#bug labs

[imadeit-davidjanes]

Dweet / BugLabs have expanded their API to do things like alerts, e.g. monitor for some condition on your data.

[imadeit-davidjanes]

Article about Bug Labs / Freeboard / Dweet.io. Note re: Quinnell's last comment that change in IT often comes from the bottom, and it's easier to make a useful simple product more complicated than to make a complicated product simpler.

Yet, while web-enabled lights, door locks, thermostats, and the like are mildly useful devices, what consumers really want is automated functions like preparing the house to welcome them home. Similarly, companies want complete solutions that use the IoT, not just devices. It is the role of web services to provide that integrated behavior, and usually for a fee. Gartner expects that 80% of the IoT revenues will come not from devices, then, but from the services that those devices enable.

…The question remains, however, whether these highly simplified solutions will ultimately lead to development of significant new commercial products or are going to simply be used for one-of-a-kind hobbyist kinds of projects. The embedded engineer in me says that too much simplification will turn off serious developers and thus this will be used principally for play.

[lopezcatherine-blog]

Hoping car data sharing helps with the 'are we there yet'

I remember as a kid sitting in the back seat, just hoping there was a way to know what the traffic ahead of us was. Yes, there was radio updates -but this took forever. I always believed that there should be an easier and quicker way. 

As I learn more about Bug Labs and Fords OPENXC project, a platform that give developers access to information out of the CPUs in modern cars.  I can't help but to get excited. This is a step closer to the not-so-crazy idea I had as a kid. I imagined every car on the highway with two black like cubes on the bumpers, and these cubes were to pass on information from the previous cars. If cars miles ahead had slowed and subsequently the others behind, then this information would have eventually been passed on to the information cube in my parents car.  

I never went into details on how this would actually functions as a kid, just knew that the idea of sharing data from cars ahead could make my life easier. Now understanding, what are reasonable projects, I truly hope car manufacturers maximizes data sharing from cars -even if it is to more accurately answer 'are we there yet?'

[thinkvr]

Ford Partners With Bug Labs To Develop Open Source Platform For In-Car Innovatin’ | TechCrunch

Today at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco, Ford looks to continue pushing forward with in-car connectivity and gadgetry, announcing a partnership with Bug Labs — an open-source hardware and software provider that tinkerers and engineers can use to create their own digital devices. The two companies will be collaborating on a new in-car research platform, named OpenXC, which looks to transform the car into a plug-and-play platform that will support open-source hardware and software to allow developers to make the car a playground for all kinds of cool new technologies.

OpenXC, which is based on Bug Labs’ Bug System, will allow users to create a personalized driving experience through add-ons like visual and audio feedback interfaces and environmental sensors and safety devices — simply by snapping Bug Labs’ hardware modules into the consoles of vehicles.

At Disrupt, Ford and Bug Labs demonstrated the OpenXC platform using a Ford Fiesta to showcase a prototype “Fuel Economy Challenge” app that uses Bug Labs’ hardware and software modules to provide a LED fuel efficiency display module in the vehicle’s cockpit. When up and running, the app illuminates the windshield with a display presenting the driver’s current fuel efficiency. Drivers then have access to realtime data on how others in the challenge are performing, and who is driving most efficiently.