Wireless Building Blocks for The Internet of Things
Wireless Building Blocks for The Internet of Things - RF CafeThe Internet of Things is a term that is appearing with much frequency these days (e.g., in this article). Akin to 3G and 4G, the definition does not seem to be very well defined; that is to say more subjective than objective. Per Wikipedia's entry: "The Internet of Things refers to uniquely identifiable objects and their virtual representations in an Internet-like structure. The term 'Internet of Things' was proposed by Kevin Ashton in 1999. The concept of the Internet of Things first became popular through the Auto-ID Center at MIT and related market analysts publications. Radio-frequency identification (RFID) is often seen as a prerequisite for the Internet of Things. If all objects and people in daily life were equipped with identifiers, they could be managed and inventoried by computers. Besides using RFID, the tagging of things may be achieved through such technologies as near field communication, barcodes, QR codes and digital watermarking."

Need Connectivity? 11 Easy Wireless Modules for Prototyping Projects (EE Times) - RF CafeLots of creative people are turning out cool and useful devices based on readily available, relatively inexpensive, plug-and-play circuit building blocks which are designed specifically to facilitate invention. EE Times recently ran a story titled, "Need Connectivity? 11 Easy Wireless Modules for Prototyping Projects," that does a good job of presenting popular options. To name a few, the Electric Imp, for instance, is an SD-shaped card that includes an 802.11b/g/n WiFi module and antenna. NiO offers a communication platform that makes communicating between connected devices and a smartphone easy and reliable. Spark Core is a small Arduino-compatible board with a TI WiFi module for connecting to the Internet. Bug Labs' blocks enable Internet connectivity via Bluetooth, WiFi, and 3G interfaces along with an integrated Linux-based CPU. The full article goes into more detail - if you can endure the annoyance to read it all (see next paragraph).

EE Times 2-Page Viewing Limit w/o Logging In - RF CafeWell this is annoying. As if full-page website entry advertisements are not bad enough, I just discovered that EE Times now imposes a two-page access limit per day if you don't log in on their website. It might not be so for EE Times, but usually when logging in is required it is to provide a means for collecting your personal contact information so it can be passed on to advertisers and marketing firms. One way around the insult is to empty your browser cache, open a new instance of the browser, and then go back to the forbidden page(s). Alternatively, use an entirely different browser to view the page. The best option might be to skip the story altogether and deny revenue-generating traffic to the website, and send the webmaster a friendly note instead expressing your appreciation.

Posted  October 1, 2013