – and installed – before. He is now thinking and researching on how to apply other types of sensors and actuators on their production. He thinks that now that he has the freedom to create rules of governance and the availability of many kinds of sensors in the market – as trunk diameter, stem diameter, fruit diameter, dampening sheet or luminosity sensor, among others – he is able to try different techniques, improving the productivity and quality of the whole production and making it in a quick and comfortable manner.

One of the things (I) most valuated from the beginning was the openness of the platform to the installation of any type of sensor regardless of the manufacturer providing it, and to the development of new applications by developer communities. As the site of the platform explained, the system was opened to any manufacturer willing to join it by using the public API the middleware (firmware) of the gateway provided. But if you wanted to be sure for full compliant devices and work in the easy way I explained in the above paragraphs you should choose among the gadgets from a list of certified products the site issued. There was a lot of them from many manufacturers.

Among the applications developed by the community I found one related to the weather. A company was using the platform to install their weather related sensors around the city I currently live and it had developed a complex algorithm using the information coming from the mentioned devices and the gps of the telephone. The app, now running on my phone, is able to implement an amazing accurate rain radar within the range of next six hours and for the whole city (extremely better than the existing weather apps). I like to practice sports as tennis and basketball , I do it outdoors and the courts are 20 minutes away from my home so I find this application particularly useful as it already avoided some unnecessary trips to me. Green app!.

Other useful gadget I found was the fall detector/heart rate/panic button wristband device. My father lives with us and he is eighty two. Short time ago he fell accidentally while staying at home. As he used to live alone he was lied down on the floor for several hours. I bought the wristband, pushed the network link button and automatically I had the information on the application. I created a new scenario and a new rule to be alerted if a fall was detected, the panic button was pushed or the heart rate dropped under a predefined value. I am more peaceful minded now when I am at work and he is alone.

(from forodefotos.com)

This last made me think on the advantages this platform could provide to the health services. I can imagine chronic disease patients to choose being monitored from their own homes, shorting their staying in the hospitals and reducing the number of required visits to the GPs. I can imagine health insurance companies to foster this platform as it improves the quality of life of their customers while cutting the hospital staying and the home hospital assistance fees. I can imagine an improvement in the quality and in the efficiency of the public health services.

The platform is only limited by what the sensors can measure, what the actuators can made and the imagination of the users and developers. So we could say “almost without fences”. e.g. Environmental Surveillance: a “green” association is selling a set of sensors to monitor people closest surrounding. Under the slogan “Would the earth be the same if it could speak to us?” the association aims to make aware to people on the planet pollution situation and related climate change by sharing information coming from particulars and/or organizations sensors through the drawing of a real time world map free of tendentious interpretations. The platform gives a percentage of the benefits obtained by the use of these sensors to the “green” association.

But it is easy to think on other fields the platform could be useful: Automotive, Telecommunications, Intelligent Buildings, Pharmaceutical, Retail, Logistics, Supply Chain Management, Manufacturing, Product Lifecycle Management, Food traceability, Media, Entertainment, Insurance, Recycling,...

My last discovering has been an app that make my smart phone to act as a sensor. I could then upload to the system the information coming from the gps, luminosity, accelerometer or compass functions of my telephone as if they were ubiquitous sensors and use it to create or complement new rules.

I could continue writing more stories on the use of this platform but it would be better to take a look directly and to start imagining. The address is:...............well, beautiful tech-story. Do not try to look for a system in the market performing as described above. You may currently find promising IOT platforms you could classify in three major categories: (1) those using (or not) open standards but proprietary philosophy, (2) those offering consulting and project development for other companies and (3) those totally open but based on some level of DIY (do it yourself) schema. None of them is suitable to achieve a wide/massive use of IOT by individuals (end users).

Take a look to this list of IOT platform and check the (market) state of the art: http://postscapes.com/internet-of-things-platforms

IOT platforms list

So, What should it be done to expand the common use of IOT technology among end - individual - consumers?  A clue: The approach should be done from a “business ecosystem” point of view and “end user” centered.

IoT - La Gaia Consciente

Antiguas películas – por entonces de ficción– dibujaban un futuro, que ya ha pasado, en donde los coches volaban, robots con aspecto humanoide descargaban de los tediosos trabajos a la humanidad, y todo entorno era inteligentemente esclavo de nuestros particulares deseos – “person-centric”– , adaptándose a cada capricho individual, el cuál conocía por observación.

Aquellas ficciones probablemente obedecedían a un deseo de construirnos una vida mejor a través de la tecnología, de utilizar el conocimiento para deshacernos de toda actividad que nos aporte poco valor, de construir sistemas que velen por nosotros y nos informen de oportunidades y amenazas.

Hoy existen coches voladores aunque no son como los imaginábamos:

Existen robots humanoides pero todavía no llegan a ser lo que esperábamos:

Sin embargo, ahora, sí disponemos de la tecnología capaz de hacer que nuestro entorno habitual se adapte para hacernos la vida más confortable, que nos permite controlar entornos físicos a distancia, que nos informa de aquello que pasa en el mundo “real” y queremos saber con rápidez.

Conceptos como “Internet of Things –IoT– ”, “Ambient Assisted Living”, “M2M” o “Pervasive Computing” convergen y, ayudados de las herramientas de las que actualmente disponemos como el “cloud computing”, internet, sensores inalámbricos, estándares de comunicación más eficientes o teléfonos inteligentes, entre otras, hacen posible vislumbrar un futuro en línea con la filosofía y el concepto que la iniciativa “smarter planet” plasma en estos vídeos:

“System of Systems” ¿Qué es lo nuevo? --> Ahora sí podemos implementarlo. Ya estamos en ello y acelerará. ¿La Gaia consciente?

A pedales por los PACS

Amigo Salvatore, arquitecto, soltero, deportista y confeso amante de la perfección; hace poco quiso hacer una excursión en bici junto a un grupo de belgas por el “Parc Natural de la Serra d'Espadá”. Nunca hubiese imaginado que su mountain-bike le llevaría a una odisea vacía de aventuras favorables por el angosto camino de los sistemas de información sanitarios. Afortunado será si no adquiere un nuevo apéndice sobresaliendo en el medio de su brazo.

Cayó. A plomo sobre su codo se lesionó de cierta gravedad. Los compañeros le acercaron a un centro de salud de Segorbe y allí le practicaron las primeras radiografías para atisbar el origen de tanto dolor. Chequeada la localizada escabechina le sugirieron acercarse a un hospital para su evaluación y tratamiento. El clínico de Valencia fue su opción. Los trabajadores del centro de salud de Segorbe le avisaron de que habían cometido un error al introducir el resultado de las radiografías en “el sistema” y se las habían asignado a otro paciente. Así, los datos del otro paciente fueron en papel escritos y entregados a Salvatore para que al llegar al Clínico, el personal sanitario de este centro pudiera recuperar las imágenes. – No, no entiendo la razón de la imposibilidad de reasignarlas a otra persona, no pregunté –

prótesis de cabeza radial (from www.mapfre.com)

Estupefactos se quedaron en el clínico cuando Salva reprodujo la sugerencia segorbina – ¿Cómorl? – Así que le hicieron pasar algún tiempo en la sala de espera de “rayos” para realizarle otras radiografías. Una vez comprobada el alcance de la lesión, lo volvieron a meter a la máquina de rayos para colocar el maltrecho codo en su sitio. Esto supuso algunas radiografías más.

El codo ya en su sitio, o casi, las evidencias diagnósticas obligaban a una intervención quirúrgica en aquella moasico-cabeza de radio con ligamento lateral desprendido. Pero..... el Hospital Clínico deriva a Salva al Hospital General que es el que le pertenece por zona.

Taxi y hacia el General. Allí cuenta su aventura y ¿sorpresa? – ya no – : los sistemas del general y otros servicios de salud de no sé cuantos pueblos más del “Camp del Túria” no son compatibles con el resto. Esto, amigo mío, supone una nueva sesión de rayos X sobre tu codo. ….

Tras la nueva evaluación, Salva comenta al médico la posesión de un seguro médico privado que, a priori, cubre este tipo de accidentes. ¡Ja!, parece decir la cegadora sonrisa del experto en aparatos locomotores humanos. “Pues lo mejor que puedes hacer el acercarte a un hospital privado”. ¿El 9 d'Octube? Sí.

¡Adivinad malditos! Sí, sí, sí; jamás un hospital privado hubiese podido acceder a los sistemas de imagen digital de uno público. “Salva, pasa a rayos”. Mismo diagnóstico. “Salva, tenemos que operarte, te he pedido un TAC”. Xnnnnsssss. Pasado este punto no hacía falta fuente de radiación alguna para ver a Salvatore puesto que él ya era luminiscente. Operación, prótesis, rehabilitación, etc...

Salva pudo haber hecho un reportaje fotográfico de toda su odisea, desde el momento del accidente hasta las sesiones de rehabilitación, y pudo haberlo compartido al instante y de manera fácil (p.e en .jpg) con todos sus amigos de alguna de las redes sociales en las que esta inscrito . Sin embargo, no pudo compartir ese otro tipo de fotos cuyo formato sigue una filosofía similar aunque artificialmente más compleja (p.e. DICOM) porque, pese a ser el modelo, no era dueño de su propia información y no tenía control sobre unos sistemas supuestamente más sofisticados.

uploading photos on the go (from blog.myheritage.com)

Después de invertir decenas de millones de euros en sistemas de archivo y comunicación de imagen médica digital (PACS) nos encontramos este caso donde el modelo en el que te entregaban las radiografías “sobre en mano” era mejor que el actual: tenías poder sobre tus datos y te evitabas radiaciones innecesarias.

En Julio de 2011, y mañana, sin usuarios y sin médicos, en algún lugar volverán a cerrar algún acuerdo para la implantación de nuevos sistemas de información sanitarios. Mañana quedará un día menos para el cierre de Google Health. Hoy, al menos habremos aprendido varias lecciones: “Why Google Health Really Failed—It’s About The Money”-- Dave Chase--