Blogging, Personal Web pages, Buildings and a Web Integrated World 101
Let's explore blogging, personal web pages, buildings and a web Integrated World 101?
Last Spring (2006) MySpace announced the marriage of 60,000,000 personal web page customers with a traditional TV and movie channel in MyTV (not to mention one if not THE premier world wide provider of traditional news delivery). This has / had the potential to do what had not been done before. For those who don't know it, Rupert Murdoch pioneered satellite delivery of worldwide communications. Oh yes did we establish that he sells a few newspapers too?
Anyway CNN/Time Warner and AOL tried to merge the two domains of Web content and traditional news and entertainment legacy media to HUGE SEVERE financial outcome (Ted Turner lost something on the order of over $6 BILLION US in that deal).
Rupert and NewsCorp bought about 30,000,000 MySpace accounts for around $580,000,000 US and that account base nearly doubled within 6 months (read that as ad revenue doubling in six months) or 100 PERCENT GROWTH in AD SALES in first 6 months if one follows the numbers in simplistic fashion.
Current MySpace account base currently reported as over 143,000,000.
To look at this deeper we will need to explore the netherworld basics of Login security, the likely next big thing of Biometrics, and also the behind the scenes manufacturing and utility and energy automation infrastructure in the digital automated world, and the inherent vulnerabilities that go along with it. (Follow up with this later).
What are the chances you think I can tie all this together in a coherent fashion and make a valid point? Let's see.
Most of us are fairly well grounded in Blog pages and Web pages for news and information. The whole idea of personal web pages takes us not only to a new level if interaction with each other, but with our buildings and society “systemsâ€. We have to look at the buildings we live work and play. Along with that are all the buildings that are critical behind the scenes infrastructure, that support our day-to-day lives.
Building slowly but gaining speed BACnet and Zigbee and web based automation systems have been a transformational force on the landscape of Building Automation. Briefly let me explain. Some years ago, out of the American Society of Heating Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers a standardize controls protocol for interoperability was developed, and subsequently became and ANSI standard (American National Standards Institute). Without putting you folks to sleep with Engineering Speak I offer an analogy. BACnet offers for building control vendors, the same sort of standardization that paved the way for the type of explosion as the PC Compatible computer enjoyed. As in computers where any hard drive or floppy drive or graphics card or sound card or memory chips were interchangeable with any other from any brand of machine so the BACnet standard offered compatibility across the board for HVAC electronic controls manufacturers. In theory at least, it's been a slowly developing ideal with lots of big deep pocket entrenched legacy players in the marketplace.
But what about wireless? We've all been able to call each other from Nextel networks to Alltel systems via Motorola to Nokia with interoperability for years. Not so with wireless building controls components. Until only a couple months ago (Fall 2005 I think). BACnet officially adopted the Zigbee wireless standard as THE protocol standard for building automation. Cheap programmable interoperable devices with no need to run wires and conduit. The possibilities and flexibilities and ease of installation and modification over time are endless.
The thing is you (we and I) must remember that building automation controls are no longer only about heating and air conditioning. We are also speaking to the other building functions of life safety (fire alarm as well as emergency services and security protection), access control, lighting, irrigation, parking management for purpose of client billing, maintenance, purchasing of both supplies and services, custodial care, ALL managed via a centralized integrated interoperable computer system.
Lets not leave out automated window blinds per solar loads, automated ventilation air volumes for indoor air quality control via Carbon Dioxide sensors in the occupied spaces, energy optimization for both day-to-day energy savings and dynamic real time modifications based on minute by minute rate-structure changes from the power utility, HVAC response to emergency events (smoke management for fire, Biohazard terrorist attack) emergency lighting during power failure, back up power generation, the list is endless all in the name of comfort, safety and cost efficiency. Doing more work with fewer people and optimizing the economics.
How about a luxury hotel where the individual room AC is controlled via the check in function. No AC can be on for an un-rented room. At the time of check in the computer automatically enables HVAC as the door key is programmed at the front desk which allows for the room to be ay comfort conditions when the guest arrives, but also prevents heating and cooling energy wasted when the room is un-rented and thus not generating revenue.
How about the lawyer, healthcare or other professional office where the parking ticket mechanism is automatically linked to the leased space and the parking fee is automatically charged to the service provider and billed to the client? All automated with little or no customer interaction required simply take your stub on entry and turn it in when you leave. No change or cash? No problem.
How about all maintenance service call, work order generation, skilled trade labor and repair parts cost tracking, and scheduling automated via a Smart Building System that is capable of Fault Detection and Diagnostics, and self determination of malfunction severity and capable of interfacing to occupancy schedules for access to spaces and systems, so as to minimize disruption to occupants and schedule the service call?
How about everything we just mentioned tied directly into accounting systems for labor planning and payroll, supplies procurement, expense tracking for business management and planning purpose, as well as tax reporting?
How about a house where you walk in and voice command the door locks, gas fireplace, home entertainment, thermostats, appliances, lighting, emergency services?
I also forgot that I promised to tie it all together.
Web based digital signage. You all see them when you move about in your buildings, on the streets, ( Times Square? ), and now also in your homes.
The building operating systems, the delivery of local building centric information and well as macro world media, and local immerging alarms and instructions, and at the same time the Fed’s monetary transactions, retail banking transactions, your phone calls, IPTV, email and our blog pages are all streaming over the same information highway.
Packet by packet.
Think it's in the future? Think again.
For a taste of the state of the art here's a guy that will show you, Jim Young @ www.realcomm.com
Want to learn more about automated buildings? Here are a few good places to start:
Automated Buildings art and science:
http://automatedbuildings.com
Continental Automated Buildings Association:
http://caba.org
Paul Ehrlich
http://buildingintellegencegroup.com
American Society of Heating Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers
http://ashrae.org
The BACnet organization
http://BACnet.org
The Zigbee alliance:
http://zigbee.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Network_TV
Welcome to our Web Integrated world folks I hope you make the most out of it and enjoy.
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Blogs | Buildings | Internet | Media | Networks | WiFi
OK, a challenge
Submitted by liza on 28 December 2006 - 11:01pm.
Tie this all together to the OpenID web signage protocols. I am actually looking into how to integrate that with my sites so people will have only one login for all of them.
For the people developing Open ID, it's not about single signage --it's about giving netizens the power to control their online identity and even using it as equity. I think that's a bit far-fetched but chek out this month's "Joel On Software", the one about Steve Gilmore.
It'll get your geek on.
I have mixed feelings
Submitted by SteamGeek on 29 December 2006 - 4:14am.
The OpenID process / project was new to me, but I did a little looking around.
(Based on what I see, in the world I operate professionaly, this open source Identity Management will likely never happen in the current form)
It seems much like what Microsoft tried some years ago with a central "Passport" UN/PW service that at the time was marketed for wide use but I didn't see really take off. This has apparently morphed into the newest version called Windows Live ID. Both seem to be after the same benefit, yet seem the opposite in terms of the "who holds the key". The difference being instead of a large centralized (MS) "depository" of the ID information, the OpenID is decentralized, yet all players are expected to follow protocols for some semblance of standardization. This seems confusing to me for a couple reasons.
For review:
I admit managing a dozen or more accounts in various private and work settings is mind boggling and some unique authentication process would help. But I'm not sure if I correctly read all of this game totally.
For example, there is also the issue of identity management for non-users too. If folks see an article by SteamGeek, or Liza, or Tara, or Mole333 - in any one of dozens or hundreds of Webpages, how do they know they are reading material from the same author? For that matter someone like Mike Royko may well have be seen in syndication all across the country, but are we talking about the same issue in the digital world?
I for one think trademarks are a relevant part of this conversation.
So how do folks know who they are dealing with? And in the virtual world, normal physical based authentication methods are pretty much of no value (Card key or Biometric methods require a physical presence).
Many modern corporate environments require the newer MS strong passwords that not only contain upper and lower case letters but also "special characters' AND also require the changing of the password on some standard schedule AND the server remembers the most recent few passwords and doesn't allow repeats of any recently used ones.
It seems the "Big Guy" or guys want to offer a solution to the complexities of multiple and widely distributed UN/PW standardization, and the open source folks who always want to "go independent and decentralize" want to also offer an alternative.
This leaves us with the new quandary at a higher level, being legitimacy.
I for one predict NIST will get involved in this, if they aren't already.
Will banks or colleges or airlines or on-line retailers recognize or buy into either the big player centralized service, or the decentralized independent service? Both, or neither one?
Do I want to use the same identity manager for my efforts on sites such as CulterKitchen or MySpace or Blogspot, as I use for my banking and other financial services? Microsoft would like me to, I worry about security integrity of the independents who would host the OpenID. And as I understand it, a site such as CultureKitchen would not have control over whom a person chose to utilize for the OpenID service, just that they used "someone".
The materials I reviewed suggested encryption technologies may be ranging from weak to strong with potentially unlimited variations in between based on open source customizations. This seems to leave it wide open for dozens or hundreds of "levels of security quality" and as widely distributed "Identity hosting services" could be anything from an IBM secure server farm to an guy in his boxer shorts with a T1 line and few Dells in the basement 0 I wonder who's verifying the identity of the identity verifiers?
Something will have to happen. The IT Client / Server game and the Web Services / Integration game is getting too complicated to manage as we get more and more spread out amongst various sites that have no common business link between them.
It would not surprise me to see an Industry Centric ID mangement process evolve out of this? For example the publishing community could "endorse" a select one or many ID providers who meet some sort of community or trade association standards for quality and security. It may be the trade association themselves will get in the ID service business.
I do not know what the answer is, just that managing the multiple UN/PW (s) is difficult from a user standpoint, I can't imagine the difficulties from a Web hosting standpoint.
Just because I like to play with my old book, I offer the following quote just for fun:
From The Steganographia of Trithemius, Books I and III. Johannes Trithemius, March 1500, translation of 1606 Frankfort edition by Fiona Tait and Christopher Upton.
Comments RE who is worthy of knowing the secrets in prologue to Book I.
Comments RE authentication: "The operator must also beware that he does not direct a messenger* anywhere without a letter or at least the sign of his commander since if he does not see the sign marked he will be utterly unwilling to obey the caller and carry the secret to anyone. Although we can send a secret through the messenger alone without a letter, we send a letter for two reasons: to keep the man bearing the sign from suspicion and so that we may compel the messenger, bound by his own sign, to give obedience to our friend. Here finishes the first Book of the Steganographia of Johannes Trithemius, Abbot of Spanheim. 27th March 1500."
* Italics, word substituted by SG to protect the faint of heart.
BTW
Submitted by liza on 28 December 2006 - 11:08pm.
I actually had to reconfigure the site because somehow the URLFilter module was gone. I reinstalled and now anybody can just write www.WHATEVER-SITE-OR-BLOG-NAME.com and the link will go live immediately --even in the comments section.
Rookie be thy name....
Submitted by SteamGeek on 29 December 2006 - 1:13am.
I'm very much a beginner when it comes to html and Web tricks and techno. Although the blog above might lead folks to think I'm Web centric, actually I'm more Building Automation and Engineering oriented.
Thank you for making the writing / publishing here more user friendly.
UPDATE since first writing
What's going on in the world of Broad Band in Asia?
For example Hong Kong: 2.2 million residences (homes) in 422 square miles.
Add to that additional business locations.
All within hookup range to a fiber optic network.
In addition to basic 10 and 100 Mbit/s services, The Hong Kong Broadband Network is also rolling out 1 Gbit Ethernet to anyone who wants to pay for the premium services.
For example IPTV with 50 plus channels, nearly half of which are interactive at $16US and capacity to expand to 200 channels why would anyone want cable?
As we all argue about the re-write of the telecom bill in congress, tiered and pay as you go Internet services, and the vast part of our rural communities are limping along on stone age dial up speeds, the rest of the world has left us in the dust.
You can read more here on pp 53.