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map[]My presentation today on Python Web Frameworks is in some ways the final form of investigation into IoT and the Raspberry Pi.
My interest in the subject was initially sparked by the presentation Deid gave back in 2016 on how to turn a light bulb on and off using a relay being driven by a Raspberry Pi.
This amazing display ended up leading me to my first presentation on the subject back in October 2016. map[]Building on my previous IoT presentation I thought that I would follow up with two additional project which were in a similar vein.
These project both relate to IoT but focus more around the subject of streaming data rather than poling a sensor for a value.
Raspberry Pi-based IP camera I built this device as the result of finding the existing market of IP cameras to be lacklustre at best. The more options which provided the feature I was looking for were too expensive, and the ones in a more reasonable price range had terrible image quality and next to no feature. map[]The topic of this presentation will be focused on exploring the world of the “Internet of Things”.
Background But before we can begin to explore the topic we need to understand what the Internet of Things is really about. While definitions for the term and the subject area vary depending on who you talk to, I think the Internet of Things can be summarised as: “a proposed development of the Internet in which everyday objects have network connectivity, allowing them to send and receive data”, or “the infrastructure of the information society”, or “creating opportunities for more direct integration of the physical world into computer-based systems, and resulting in improved efficiency, accuracy and economic benefit”. map[]Consumers are using the internet for an ever-increasing range of activities. This has meant that home internet data usage has also increased at a rapid pace. Unfortunately, most home internet connections these days are limited by usage caps. The customers are given a basic allotment of data usage, with any usage over that amount subject to additional charges at exorbitant “overage fee” rates. So while these plans my not technically be capped, the practical usage of them means that customers are limited to the original usage allotment of their plan. map[]There was a lot of complaining when the agreed format for releasing pirated content was updated in 2012. A similar change has started to take place again, except this time the release groups have actually gotten it wrong.
In 2012 the SD content format was changed from the long-standing AVI format, to the newer MP4 format. This represented a change in format as well as encoding, with the older XviD being replaced with the much newer, more efficient, H264. map[]In 2013 consumers in North America used an average of 1.3GB of data per month. In 2018 consumers are expected to be using 9GB of data per month, an 11-fold increase in usage over 5 years before. Consumers are increasingly using their mobile devices for more of their daily activities every year and unfortunately this increased data usage is not changing to reflect these usage patters. Consumers are constantly facing increasing costs for using their increasingly powerful devices to consume ever more rich content at an constantly increasing cost. map[]Canadian DSL customers are living with the illusion of choice when it comes to their ability to choose the modem they use to connect them to the internet. Bell currently offers exclusively the Bell Home Hub 1000 and 2000 modem/router devices as options for their customers. Similarly, the Bell re-seller Teksavvy offers a selection of Bell approved modems/router combo devices with much the same functionality.
These modem/router combos provide users with everything they would need to connect to the internet, and share that connection to devices throughout their house. map[]Every one who engages in a policy of selling products in any area of Canada at prices lower than those exacted by him elsewhere in Canada is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years.
This is Section 50, paragraph 1(b), of the Canadian Competition Act (1985) which outlines what constitutes discriminatory pricing.
The pricing practices of all of the major wireless providers in Canada perpetuate a highly uncompetitive marketplace practices which fall squarely under the definition of discriminatory pricing as defined about in the Competition Act. map[]Listening to the radio recently one is bound to hear the ad for the new TV streaming service Shomi. What you realize is that the ad is a hilariously hypocritical critique of their own historical practices.
You see, Showmi is owned by Rogers. Back in the days of old, when people actually went to video stores to rent movies (yes, that long ago), Rogers was one of the main operators of video stores though their Rogers Video and Rogers Plus outlets. map[]TV providers and mainstream media finally realizing that “cord cutting”, is beyond a point which they can deny its prevalence. Millions of people around the world are moving from the monopolized offering of traditional TV providers which are often too expensive and slow at modernizing, to streaming services.
Traditional TV in respective countries or regions mostly follows a standardized protocol. This means that users can standardize their own hardware and media setup for consistent access to content. map[]Every day more and more Canadians turn to the internet as their source for media content. This has forced traditional cable providers and content producers to justify the outdated state of their current offerings. With the ease of finding premium content online, for free, safeguards around traditional content are doing more to drive customers away than they are to keep them around. The CRTC recently concluded a series of hearing designed to establish, among other things, whether regulating the unbundling of current TV packages could allow for greater consumer choice in terms of what they are actually paying for. map[]Crowd-funding has quickly become the way entrepreneurs to secure funding for their project, without giving up equity. Kickstarter is one of the largest, and most popular, crowd-funding sites on the web. While having faced criticism for both their policies and treatment of controversial projects, there is by no means a lack of willing backers for the projects they host.
While there have been numerous projects that I have seen, and been interested in backing, I have chosen not to in each case because the shipping costs are just too high. map[]Blackberry’s first and only tablet, the Playbook has had a long and tough life. Launching before the release of the Blackberry 10 OS, the Playbook was orphaned from the start due to it’s lack of apps, compatibility, and software updates. While the Playbook itself is a sturdy and reliable tablet, the lack of a native BBM app was always a visible sign of it’s many issues.
With the launch of BB10 there was hope that a version of BBM could be ported over to the Playbook OS due to the platforms underlying similarities. map[]US consumers alone purchased $38.8 billion worth of goods using their mobile devices in 2013, a number which is only expected to rise. While consumers are eager to make payments with their mobile devices few of these purchases were processed through traditional payment terminals due to the lack of compatible infrastructure.
This lack of support is not because companies are uninterested. With profits growing every year everyone wants to get in on the huge potential of this market. map[]I have owned a Blackberry Z10 for nearly a month now and I can say without a shadow of a doubt the best phone I have ever owned is my Blackberry Z10. Having upgraded from my Blackberry Bold 9700 nearly two months ago I have found few flaws in my new phone (ignoring the issue of whether or not a hardware keyboard is necessary). With the Blackberry 10.2.1 update slated to be released this week, now is a good time to look at some of the issues and improvements I hope to see with this update. map[]On Monday September 23rd the CRTC released the list of companies that had put forward a deposit with the intention to bid in the upcoming 700 MHz spectrum auction. Unfortunately that list of companies is populated with only incumbent Canadian carriers and small regional players looking to pick up localized spectrum blocks, none of which will poster much diversity in the Canadian wireless market.
The problem is that Canadians are still being left with no real chance to break out of the current three-player system Canada is currently stuck with. map[]The announcement today of a $700 million bid for Wind Mobile by Verizon Wireless has caused quite the stir in the mobile Canadian mobile industry, and with the most visible indicators of the impact of this news being the stocks of ROBELUS dropping a staggering 9% in early trading today you can see not only the fragility of the mobile market but also the severity of this news.
Though this bid might cause a point of contention with nationalists, privacy advocates, and carriers alike (who will undoubtedly make a play about being it not being Canadian owned) the reality is that it is in all our best interests. map[]It has recently come to light in mainstream media that the US National Security Agency (NSA) has been tracking emails, instant messages, other forms of internet communication, and most controversially, keeping track of American’s phone calls. The funny thing is that this news has come as a surprise to many people who thought that communication over the internet is safe. This is a stark contrast to what you would get if you talked to any tech savvy person (especially conspiracy theorists) in the past 10 or 15 years who could have easily told you this was going on. map[]There is something liberating about using an operation system that not only is free, but completely open source. You have the option to take this operation system and modify it in any way you want, for free, as long as you too publish the source code to any changes you made to the Linux kernel. This is one of the most powerful assets for Linux, and is the driving force behind adoption. map[]In a house with 4 highly tech savvy (no pun intended) students, one tends to use a lot of bandwidth. A LOT.
Having had good experience with Teksavvy at home (and the fact the they have unlimited plans) meant the logical choice was to go with the Teksavvy Cable 28 plan, which offers 28Mb/s download and 1Mb/s upload. This plan costs $61.95/month, which comes to exactly $70 a month with tax included. map[]This is an update to my computer setup current as of January 2013.
The main update to my computer setup over the Christmas holidays is the addition of the Intel NUC (Next Unit of Computing) to my rig. I purchased the NUC over the holidays so that I would be able to take my laptop to class without having to constantly be unplugging cables. The NUC runs a mobile core i3 3rd generation (Ivy Bridge) clocked at 1. map[]When you look at the current diversity in the smart phone market, statistics show, as you would expect, that Android is at the top, followed by iOS, then BB OS, then Windows Phone. When looking at the tablet market you get quite a different picture. With tablets, unlike phones, iOS is the predominant player with over 60% of the tablet market share.
Now one could attribute this discrepancy to the fundamental difference between the beginnings of the smart phone market compared to that of the tablet market. map[]When it comes to computers now-a-days the reality is not many people are choosing to buy a desktop. And why wouldn’t you? You can get an almost limitless variety of laptops which cater to all needs, thus rendering a desktop obsolete for almost all but the most demanding of users.
So with the majority of users using laptops, this begs the question: what are they running on these laptops?
The reality is this, those who choose to buy a Mac almost always run Mac OS (obviously) with the occasionally user choosing to also run windows along side it. map[]My tablet, being the now-discontinued HP Touchpad, has had a port of Android for quite some time. What I didn’t know was that you could actually run other (abait mostly older OS’s within android). The following is a screenshot of me running mac OS 6 (system 6) in an emulator on my Touchpad. Unfortunately I was unable to get System 7 running, though apparently it was possible, which was a major improvement over 6 and would have brought a load of cool features to play with on my tablet. map[]I am the very proud owner of one of the pre-ordered Raspberry Pi’s. I stayed up till 2am (for the 8am UK time release) but was only able to order one the next day as the 10000 people who tried (and mostly failed) to order one at the launch. The featured picture one I took once I had taken it out of the shipping envelope (kind of like an un-boxing that I didn’t bother to do)