Business Aspects of the Internet of Things - Information Management

Business Aspects of the Internet of Things
A collection of opinion and discussion papers
Spring Semester, 2012
http://www.im.ethz.ch/education/FS12/iot_lec
LECTURER:
Dr. Florian Michahelles
Information Management, ETH Zurich
Weinbergstrasse 56-58, WEV G222.1
8092 Zürich
SWITZERLAND
Phone: +41 44 632 7477
E-Mail: fmichahelles@ethz.ch
WWW: http://florian-michahelles.blogspot.com/
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Editors:
Dr. Florian Michahelles
Information Management, ETH Zurich
Weinbergstrasse 56-58, G 222.1
8092 Zürich
SWITZERLAND
Phone: +41 44 632 7477
E-Mail: fmichahelles@ethz.ch
Irena Pletikosa Cvijikj
Information Management, ETH Zurich
Weinbergstrasse 56-58, G 222.2
8092 Zürich
SWITZERLAND
Phone: +41 44 632 8624
E-Mail: ipletikosa@ethz.ch
Copyright © ETH Zurich, 2012
Page backgrounds design: http://dryicons.com.
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Background
This document collects opinion and discussion papers of the lecture “Business Aspects
of the Internet of Things” held in spring 2012 at ETH Zurich (see http://bit.ly/IbvfTm for
details).
The Internet of Things (IoT) describes the evolution from a network linking digital
information to a network relating digital information to real world physical items. The
Internet of Things embraces networked sensor-instrumented objects, places, things,
products and users. This lecture aims at understanding both business drivers as well as
the technical building blocks of such an Internet of Things:
What is this vision good for? Which new meanings and experiences can yield this
sharing of information between things? Which enabling technology and infrastructure
is needed in order to turn this vision into reality? What are the driving applications that
should be designed into an Internet of Things?
As part of this lecture students had to review 1-2 papers about the topic of the
upcoming lecture as a preparation for the oral discussion in class. The first half of
lecture included an introducing talk by Florian Michahelles (for the slides see here
http://bit.ly/IbvfTm), the second half featured a 30min of discussion with all
participants in class. Each discussion was led by one student and was backed by the
reading assignments and opinion papers the students prepared before. Thus, a body of
opinion papers about various aspects of the Internet of Things has been collected
which shall be shared within this document.
Readers of this document should become familiar with the concepts of the emerging
Internet of Things, understand the business drivers of the Internet of Things and its
applications, know the role of underlying technologies (sensors, RFID, NFC, EPC
architecture), can explain the challenges regarding security and privacy, can reflect the
business value of fine-grain business process monitoring through IoT technologies,
develop a general understanding of potential business models and know how to apply
these lessons-learned to specific projects.
We hope that this document with its collection of different opinions about various
aspects of the Internet of Things provides valuable insights for other students and
researchers.
Zurich, June, 2012
Florian Michahelles, Irena Pletikosa
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We would like to thank all students who joined the “Business
Aspects of Internet of Things” lecture in spring 2012 for their
valuable input that are the basis of this report.
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Lecture #1
Introduction to the Business
Drivers of the Internet of Things
Summary:
This session provides an introduction to the term Internet of Things and explains its roots in
internet-oriented and thing-oriented research and development. This session summarizes the
building block required for an Internet of Things and outlines the challenges yet to be solved
(see http://bit.ly/KZxS4X for the slides).
Literature:
1. Luigi Atzori, Antonio Iera, Giacomo Morabito, The Internet of Things: A survey,
Computer Networks, Volume 54, Issue 15, 28 October 2010
2. Bob Williams, What is the Real Business Case for the Internet of Things?, Synthesis
Journal, iTSC, 2008
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Lecture #2
Technological Enablers of the
IOT: sensors and networks
Summary:
This session presents the technological enablers of the Internet of Things. The variety of things
starting from objects without any connectivity to smart things with own computing and
input/output capabilities defines the starting point for showing the richness of sensing and
network modalities required for capturing information from the real-world. A review of the
history of the barcode is presented to show the parallels and challenges in terms of standards
and adoption (see http://bit.ly/Nj8HhI for the slides).
Literature:
1. Rob van Kranenburg, Erin Anzelmo, Alessandro Bassi, Dan Caprio, Sean Dodson, Matt
Ratto: The Internet of Things Conference Draft, October 2011, Chapter 2
"Technological Challenges and Foundations"
2. Rob van Kranenburg, Erin Anzelmo, Alessandro Bassi, Dan Caprio, Sean Dodson, Matt
Ratto: The Internet of Things Conference Draft, October 2011, Chapter 3 "Policy"
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A common architecture used to define the Internet of Things has yet to be found. There are
two major directions of development of new architectures, as the case with most new
technologies. One is the research being carried out in publicly funded projects and the other
is the emergence of commercial products in industry (e.g. Zigbee or WirelessHART). However,
in my opinion, these commercial products are only the tip of the iceberg with respect to a
possible architecture for the IoT. They were designed for specific tasks, not for a more general
purpose like the IoT. Zigbee is designed as a standard for wireless personal networks (e.g.
home automation) and WirelessHART for industrial automation.
The protocols mentioned in the paper (HIP, Mobile IP, NEMO) have evolved from the need of
mobility of devices connected to the classical Internet, but are not specifically tailored for the
IoT. Moreover, it is still not clear whether IP will be a viable solution for the IoT. Since the
mentioned protocols rely on IP, they will not be part of the overall future architecture of the
IoT.
In my opinion, IP is not suitable for all “things” within the IoT, especially for small devices
with strong energy constraints or for stateless devices. More likely for me, the next 5 years will
bring “islands” of interconnected devices (sensor networks, RFID tags, home automation
networks etc.) that will most likely not communicate among them. The sensors in the house
will control the HVAC system, the RFID tags will be used to track the packages of logistic
service providers, but the temperature sensors will not communicate with the passive RFID
tags. In a subsequent stage, the “islands” will be available to the rest of the world through
gateways and be accessible through the classical Internet. This approach has the lowest cost
from an economical point of view.
When it comes to security, in my opinion it is very easy to dismiss a technology in its early
stages by emphasizing security concerns. Let’s think of Facebook. When it was first launched
years ago, no one was concerned about the security implications of posting a picture or of
adding a person they didn’t know as a friend. This is because nobody knew into what
Facebook will actually grow. The same holds for the IoT in my opinion. No one can say what
will be the limits of the IoT. The possible applications and benefits should drive the IoT, not
the security concerns. On the other hand, security issues like cryptography that are stated in
the paper are to be taken into account because of the confidential character of most data
that will be “floating around” in the IoT.
My personal opinion is that the IoT will not be slowed down in its development by the security
or privacy concerns, but by the fact that people are not ready at the moment to rely 100% on
IoT technologies. Most people still feel that they cannot rely completely on a technological
infrastructure. Managers will probably have a hard time in deploying an IOT architecture,
when banks, for example, still rely on legacy 20 year old systems to perform some basic
functionalities. But the truth is that, whether we like it or not, we already rely heavily on
infrastructure (i.e. classical Internet) in our daily lives, even though we have the illusion
that we can always use an alternative to it if needed.
I believe that the adoption rate of IoT technologies in large companies will be an important
step towards achieving the vision of the IoT. Multinational companies have the money and
the international reach to transform the IoT from concept and research topic to reality.
Bogdan Mircea Ivan, Student of MSc. MTEC, 2nd semester
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First of all I think that this chapter should have been named Privacy & Policy or simply
Privacy Policy since it really is mostly about privacy and how to protect privacy with regards
to the Internet of Things, through policy.
The whole privacy issue in general is an interesting topic and I recall one lecture from the
Management of Information System course, where Dr. Peter Hogenkamp was a guest lecturer.
He stated that even though he recognizes that the privacy issue is a viable topic that needs to
be addressed it turns out people do actually always opt out of privacy, if the choice is between
social interactions or privacy, people prefer social interaction. And if the choice is between
ease of use, convenience and easier usability or privacy, people generally choose the former.
There may be some research behind these statements of his, but he just mentions Facebook as
an argument in his support. People are told that they should not put pictures of them
drinking because it will hurt their resume, but people still do it and one of the new features
on Facebook where you can check into a place is wildly popular, people care more for sharing
with their friends than they view it as a privacy issue, because social aspects are so strong and
social is really one of the biggest driver for people to interact with technology.
But still people do care for their privacy and there is obviously a difference between certain
pieces of information that you personally choose to share with your friends and family, or
information about you that someone else has in their possession and can choose to share with
whomever they want. Therefore privacy policy is most definitely important and actually more
important to some than others. To create policy to protect privacy is quite a challenging task.
In the OECD Privacy Guidelines: Fair Information Principles (FIPPS) I strongly agree with the
clause about Notice/Awareness, the consumer should be given notice and be properly
informed about an entity‘s information practices before any personal information is
collected from them. And I think it is also very important here that this notice is delivered in
language that users easily understand – not some extremely long and complicated clause
written in legal language for example. I also think that one of the most important issues here
is that users are informed about any potential recipients of the data, because that is in my
opinion the most sensitive issue.
The most important of all is though the enforcement, since all the rest only makes sense if the
policies can be enforced. And that is of course the trickiest task to complete, how can the
policies be enforced?
I do think that all of the core principles of FIPPS are good but I think to some extent that they
are simply noble goals. It is perhaps not very realistic that these can be turned into laws that
can be enforced, and even if they will be, I think it is quite likely that if companies consider it
to be too much a hurdle they will try to find a way to bend some of these laws or go around
them. Because it seems to require a lot more work from their part to apply with these laws, a
lot of documentation and a general slowdown of the innovation which will not sound very
appealing to the industry. I am not that afraid of the unintended consequences that are
mentioned and the reason for that is mostly as mentioned above, I think the industry and
companies are just too driven to find solutions and where there is a will there usually is a
way.
In conclusion I would like to mention that if the principles where to become law and in the
beginning companies will strive to follow them, the challenges in their application are quite
substantial, as described in the article. Especially if you consider for example a product where
there is not a direct interaction with a particular device, how will people be able to practice
their right to choose and be notified?
Hjördís Hugrún Sigurdardóttir, Student of MSc. MTEC, 2nd semester
8

Lecture #3
Case Studies About Internet of
Things projects
Summary:
This session derives an understanding of which strategies could be applied to turn Internet of
Things projects into commercial success. This session builds upon the four strategies
embedded innovator, solutionist, aggregator, and synergist of Glen Aldmendinger and Ralph
Lombreglia (Harvard Business Review 2005) along the axis of service and vendor integration.
Specific IoT use cases are presented in order to put the strategies into context (see
http://bit.ly/NjaP98 for the slides).
Literature:
1. Thiesse, F., Al-Kassab, J., Fleisch, E. (2009) Understanding the Value of Integrated RFID
Systems: A Case Study from Apparel Retail. European Journal of Information Systems
18(6), 592-614.
2. Thiesse, F., Fleisch, E. (2008) On the Value of Location Information to Lot Scheduling in
Complex Manufacturing Processes. International Journal of Production Economics
112(2), 532-547.
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The article tends to demonstrate how Real-Time Location Systems (RTLS) could bring
potential benefits in highly complex manufacturing processes. This kind of technology can
indeed address many requirements in manufacturing processes, such as components
continuous tracking and the continuous quality improvement (which is one of the rule of
thumb in manufacturing industries). Following this article, it may be worth to think about
the potential benefits in introducing this kind of technology in an industry as well as see
whether this technology can be applied in other functional areas.
One of the main objectives of high volumes manufacturing industries is the improvement of
the productivity. This relates to a better volume management, the respect of lead times and
the related productions costs under high quality control processes. The RTLS could effectively
participate in improving the management of the diverse equipment and manufactured
products via the automation of dedicated tasks. Besides, RTLS can be used as well for
measuring the performance in Logistics and Supply chain for containers, lots and batches in
warehouse management.
For example, the follow-up of manufactured products on production lines will address three
issues: the security (for workers and the materials), the productivity (with the continuous
improvement of internal processes, and a better time management), and the cost
management (with assets optimisation, and machines manufacturing processing costs
reduction). The article shows how different strategies can be designed and corresponding
results compared once the key drivers are defined. Those, as explained in the article, can
cover the processing time, the due dates, or combination.
Nevertheless, the introduction of such technology requires a strong analysis of the current
environment. We assume that the company is already operating in a well-defined process
oriented model. The use of this technology will serve to identify some potential improvements
to be done in regards to the production objectives. Beyond this, the implementation of RTLS
will probably require to think about the IT architecture and its following components: the
type of business applications to be integrated with RTLS and user interface, the database and
master data design, the location engine and related strategy algorithms parameterization,
and the way to transmit data (GSM, Wifi…)
The introduction of RTLS technology will face many issues. The first one will be directly linked
with the understanding of the functional requirements of the industry and its material
environment: how precise must be the localisation, what is the geographical scope, how this
technology can be integrated with the legacy IT and network infrastructure. One of the other
issue is the lack of feedback experience on this. A company would probably gather
information about the effectiveness of this technology before committing on a budget for this.
In definitive, RTLS can open new ways of improving controls and processes in complex
manufacturing industries. Nevertheless, since this introduction can be very expensive in
terms of process redesign and IT integration, it requires a careful attention in defining the
business drivers and objectives to be fulfilled. Beyond pure industrial application, this
technology could be very useful for other business areas such as hospitals and patient
management for example. Some experiences have already been done for using this
technology for following-up the patients and mobilizing all medical staff more quickly in
case of incidents, as well as, localised the medical material more effectively. In this kind of
application, the pure process definition takes more importance because the main objectives is
to have a real time overview of available resources and not to really optimize a process in
place.
Jimmy Patrice Jean-Baptiste, Student of MAS MTEC, 2nd semester
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The simplest purpose of the internet of things is to provide users or observers with an increased
level of data. Currently, we have the technological capabilities to gather locational,
transitional, and descriptive information about objects to simplify logistics systems and
enhance customer experiences. However, I feel, that the current value of the Internet of things
will not be fully realized until proper semantic standards are implemented across suppliers to
industries, such as retail, that benefit from the Internet of Things technologies. These
standards will make it easy to obtain value from the data by enabling cost effective filtering
and analysis so that value can be added to the data, turning it into information, and
further to knowledge to be used to guide corporate strategies.
The development of several new forms of knowledge would not be possible without the various
Internet of Things technology. NFC and RFID, in particular, have made it possible to measure
various aspects of company performance that, previously, were either technologically
infeasible or cost ineffective. For example item level locational awareness of merchandise in a
retail store was previously not possible. Using RFID technology now allows the management to
make much more informed decisions regarding the supply chain, store layouts, as well as
customer behaviors. Integrating this newly available information should allow for business
to become even more efficient in meeting customer needs.
Further value from the Internet of Things comes from enabling end users to link item level
unique identifiers with larger databases of information. In the case of Kaufhof, item level
passive RFID units were used to link to a larger, company wide database that contained
more specific information on the unit including units in stock, alternate or complementary
items. This value however only comes after the retailer, in this case, Kaufhof, aggregates
supplier data and integrates it into its master system. I think it is an important distinction
that, while most other business cases for RFD involve simplifying current processes, this one
involves creating a complicated, new process. In my opinion, more data is needed on the
effort and cost that this aggregation and data collection requires. This then needs to be
compared to the benefit that the retailer gets from offering the customers added features in
the store so that accurate total ROI’s can be calculated.
With proper ROI calculations, the business case can be made to suppliers to participate more
fully in providing the item level product data. For this to be truly useful and cost effective for
the retailer, standards for data will need to be developed on what product information will
be supplied for product reference data and the format that it will be in. This is especially
important for retailers that have short product cycles such as the fashion industry. When
suppliers are able to supply the data that can be integrated into the master database, then
lead times for product introduction and integration with the IT system can be shortened,
which leads to savings for both the retailer and the supplier.
Daniel Ryan Knipmeyer, Student of MSc. MTEC, 3rd semester
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Lecture #4
Successful IOT Business Models
Summary:
Based on the Business Model Canvas of Osterwalder and Pigneur, this sessions reviews
traditional businesses models from the web (e.g. subscription, advertisement, syndication).
These insights are used to understand how sales of products can be turned into the provision
of services based on IoT technology. Several example businesses are discussed (see
http://bit.ly/L0V7gg for the slides).
Literature:
1. Bucherer, E., Uckelmann, D.: Business Models of the Internet of Things, in: Architecting
the Internet of Things. Berlin: Springer. 2011
2. Robin Chase, What is the Fastest Path to the Internet of Things
3. Business Model Generation, A. Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur, Alan Smith, and 470
practitioners from 45 countries, self published, 2010
4. Gerben G. Meyer, Kary Framling, Jan Holmstrom, Intelligent Products: A survey,
Computers in Industry, Volume 60, Issue 3, INTELLIGENT PRODUCTS, April 2009, Pages
137-148.
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The accumulated knowledge base and technology fundamentals constantly change the
environment and infrastructure surrounding us, both in incremental and disruptive ways.
In such a rapidly changing industrial dynamics case, I believe that strong business models
are the results of following, using and responding to the contemporary opportunities that
arise. In line with this perspective, the paper recognizes the value that Internet of Things
(IoT) brings to businesses. On the one hand, there are boundless opportunities, which might
be taken into consideration; on the other hand perceiving their full potential is not
straightforward and needs time, strategic constructs as well as detailed analysis. Mostly I
found the paper very informative and beneficial, as I recognize the business value of IT and
its positive effect on the business context, provided that the opportunities are used
appropriately. Therefore, the main issues are; perceiving information as a source of value, for
which IoT could be a strong leverage, as well as the fact that it is a major source of
competitive advantage.
The commonly cited Timmers definition (1998) implies the core elements as flow of
information, products and services. From my perspective, after 14 years from that definition,
the core elements remained mainly the same, but their significance changed over time.
Namely, products and services have been the core element of the business from the early
industrial ages. However, increasing Information Technology knowledge base, especially
boundless opportunities of IoT started to bring information and its flow a step forward. The
source of competitive advantage and information flow are strongly tied to each other. While
technology and IT advances, its availability to public also brings new dimensions to
competition and intensifies it. The authors also mention a similar view, that the business
model innovation helps firms differentiate from others, and enjoy the first mover advantage.
Thus, the current business is not like the production or product oriented concepts of early
1900s, in which customer value and information base was not that significant. We are rather
experiencing the era of innovation and information, which is a fundamental reason why I
perceive IoT as a source of competitive advantage.
The value of information could be still rather intangible and hard to perceive as concrete as
tangible products, but I believe that it is yet to change. Compared to previous years, we have
much more service companies and establishments, where information is a core element. Let’s
take the example of the consulting business. The industry model is majorly modeled as a
structure, which brings the know-how and tools into customer value and benefit. The
knowledge and information transfer is the core element of the relationship between firms
and consulting agents. Therefore I do not really think that value of information is still not
well understood. Nevertheless, in the MIS Lecture we discussed that the Return on Investment
(ROI) has revenue and cost sides. While defining the costs are relatively easy, it is generally
not possible to predict the revenue, as the exact overall contribution of IoT is not easily
determinable, neither predictable. The authors use this fact as a reason of the importance of
revenue generation in IoT, which I have never thought about, whereas found plausible.
Last but not least, from both IT and marketing perspectives, I find the first scenario, which
implies Product as a Service (PaaS), most significant. As PaaS is a major trend in business,
which the paper also exemplifies by Hilti and Daimler, having a product has eventually a
meaning of not owning the product, but owning a service or service package. In such a case,
IoT has the potential to sense the environment, measure needed data and support the PaaS
approach. I believe that the industry will most probably need solutions IoT may offer to their
businesses, which will help IoT grow in the long run in that direction. In line with the
authors, I consider end customer acceptance as a major actor for successful business models,
which may also include IoT. The root cause of the IoT, namely media breaks continuously
diminishes, which positively affect our daily life. Therefore, the future offerings and smart
solutions of IoT will definitely increase end-user-acceptance.
Onur Görkem Özcan, Student of MSc. MTEC, 2nd semester
13

We use models to understand the existing systems or for simulation purposes to develop a new
system. They allow us to estimate the costs, the resources and the outcomes of an intended
future system.
A business model describes a business itself for better understanding or to develop a new one
or to redesign one. Like other models, a business model has its inputs, outputs and its
components, which are combined in a certain manner to provide the outputs. The outward
facing inputs can be the customer requirements or orders for example. The outward facing
outputs are the products and services. The components involved are resources, tools, activities,
and partners, channels, to receive those inputs and to send those outputs. This simplified
description of a business model is the skeleton of every business model and has to be adapted
and designed in detail depending on the business field and the purposes of the model.
The authors of the book “Architecting the Internet of Things” have discussed in their books the
definition of what business model is, what the business model innovation is , how the business
models of the Internet of things look like and how can the value be created in the business.
In short, how can you make profit if you apply the Internet of Things? I think, there is no
business model of the Internet of Things. The business models can be designed for
applications, which use the Internet of Things-Technology (IOT-Technology) among other
technologies, but the business model cannot be only designed for the IOT-Technology.
The question about the value creation in the business and about the profit making from those
values, if the IOT-Technology would be used, cannot be answered straightforward. The
“products” or the “outcomes” of the IOT-Technology are the data, such as the status or
location information or the information about the identification. These data can be the
“product” itself and the pricing model for such a business would be to charge a fee. However,
to charge fees for such data, which would be used as Information e.g, is not straightforward.
Nowadays, we all get used to obtaining such information, in particular digital information,
free of charge. For example, the News or the Knowledge from the Internet or even the music,
videos can be downloaded without paying for them. Therefore it makes challenging to find a
way to charge for this information.
The business models are helpful to find out the value proposition and how to make profit from
those value propositions. There are some nice examples in the book “Architecting the Internet
of Things”. These examples show that there are many opportunities for the business, such as, to
price the products and services differentiated depending on the data, which are available
only by using the IOT-Technology.
Selling a new technology such as the IOT is challenging, because it will be used as a
foundation of the system architecture, but at the end, IOT is not the product itself. This
situation is similar to the software or firmware of many devices or systems. You can sell a
device or chip or module but you cannot sell the next release of the firmware alone, although
the intelligent algorithms are implemented in the firmware, which makes in fact the product
more valuable. What the firms do is that they sell this new firmware wrapped in the
NextModul or NextDevice with slightly different hardware feature. This is a very good
strategy.
On the user and potential customer side, the IOT-Technology has to be explained and the
benefits have to be shown to make its adoption possible. One important thing is also the
starting process to change the way of thinking from “the information is for free” to
“information is valuable and costly”
Esin Evrim Kocer, Student of MAS MTEC, 2nd semester
14

Lecture #5
Approaches towards Processing
and Data Analysis
Summary:
The Internet of Things will create new magnitudes of order new amounts of unstructured and
heterogeneous data. This session reviews current approaches of distributed computing and
distributed storage in order to sketch the levers of big data of IoT (see http://bit.ly/HIbayG for
the slides).
Literature:
1. J. Cohen, B. Dolan, M. Dunlap, and C. Welton.: MAD Skills: New Analysis Practices for
Big Data, In VLDB 2009
2. Reed, D.A.; Gannon, D.B.; Larus, J.R.; , "Imagining the Future: Thoughts on Computing,"
Computer , vol.45, no.1, pp.25-30, Jan. 2012
3. James Manyika, Michael Chui, Brad Brown, Jacques Bughin, Richard Dobbs, Charles
Roxburgh, Angela Hung Byers: Big data: The next frontier for innovation, competition,
and productivity, Mc Kinsey Global Institute, May 2011.
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This week’s paper focuses on the MAD (Magnetic, Adaptive, and Deep) method for data
analysis, and the need for paradigm change within the processes within data warehousing.
With companies able to move faster as data becomes more easily available, I think that the
MAD principles make sense for companies to implement.
One of the biggest paradigm shifts mentioned in the paper is the idea that as many sources of
data should be added to the warehouse as soon as possible. This challenges the old idea that
the data going into the warehouse must be part of a bigger plan and thoroughly cleaned
before being integrated. In the MAD concept, it is more important to have more sources of
data in the warehouse so that better and more interesting analyses can be made. This is why
warehouses in the MAD scheme are considered magnetic. I think that the magnetic concept is
an important change in the way that businesses perform their analytics because it allows for
the business analyses to become much more agile. In my opinion, the trade off from 100%
accurate data to more diverse and timely data sets is worth the risk associated with
uncleaned data. One reason is that the risks can be partially mitigated through the use of
statistics and the sampling methods that are laid out in the reading. The other reason I feel
that this tradeoff is worthwhile is because the speed at which companies need to move and
react to changes in the market is constantly increasing. There are several reasons for this.
The first is that the technical infrastructure needed to create the storage and processing of
data is decreasing. This means that smaller companies can now begin to use the same tools
that previously may have not been able to afford them. This means that if a company relies
on data analysis as a source of competitive advantage, they will have an increasing amount
of competition in the area. These companies will need to focus on staying agile so as to stay
ahead of companies that are just beginning to harness the power of rigorous data analysis.
In my opinion, the most important point that is made in the MAD schema, is that business
units need to collaborate the data that they collect. With the falling prices of storage,
individual units are able to purchase and maintain the storage needed to run their own
data management system. I think that this can create many problems for the company. One
of the biggest problems would be the inefficient use of resources. If a department is storing,
maintaining, and analyzing its own data, then it will need to wither hire analysts of its
own, or take capacity from others in the unit to do the analysis. The point that the paper
makes is that dedicated data scientists are needed to make the most efficient use of the MAD
system. These specialists will have skills that are honed in on making use of data from
different business units and integrating it into a more complete database. Unless the
business unit can make the case for having these dedicated members, it is better off leaving
the database management to the intended team.
Daniel Ryan Knipmeyer, Student of MSc. MTEC, 3rd semester
16

When discussing about processing and analyzing big data inside the enterprise, it is very common
to underline the potential benefits that an Enterprise Data Warehouse would provide to the
organization. Major players on the software market have already shown the advantages in
deploying such integrated solutions, especially on the reporting and functional analysis sides’.
Nevertheless,, when going further in information details and components, we reach the limits of
such Business Intelligence tools. A new philosophy called Magnetic, Agile, and Deep (MAD) proposes
to rethink the provision of data by focusing more on specific data-analysis requirements. In the
meantime, this rupture with the traditional approach definitely offers new horizons in Internet of
Things (IoT) and their data, and raises new challenges in data computing as well.
The roots of the traditional EDW/BI are coming mainly from the need for wide organizations to
manage their business and transactional data. Within the enterprise, it is very common to find
finance or controlling departments dealing with such tools in order to issue their legal reporting
and perform some straightforward data-analysis in order to identify potential information
relevant to the value chain (profitability analysis, cash flows, transactions…). This traditional
approach is based on building up of a very data-architected system compounded by Operational
Data Stores with facts and multiple pre-defined dimensions, completed by some reporting tool
above. In this kind of traditional approach, interests on defining Master Data, Data
Transformation rules, and Data Quality are key components. This traditional approach finds its
limits when data have to be interpreted by pure data analysts, who are more interesting on the
data interpretation and predictability.
The MAD approach is addressing those needs in delivering a new framework based on an active
integration of all data-sources, a flexible architecture allowing data manipulation for quick
evolution in data definition, and capabilities to customize and embed statistical algorithms. Data
analysts are eager to continuously grab new sources of data for their research purposes. This
provides to this user community with capabilities to introduce inductive statistics in order to
capture underlying behaviors and subpopulations, whilst the traditional approach is limited to
descriptive statistics. This is possible thanks a technical implementation called data-parallel
statistics allowing to abstract the technical complexity of the SQL databases in turning up some
operations as statistical ones, which can be later used by data analysts. At this point, data-analyst
can more concentrate on the pure statistical operational research and probability.
The use of MAD in IoT business would probably address some needs in regards to huge data volume
and flow that this new technology would generate. IoT are more often characterized by on time/
real-time processing and tracking operations. In terms of data flow, this means to capture multiple
micro-events on an object leading to manage large flows of data information to be stored into
some database. In the meantime, there is a need in interpreting those captured data. The MAD is
probably giving the right backbone in terms of data storing methodology as it would provide with
some capabilities to store big volume of data with some partitioning techniques, and will allow
data analyst to perform their algorithms. Moreover, we can imagine that in case we would like to
capture more data as for example a behavioral analysis on customers, the database is flexible
enough for defining new attributes on an object and/or table of the database.
The shift towards more packaged solution with predefined algorithm which can be reused or
customized does not seem to be an issue. The main challenges remain mainly on the data
cleansing area. In the two approaches, EDW/BI or MAD, low data quality can lead to
unexplainable data. In order to solve this issue, some ETL can be used in order to allow the
development of some intelligent data transformation rules as well as the integration data in
external sources. Nevertheless, the technologies today are not mature enough on this, and still need
to be monitored by human control. In definitive, MAD approach has definitely some assets for
addressing the needs for deep analysis of big data. It provides to statisticians with tools to go
deeper into the analysis. IoT is a typical field in which this approach can be used. Moreover, this
technology combined with cloud computing given access to large data storage and computation
capabilities, open opportunities in making easier the interpretation of results. This will definitely
open up new areas in improving the value chain in various organizations, and maybe new
departments specialized in data-interpretation.
Jimmy Patrice Jean-Baptiste, Student of MAS MTEC, 2nd semester
17

Lecture #6
Ubiquitous Computing and
Smarter Cities: Capturing and
Modeling Urban Mobility
(Guest Lecturer: Prof. Vassilis Kostakos, University of Oulu)
Summary:
This invited talk presents an overview of a series of projects conducted over the last few years
with a particular focus on urban mobility. The work looks at how proximity technologies like
Bluetooth can be used to sense passengers on buses, and to communicate with them. Vassilis
Kostakos also presents some early findings on mapping tourist activity in a downtown area,
and finally how multiple sensing modalities can be combined to form a richer understanding of
urban mobility (see http://bit.ly/KuGUey for the slides).
Literature:
1. Oracle’s Solutions for Smart Cities: Delivering 21st Century Services, Whitepaper,
Oracle, June 2011
2. Kostakos, V., O'Neill, E. and Penn, A. (2006). Architectural Space, Interaction Space and
Information Spheres: Designing Urban Pervasive Systems. IEEE Computer, 39(9):52-59.
18

The first impression I had when reading the white paper “Oracle’s Solutions for Smart Cities:
Delivering 21st Century Services” was that it was a general vision statement written in a very
intricate language so as not to be very specific and not to jump into any detail. However,
going through the paper, several interesting topic emerge, which are worth discussing and
analyzing.
First of all, with respect to the topic of Internet of Things, there is no clear reference to this
concept in the text, however the term Smart Cities that appears in the title of the paper and
throughout the content, together with other terms such as “intelligent roads”, “smart parking
meters”, smart processes”, “smart infrastructure” clearly make a reference towards smart
objects or towards IoT technology. My opinion is that the goal of this paper is to present
Oracle’s vision and to position themselves as providers of an integrated set of services to local
administrations. They are practically leveraging their know-how of ERP systems to public
administration. The most relevant statement to support this is that “transforming local
government into an enterprise”. Nonetheless, looking at the map of stakeholders from Figure
1, so called “smart” devices (IoT) will most likely be integrated, in my opinion, at the City
Infrastructure level and beyond. For example, the Utilities Department will be able to keep
track of their smart meters to better handle peak demands, the Department of Transportation
will monitor the lifetime of their assets (trains/busses/trams) or the Fire & Safety Department
may be more responsive due to fire sensors in “smart buildings”.
Second, the paper argues that the main incentive of local authorities to implement such a
solution is the cost-reduction opportunity. This is a very convincing argument in this
economic climate, and large companies like Oracle are taking advantage of i t. As with most
IT projects, it is easier to sell them as cost-reduction projects, rather than value generating
projects, as the ROI of value generating IT projects is more difficult to predict. However, from
a citizen’s point of view, the transparency and accountability features of such a solution
represent huge benefits. As a personal example, I was in the situation of receiving a speeding
ticket, but the local authorities did not integrate their police data with the immigrations
office data to send the ticket at my home address. Instead, the solution was to block the
vehicle as it was parked. This proved to be quite inconvenient and time consuming.
Third, the concept of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is repeatedly used to emphasize the
difference to old, legacy systems. As many companies already embraced the concept of multichannel
services (e.g. Hilti, with their direct sales model, rely on their direct sales force,
professional shops and online platform, which are all seamlessly integrated), local
administrations are rather behind in offering similar services to their customers, which are
the citizens. From my point of view, the self-service should be maximized, through web
interfaces or mobile applications. This represents a huge benefit both for reducing the
number of employees not focusing on a job, and for the tech savvy new generation, that
prefers to do things on the go. However, fallback solutions need to be kept in place for the less
technically familiar or for specific issues that require direct human contact.
Concerning the challenges of implementing such a system, beyond what was mentioned in
the text my view is that enabling cross-departmental, multi-transactional operations while
still presenting a simple and easy to use interface to the users (both citizens and employees) is
not at all a trivial task.
To conclude, I am personally rather skeptical that a local administration will choose to
transition to a full-blown 100% Oracle solution. I defend this statement with the argument
that it is difficult to make such a radical change (software-wise and also people-wise) and to
the probably high costs of Oracle solutions. Local administrations should first recognize that
information integration is a key if a more efficient operation is desired. Change
management is very important, and this know-how should be leveraged from business knowhow,
where companies are forced to change in order to survive the business cycle.
Bogdan Mircea Ivan, Student of MSc. MTEC, 2nd semester
19

I am afraid that Governments and their activities are one of the most inefficient “industries” that
can be found. A government tends to be a world of many small “kings”, each with their own power
and responsibilities, so introducing any kinds of changes can most of the time be quite
cumbersome. Therefore it is an area with a lot of room for improvement and the solutions Oracle is
suggesting are really interesting, offering a wholesome solution to the multidimensional problems
governments face.
betrireykjavik.is (English translation: better Reykjavik) is a very interesting new site that the city of
Reykjavik has launched. There people can register and record their ideas about any topics relevant
for the city. Users can then like or dislike the idea and give their arguments for or against it. The
City Council has pledged to look into a certain amount of the most liked ideas every month. I think
this is a great initiative and most certainly better than having nothing. But then again the
solutions Oracle is suggesting deal with a much broader part of activities of governments, and
some of them do not even require some great technology, it is just about organization. To make all
processes requires businesses or residents to deal with the government much more user-friendly and
simple. But hopefully this is just the beginning for the city of Reykjavík, they do mention on their
web page that they hope to develop the page into also being a forum for surveys and possibly digital
elections for example for prioritizing investments.
In my opinion all developed countries should by now have this single point of access service, for all
three methods of contact, online, telephone service and an office. I think many have that to some
extent by now but surely not enough and the most important thing for it to work is to have some
means to make people aware of it. You can offer the greatest services but if few know of it, it will still
be inefficient. From my short adult life I have started living on my own in Iceland, moved to
Stockholm and lived there and now most recently moved to Switzerland. These three countries have
obviously different regulations and different ways of doing things, and in two of them I am a
foreigner which complicates things a bit. But they all have the one thing in common that I was
bounced from one department to another, receiving little pieces of information from each and
every institution until finally in the end, after I had gone through the whole process I understood
how it actually worked and what needs to be done when entering the housing market or moving to
another country. The problem is that every institution knows mostly only what they do and what
needs to be done for their interests, while a thorough but yet simple step by step explanation of
everything that needs to be done cross-departmental is desperately missed.
Just with a simple information site a lot can be saved. The trick is to somehow attract people to use
the site, have it simple and fun and make people aware. For example for the children schools, there
could be something like a little game in the beginning so that all the children would go home and
show their parents this site and possibly have a little something like one question every week and the
kids could collect points or just anything that could keep them interested and aware of it. So that
next time when there is a storm or something that could possibly be a reason for school
cancellation, both parents and the kids would know to look at that page for notifications. This
could save so much time and trouble both for school staff and for the parents, since I remember
when there seemed to be a reason so that school could possibly be cancelled when I was little, every
kids’ parent would have to call the school to check!
Finally I would like to point out that perhaps Oracles’ solution is not very realistic at the moment,
Rome was not built in one day and if implementation of new systems is ever a challenge, the
governmental sector would be the place. But I like how Oracle thinks big and their suggestions to
Governments to invest in IT solutions capable of handling cross-departmental, multi-transactional
operations through self –service mechanisms. It sure would make life much easier for everyone and I
hope we don’t need to wait too long until governments can be lean and clean, incorporating the
best practices of commercial enterprises while never losing site of their core missions as public
servants. Maybe if they start with putting an end to the „no firing“ policy, getting rid of people who
anyway hate their job and make room for new, increase the salary to attract talent and start with
some heavy reorganizational work – well, that would at least be one idea and it just might pay off
because of all the inefficient processes that could be replaced with more efficient solutions!
Hjördís Hugrún Sigurdardóttir, Student of MSc. MTEC, 2nd semester
20

Lecture #7
Discussion of Persuasive
Technologies and Resulting
Behavioral Change
Summary:
This session discusses how the emerging IoT can be applied to not just monitor users but to
also change their behavior. Thus, basic concepts from psychology are introduced in order to
apply them to interactive systems. Finally, technical systems implementing the concepts of
framing, goal-setting, power of defaults and feedback provide the starting point to discuss
potential applications and dangers of persuasive computing (see http://bit.ly/JBXdXU for the
slides).
Literature:
1. B. J. Fogg. 2002. Persuasive technology: using computers to change what we think and
do. Ubiquity 2002, December
2. Atkinson, Bernardine: Captology: A Critical Review, in Persuasive Technology, 2006,
Springer.
3. Charles Duhigg: How Companies Learn Your Secrets, Magazin of New York Times,
February 16, 2012
4. Cialdini, R. B. (2001). The science of persuasion. Scientific American, 284, 76-81.
5. Hitomi Tsujita and Jun Rekimoto. 2011. Smiling makes us happier: enhancing positive
mood and communication with smile-encouraging digital appliances. In Proceedings of
the 13th international conference on Ubiquitous computing (UbiComp '11).
21

Persuasion was always a part of human existence. Now computers can persuade people. We
can create machines and products that can influence people's behavior while they shop, while
they make a important decision. The decision to donate an organ, for example. How can we
persuade people to a topic or how can we persuade people to a product, which they should
buy? Every one of us, I am pretty sure, has once experienced how a positive cue such as a smile
or friendly behavior brings us to do something, e.g. to buy something. But, if the behavior
were unfriendly or pushy we would not to do so.
What is behind such human being responses to such cues? The basic tendencies of human
behavior in generating a positive response are reciprocation, consistency, social validation,
liking, authority and scarcity as introduced by Robert B. Cialdini in his article about the
science of persuasion on the magazine Scientific American. In our evolution we have learned
how to survive in difficult situations. The above mentioned behaviors are the best ways to
survive. And it really works. Just think about your past experiences and the experiences from
the people that you know.
There is lots of research that have been done in the field of Psychology. There are also lots of
empirical studies. Some of them are explained in the book “Persuasive technology: using
computers to change what we think and do” from B.J. Fogg. As I read the book title, my first
thought was “no, I do not need this!“. This reaction is also what we learned in our evolution.
We feel hemmed, if somebody or something tells us what we should do or how we should
behave. However, the purpose of the persuasive technologies should not be like that as can be
misunderstood from the book title.
A product, which is designed by applying persuasive technologies, can make our life easy.
Nintendo’s Pocket Pikachu was designed to motivate users to be physically active. A smiling,
talking robot cat can give much joy and fun to 90 year old women, who live in a home for
old people. Or, a robot as personal trainer can help to cure people in their physiotherapy.
But, what is behind all of the criticism and skepticism to the persuasive technologies. Those
critique and skepticism are understandable. Persuasive technologies use social cues we
respond to. This can be abused. We would feel somehow manipulated or ripped-off. In my
view, such concerns are not new. The abusiveness, manipulation, bad usage of a technology,
a tool, or a product has happened in the past and will happen in the future. The thing is to
know them and to be aware of them. We need regulations for products and services which
have been designed by applying persuasive technology. We have to educate people,
particularly kids, juvenile in schools as to how to deal with such products. We need to show
them the advantages and disadvantages of those products. This is basically the job of the
authorities, parents, social institutions.
Esin Evrim Kocer, Student of MAS MTEC, 2nd semester
22

In light of the fact that the computers of several decades ago advanced to a level that we can
mention intense human-computer interaction, I certainly believe that human beings started to
respond to cues from digital environment. Therefore, Fogg’s book chapter about computers as social
actors caught my attention with an interesting narration of a man screaming to his computer in
anger in the beginning. From previous experiences and classes I highly value persuasive computing
and believe that it has a strong power mechanism, which attracts people to respond. Thus, having
read both the literature and its critical review, I do share most of the ideas introduced in the book
chapter.
As a member of the 90s’ youth generation, Tamagotchi was a milestone in my childhood, which I
carried for a long time. The basic principle of feeding and playing with them was somehow
convincing me as a child to constantly care about the device and persuaded me as if it was a
living creature that I should take care of. I think the author had a very nice point with
mentioning this, as it caused me to have a flashback to those years. Nevertheless, for persuasion I
believe physical attractiveness has strong importance in real life, as people tend to tie physical
features with associations in mind. However, from my perspective as long as interactive faces look
artificial, physical attractiveness will be still effective, but as a secondary factor in persuasion.
Namely, I think the effect of physical attractiveness in sales people, and interactive face is still
incomparable, which might change in future for sure. On the other hand, psychological cues, which
address mainly the subconscious of human mind, might have a more direct effect on persuasion. I
believe currently most of the items and applications in the digital world are targeting us with some
psychological cues. As an example, the humorous webpage shown by Firefox when I press the back
button too many times, which are surprised Firefox mascots getting busted by me while playing
cards, with a title ¨What are you doing here? ¨, makes me think as if Firefox has a personality. Also,
the Stanford similarity study shows that people respond to computers, which matched their
personalities. Moreover, Oscillotech scopes were perceived more favorably with friendly responses,
with a changed personality of the device. Having said that, I find psychological cues very effective
in terms of communication and persuasion.
As people mostly really like to be praised, that could be also a successful persuasive tool in terms of
language use. Personally, I would like to have a tool which guides me through the steps while
appreciating my effort with some motivating words and praises, rather than giving orders and
going straight all the time. Therefore, I share author’s view that people receiving praise would feel
more powerful, confident and more willing to work with computer. Nevertheless, adapting to the
unwritten patterns of social interaction would also be a powerful tool to persuade people. Even
though I have not heard about the character DW before, the phrases it uses definitely sound like
from the society and it has a natural effect on the character. This in turn affects the response of the
people to that computer/device so that the negative effect of being digital / artificial diminishes in
human mind. Besides, having a psychotherapist program 50 years ago, with less than 300 lines of
code sounds really interesting and extraordinary, which seems to be a role-play in the therapistpatient
relationship.
Even though the software seems to be simple, it is an interesting fact that some people responded to
that tool seriously, as if it can really help people. I even treat my computer as a professional, i.e.
trainer, instructor, helper etc., which is also an image developed from the idea of giving the
computer a social role. From the aspects mentioned so far, persuasive acts have similarities with
marketing. Mostly, the responses could be likely to be either on the satisfactory or unsatisfactory
end. Like choosing the right pricing strategy in marketing concept, here the effective persuasion
tool should be chosen. I would not claim as certain as the author that it is either a win or lose.
Namely, by tracking the effect of the cues, there is always a possibility to adjust and adapt to the
most promising option, so that a positive impact could be achieved. Consequently, having software
with personalities, physical attractiveness, social roles, adaptation, language use and so on, we are
bringing the digital world much closer to our human space, which seems to create artificial
humanity in the digital space.
Onur Görkem Özcan, Student of MSc. MTEC, 2nd semester
23

Lecture #8
Human Interaction with the
Internet of Things
Summary:
This session introduces to the general concepts of human computer interaction. Thus, the
notion of affordances, basics of the human perception apparatus, and established design
processes are presented. Finally, the instrumentation of objects by digital functionality is
discussed in terms of functional relation and intuitiveness (see http://bit.ly/KjoiKw for the
slides).
Literature:
1. Matthias Kranz, Paul Holleis, Albrecht Schmidt: Embedded Interaction: Interacting with
the Internet of Things. In: IEEE Internet Computing, Jg. 14 (2010) Nr. 2, S. 46-53.
2. Pei-Yu Chi, Jen-hao Chen, Shih-yen Liu, Hao-Hua Chu: Designing Smart Living Objects -
Enhancing vs. Distracting Traditional Human-Object Interaction. HCI (2) 2007: 788-797
24

Black Socks. I am pretty sure you know the problem with the black socks. Many people have
many black socks. Unfortunately they slightly differ from each other. Some are striped and
some are solid. After washing the socks you have to find the proper pairs. And I am also pretty
sure that many of you already know, how time consuming is the finding those pairs. I would
very appreciate if every sock would find its partner and would have tie together and walk or
fly to the drawer its own. I am dreaming of such kind of socks. Seriously.
Joking apart, this simple funny example shows, how we can save time and energy, if we would
surrounded with intelligent Things, that we use regularly in our daily life. As we discussed in
the previous classes the sensors, actuators, information and communication technologies,
material sciences and many other technologies in different fields are necessary for creating
such intelligent Things.
We buy and adapt new products with new features, if we can afford them and recognize their
benefits. The handling and the usage of such a product need to be as simple as possible, so
that they would make our life easy, because we will use them daily. If the handling would be
complicated or time consuming we will not use them and we will not adopt both the
technology and the products. I think this is a very important issue.
There are many developing and research activities in the field of the wearable technology. It
is about clothes and accessories that incorporate computer and advanced electronic
technologies. It is about forming our clothes and accessories to an embedded device so that
we can interact with them. Why? Do we need such embedded clothes and accessories and
need interact with them?
As Natalia Allen, a fashion designer was running in the New York City in the darkness and
she was thinking: It has to be a way to be better illuminated! She did not want to use battery
charged devices such LED lights. She wanted a solution, which is practical and ecological.
And she designed a light emitting running shirt, which uses the photo-luminescent
technology. The shirt stays illuminated for more than ten hours and can be charged quickly
by exposure to any light source. I think, this product is the answer why we need embedded
fashion and embedded Things. We want to live in an ecological environment and we want to
minimize the usage of the energy resources. There are many other applications of such
“smart” textiles, such as the Natalia’s running shirt, in healthcare and in consumer
electronics. For example, medical monitoring of physiological signals including heart-rate,
guided training or assistance to emergency first-responders, etc. In consumer electronics
possible applications could be controlling a mp3 players or keyboards using such wearable
clothes.
We face many challenges as we develop and use such devices as the authors already
mentioned in the article “Embedded Interaction, Interacting with the Internet of Things”. I
think it is important to involve the users in the design phase of those products to overcome the
challenges. The products have to be easy to handle and to use, affordable, and fulfill all
previous functionality. I mean, the socks have to remain still socks, dry, comfortable, and soft.
Esin Evrim Kocer, Student of MAS MTEC, 2nd semester
25

I think this is a very interesting topic and the article was quite good, perhaps though a bit too brief
and at times insufficiently detailed, especially regarding usability and practicality.
The first case about Context-Aware Kitchen Utilities did not really appeal to me. When realizing the
vision of embedded interaction with the Internet of Things I think it is very important to think of
usability, not only identify and augment everyday objects with input or output facilities. It is stated
that it can provide a variety of novel services to household members, such as reminders and
suggestions for improving nutrition. Here I would have liked a little more detail, more examples of
potential novel services and maybe a short explanation about how they intend to give suggestions
for improving nutrition since we do not cut everything we eat so even though the cutting board can
detect what it is we are eating, that alone would not be enough to give us suggestions for improving
nutrition. I think that having the cutting board also a scale is very useful and practical, and I
could even imagine that having it as your mouse would be useful, so you could control the music
you are listening to on your computer or browsing through the recipe you are using from online.
But the rest I would not buy, too complicated and I see no added value in stuff like having
something detect how many are sitting at my dinner table, or detecting what it is that I am
cutting and giving me suggestions about what would go with it, since if I am cutting it I have
already shopped at the grocery store and decided what I am going to cook. Case 2 is a pretty fun
idea but again some more details about usability would have been interesting to hear. I think it
would have to be quite carefully designed so that you could not too easily accidentally press the
button, just while wearing the peace of clothing. For example while wearing the apron it seems the
situation that you would accidentally press one of the buttons could arise quite easily, just while
leaning against the kitchen interior. I thought Case 3 was by far the most interesting one, both the
game and the part regarding rehabilitation. The Virrig Race Game sounds really fun and I would
definitely want to play that one and I see myself having a really good time playing with my
youngest brother or simply whomever. The project focusing on sports and rehabilitation is a very
good idea I think. I have played soccer for a long time and often had to go to a physical therapist.
I always left the appointment with good intention to do the exercises I was advised to do. Too often
I ended up forgetting about it and before I knew time flew by and I was already going to my next
appointment, or sometimes I was simply lazy and did half of the exercises, sometimes because the
award was not very visible to me. If I would have been working with such a device, and I would
know that perhaps both my trainer and the physical therapist could at any point review the
recorded data offline, I surely would have done my exercises with glee. It would simply be so
motivating to know that someone is watching and also just to be able to review it yourself, the
physical therapist could put it up in some charts and just make one‘s performance so visible. This
could also in some cases simplify the work of the physical therapist, because she would always know
if the patient has been doing his exercises or not and could than more easily detect why the
rehabilitation would perhaps be going slowly. Case 4 sounds maybe not all too exciting but quite
practical if implemented in a smooth way.
In general I think this holistic approach towards interacting with the Internet of Things, where
physical interaction, communication and data exchange are integrated together is extremely
exciting. Some ideas I believe will work right now or very soon but other might be good ideas, but
just overly futuristic at the moment. Perhaps one day I will think it is very important to have my
dinner table detect how many are sitting at it, who knows!
The challenges listed are quite good I belief. I am a bit torn between the two in the first one,
embedded vs. interaction devices. As we read for last class habits die hard, and usually it is easier
to create a new habit than to change an old one. Therefore I would root for interaction devices.
But then again I think it is really cool to add functions and broaden the impact of objects people
already use or are familiar with, that is the embedded devices. I think the embedded could be a big
hit if it is done in a smart enough way so people don‘t get scared and associate it with too much
complexity. But once we are dealing with an embedded device I belief it is vital to find a way to
avoid the invisibility dilemma. Last but not least I think that the EIToolkit is just a brilliant idea, I
wouldn‘t be surprised if many people, without proliferate programming expertise, have some very
interesting and practical ideas. Therefore this development support might be just the help they need
to turn their idea into a functional device.
Hjördís Hugrún Sigurdardóttir, Student of MSc. MTEC, 2nd semester
26

Lecture #9
Self-Inspection through Sensors:
Quantified Self
(Guest Lecturer: Denis Harscoat, Founder of DidThis)
Summary:
In this session from Denis Harscoat the movement of quantified self is introduced: the quest
for quantifying and expressing everyday behavior and activities has started among geeks in San
Francisco and continuously embraces our lives. This session reflects on technical requirements
and business opportunities (see http://bit.ly/JZv1Jh for the slides).
Literature:
1. Wolf, G. (2010) The Data-driven life, NY Times Magazine, April 28.
27

This extract from the NewYork Times introduces us to the theme of self-inspection through the use of
sensors. This article tries to explain how daily common data coming from the analysis of human
behavior can be interpreted and reveal evidences. As an extent of our current perception, selfinspection
can be used for helping to achieve personal objectives as well as to observe and
understand better our comportment in a more rational way. Nevertheless, this technology can be
seen as an intrusion in our own private life. Facing the reality of numbers could indeed be prone to
stress and to a degree, make people ashamed of what they do.
In our daily private life, we rarely try to collect our behavioral data, whereas it can be a useful
source of information for explaining our resentments and certainties. The human perception is not
always accurate, and lies under subjectivity. The different experiences depicted in the article such
as the test of the cup of coffee, or the dish wash exercise, show how our feelings can influence our
judgment and rationality. It appears that our own intelligence builds a negative judgment thus
altering our feelings, when we consider that something tends to be wrong or do not correspond to
what we were expecting. The outcomes of the cases in this text show clearly an alteration of the
perception on the time to do something such as “washing the dishes” as well as on the quantity such
as the quantity of coffee consumed. In order to provide with a more objective analysis, the use of
numbers can participate to revise this altered judgment. It is not new that data and all the
ensuing analysis are widely use in business, heath or politics areas for argumentation and
decision making. We have through those data a real picture of the facts which can be served as a
reference for everyone, without any subjective inputs. Nevertheless, although this is quite common to
capture data for business, economic, social… purposes, it seems that our personal private life
remains out of scope.
The main question raised into this article is how data can be used for our own life. For many years,
sociologists have tried to record and interpret those private data. Nevertheless, it turned to be a
laborious task involving numerous stakeholders and requiring high availability and equipment.
The emergence of new technologies such as sensors and cloud computing, the size of the devices and
the trend to share data allow today to address this previous issue. Via sensors and multimodality, it
becomes possible to grab, download, upload data in a quasi-real time way and store them in some
analytical cubes, which will be afterwards used to perform some statistical queries. The private
behavioral data collection is now facilitated by the use of devices such as mobile phones or GPS. The
reference to the sport area highlights this technological step for which light sensors replaced heavy
equipment when capturing effort data. Since the technology is today in place, it is worth to think
about how this can be adopted by people and be used in their respective daily private life. One of the
pre-requisites for a potential user would be to ensure the scope and the objectives of this selftracking,
and will follow afterwards the kind of analysis to be performed. In most of the cases, we
are looking to shed light on hidden figures and facts. According to psychology sciences, our mental
life is affected by hidden causes, and this technology can provide with some highlights on this area.
Nonetheless, this supposes to have some statistical skills in order to understand the meaning of the
collected data when replaced in their context. Once the objectives set-up, the user will be more
receptive and prone to understand the outcomes and correct his behaviors if needed.
Otherwise, the use of this technology can be seen as an intrusion in your own private life. This is
particularly true when the technology plays a corrective role, by pinpointing constantly the errors
done by the user. Some examples given in the article are the alcohol addiction or loosing weight:
the user, facing the reality of numbers, becomes to have a negative image of himself. The technology
can be in this sense intrusive and seen as a constriction in the daily life. There is therefore a risk
that the user leaves the technology. It is indirectly creating some stress, meaning that the user has
failed in his objectives. This can put the user in check. In definitive, the technology has made easier
the analysis of our behavior. We are now today able to undertake a real inspection of our
comportment, and rectify the subjective vision we could have on our daily tasks and achievement of
objectives. Nevertheless, the adoption of such technology cannot be dissociated from your objectives.
As said into the article, this technology has no feelings and is objective. Some users can experience
the same situation that they have at work, and develop a feeling that they are being watched and
doing things wrong.
Jimmy Patrice Jean-Baptiste, Student of MAS MTEC, 2nd semester
28

This week’s paper deals with the positive and negative effects that the increasing prevalence
and affordability of mobile sensors will have on individuals. The author seems to believe that
the ability to seamlessly track our daily actions, including sleeping, eating, and dietary
habits will move out from being a fringe activity into the mainstream market. For the most
part I agree with the views of the author, but I feel that the push for self-quantification will
come from the medical community as a way to more effectively diagnose, administer, and
track healthcare.
One recent area of exploration by medical device companies is in the area of wireless remote
care. The author touches on this a little when he talks about the blood pressure units and the
weight scales. The future of these devices will be integration and communication on a home
wireless or cellular network. An area that I have personally dealt with was the area on
wireless remote sensors for use in new onset heart failure patients. The idea was that with
continuous monitoring and event detection, patients could recover at home while still
having continuous health monitoring. While the equipment would be expensive, it would be
much cheaper to implement than the cost of continuous care within a hospital environment.
Companies using this type of equipment are hoping that insurance companies will notice this
and provide patients with reimbursement for the use of the device.
As the author mentioned, psychologists are using these self-monitoring technologies to
monitor the moods and habits of their patients. I think that this has quite a bit of potential.
One great project that I have heard about deals with the treatment of recovering heroin
addicts. The project gives the patients a mobile device and treatment with methadone. They
then are asked several times a day if they have cravings and if they have used. In the
meantime, the device tracks their location throughout the day. The theory behind the project
is that recovering addicts are more prone to relapse when they are put into certain
environments. In this case, the study divides the city into different areas and assigns them a
score based on the crime rate and other statistics. The goal is to be able to show the addicts
how the situations and locations that they put themselves enable their habits. In the future
the technology could be used to help guide the recovering addict into staying away from the
locations that could have a negative impact on their recovery.
One of the biggest barriers to mainstream adoption that I see for self monitoring equipment
is the cost vs. the value added for the average consumer. In the article, the author is aware
that current users are ones that are extremely data driven and enjoy doing custom analytics
on the data. The average mainstream user will not have time to do this and will not be able
to gain long term rewards from the equipment unless, either the cost of the devices goes down,
or there is an integration into a value adding system that we have not thought of yet.
Daniel Ryan Knipmeyer, Student of MSc. MTEC, 3rd semester
29

Lecture #10
Social Implications and Privacy
Debates
(Guest Lecturer: Rob van Kranenburg, Founder of Council)
Summary:
This describes the Internet of Things as a grass roots movement with the potential of
questioning the power of established institutions and authorities. This session describes how
citizens can use the Internet of Things to decentrally organize their lives more efficiently than
with today’s services provided centrally. This talks tries to resolve fears of a big brother by
providing the perspective of an Internet of Things democratizing the access to sensors, data,
computing, and knowledge (see http://bit.ly/KpZM0l and http://bit.ly/KX77kK for the slides).
Literature:
1. Rob van Kranenburg, The Internet of Things. A critique of ambient technology and the
all-seeing network of RFID, Network Notebooks 02, Institute of Network Cultures,
Amsterdam, 2007. ISBN: 978-90-78146-06-3.
2. http://sourcemap.com
3. Louis Leung: Effects of Internet Connectedness and Information Literacy on Quality of
Life, in Social Indicators Research 98 (2), 273-290.
4. Louis Leung, Paul S.N. Lee: Multiple determinants of life quality: the roles of Internet
activities, use of new media, social support, and leisure activities, in Telematics and
Informatics 22 (3), August 2005, Pages 161–180.
30

As a critical response to ambient technology and RFID, the foreword of the paper was an intriguing
entry to the subject. A vision, foresight of the transparent society, depicted as tale of two cities under
‘surveillance’, I started to think which could be better for me and for the society. What I personally
observe more is the city of control, with thousands of surveillance items, CCTVs and concerns about
public deployment about RFID, where I have the feeling that most of the actions I take whether are
reported or potentially reported to an agent that we are not aware. Certainly, I am constantly
under surveillance, even though mostly not individually targeted but as an ordinary individual
in the society, I do not have access to the things reported and documented about me, which makes
me feel insecure about this issue. On the other hand, Brin’s city of trust addresses the concern that I
have on my mind, namely instead of secret reporting and collection of data, the surveillance could
be used for public convenience and could be accessed by everyone in the society, which then
leverage the life of the individuals, as well as force the controlling embodiments to neutralize their
actions. Also, specific indoor locations are from my point of view less public and thus less respectful
to individuals’ rights to place cameras, compared to open-air surveillance. Nevertheless, it is
surprising to see that such surveillance did not have any decreasing effect on crime rate. Besides
that, the city of control implementations such as Golden Shield in China, and potentially biometric
passports with RFID could be threatening for the public, which calls for access to equivalent and the
same tools as the ruling authorities.
From the viewpoint of my generation, landline telephone calling is probably rather given and not
a technology miracle, whereas GSM has been once a state of the technology and milestone. The
difference in between seems to be the fact that landline communication was already ubiquitous,
with the architecture invisible in the background and distributed worldwide; therefore it was
always given for us as part of our daily life. On the other hand, we testified the emergence of GSM
technology and for a long time it was a technology milestone for us, which as well seems to have
become ubiquitous after all. Just like that, I believe information processing becomes more
commonplace and goes in the background, which decreases our reaction, awareness and criticism.
RFID is just a further level example of ubiquitous computing, on our transition towards leaving
computation in the background, reacting to the environment and changes, thus making life
easier. I do strongly believe that privacy considerations are not given much importance by the
developers among other issues, as we don’t see as many hardware breakdowns and performance
problems, as we face privacy threats and security updates.
In an information space, I believe communication is an important aspect to take care of and
sustain. The more ubiquitous computing becomes, perceiving the information is more challenging,
with the environment as interface. Moreover, it was surprising to read that Philips’s ambient move
was a starter of privacy debates, which made them discontinue chip making. Car repairing example
is another dimension, which the current technology makes me feel more dependent in terms of
problem solving and conceptual understanding as well as stability of the agencies, which may
impose a totalitarian and proprietary path. To address this challenge, I believe Bricolabs was a
promising act, which aims to restore the role of individuals as the major actors in the global
happenings, with open source development, open market and ban of monopolies. It is appropriate to
mention the Skype phone as an example of proprietary and not-useful act, which does not unleash
the full potential of a mobile phone, rather simply by locking it down to Skype functionalities,
namely proprietary impositions.
Disabling ideas are not good examples of open market, nor business value, even though Apple
proprietarily has huge market power, things should change, with examples such as Hive, fair trade
hardware which enables the choice and opportunities. We can’t simply ignore the technology; it is
there and continuously integrated so that they become indispensable. Thus, moving towards city of
trust is more plausible, with open source perspective and privacy control, as in the example of RFID
guardian. If I can now control the privacy of my mobile Bluetooth, I should also be in charge of my
privacy preferences and settings, so that I can trust the environment, why not?
Onur Görkem Özcan, Student of MSc. MTEC, 2nd semester
31

The first impression I had about the paper “The Internet of Things. A critique of ambient
technology and the all-seeing network of RFID” by Rob van Kranenburg is that of a very
difficult lecture due to the highly philosophical and subjective nature of the argumentation.
However, after another review of the document, several key ideas emerge which I will
summarize and discuss in the following paragraphs.
First of all, I believe that the foreword presenting the two cities – one of Control and the other
of Trust – is a very useful exaggeration of two different possible scenarios concerning the
evolution of technology, especially ubicomp, respectively the Internet of Things. Of course,
reality will probably prove that we won’t have either of the two in the future, but more likely a
combination of the two cities will exist.
Second, regarding the promises of ambient intelligence, an interesting point made is that in
the digital territory there is no forgetting and no memory loss. From my understanding, this
essentially means that once data has been recorded, it may be used by the owners of the data
(or not necessarily the owners?) after some time. This idea got me thinking about the latest
cloud storage service introduced by Google called Drive. There was already a hot discussion
regarding the terms of service changed by Google earlier this year, and the newly introduced
service generates the question: if the files you upload to Google Drive are your possession, how
come does Google have the right to use the data regarding the files even after they were
deleted? I think we are still very far away from having clear regulations regarding new and
emerging technologies (such as cloud storage now) and I see the same problems (if not
bigger) emerging when discussing about the Internet of Things (or Ambient Intelligence).
Third, another interesting point is the failure of the EU to instill a trust environment to
nurture innovation. Instead, the writer argues that policy makers in the EU are pursuing a
fear policy. I completely agree that this is the wrong approach, but it is the easiest policy to
enforce by the EU if there is a lack of knowledge. Therefore, I believe that there will be an
extreme need of people with both, technology, and law and policy knowledge in the future
years in order to be able to take informed decision at a policy level. Another issue here that I
see is that the Internet and the IoT are global technologies, while policies are local or
clustered (EU, USA etc.)
The solution envisioned by the author of the paper is a bottom-up approach that empowers
people to control their privacy requirements and this can be achieved through the open
source movement (both software and hardware) on the one hand, and through institutions
that don’t have the restrictions that both universities and companies have. In my opinion,
this is quite difficult to achieve, without effective incentives both for companies and for
research institutions to allow the ‘natural’ and correct development of new technologies.
However, the discussion is certainly very important to be raised so that awareness on these
issues is generated. The last statement is very revealing in my opinion: “The only way towards
a City of Trust is to start locally”. I would extend it and argue that trust can be established
only inside small and local communities, so certainly policy making for the Internet of
Things will present many challenges.
Bogdan Mircea Ivan, Student of MSc. MTEC, 2nd semester
32

Lecture #11
DIY Approaches for Consumers
to Shape Their IoT Applications
Summary:
This session reflects on the general motivation of do-it yourself in order to understand which
tools and platforms for IoT would be have to provided in order empower consumers to shape
their own applications. A set of standard platforms is reviewed and outstanding challenges are
discussed (see bit.ly/KN5A0x for the slides).
Literature:
1. Marc Roelands, Johan Plomp, Diego Casado Mansilla, Juan R. Velasco, Ismail Salhi, Gyu
Myoung Lee, Noel Crespi, Filipe Vinci dos Santos, Julien Vachaudez and Frédéric
Bettens: The DiY Smart Experiences, in Architecting the Internet of Things, Springer,
2011.
2. von Hippel, E. (1998). Economics of product development by users: The impact of
`sticky' local information. Management Science, 44(5), 629-644
3. Marc Roelands, Laurence Claeys, Marc Godon, Marjan Geerts, Mohamed Ali Feki,
Lieven Trappeniers: Enabling the Masses to Become Creative in Smart Spaces -
Orienting User Creation in the Internet of Things in the Context of the ITEA2 DiYSE
Project. Architecting the Internet of Things 2011: 37-64
33

This week’s reading deals with the “Do it Yourself Smart Experiences (DiYSE)” Project and
provides a general outline for the direction for the evolution that the internet of things (IoT)
needs to take in order to become maximally accessible to the future wave of IoT developers. I
personally think that the creation of a platform that enables smart objects to communicate
and interface with each other, regardless of manufacturer, is a powerful thing. However, I
feel that there are significant barriers that stand in the way of getting large corporate
entities on board for a more open source approach to the development of a DiYSE.
Just recently AT&T announced that they will be stepping into the DiTSE space with their
introduction of their Digital Life products. For now the product is focused on providing
security for a home through sensors including smoke, fire and carbon monoxide sensors as
well as security cameras. The platform aims to extend to other smart objects as well, such as
home energy monitoring and integration with locks and doors. The information is
monitored in real-time by AT&T as a security system, but the information can also be
accessed through smartphones, tablets, and computer based web portals. This foray into the
IoT for AT&T is a big step for established companies to start taking on the future of connected
houses in a real way.
My concern with this project is that, given AT&T’s history of closed innovation, the company
will not allow the system to expand into a DiYSE paradigm. As of now, all components in the
Digital Life program must be installed professionally, and there is not an available API for
independent developers to work with. Compounding on this, there are rumors that AT&T
eventually plans to make the program run exclusively on AT&T based connections. By keeping
this ecosystem closed, AT&T is making the same mistakes that they made with their cellular
industry. Keeping a new and budding business behind closed doors only sets them up to be
replaced by a community of supported developers. By attempting to keep the cell phone
ecosystem controlled, they shut out potential innovations that they could have facilitated.
When the iPhone appeared, AT&T had no choice but to give up its control over the content
that flowed over its network. It’s not only that the iPhone was revolutionary, but it allowed
for (and supported) the easy creation of content in a much more desirable mobile ecosystem.
That being said, Apple and the i-things work great in their closed community (meaning no
cross OS support), but this is because they embrace the DiY spirit within the walls of their own
hardware/software, which works great in the short term. They have provided the iOS SDK and
all of its associated programs which have made the iPhone such a success. I believe that if
AT&T were to mimic this model, and include the developers in the DiY domain, they could
have significant advantages over the myriad number of start-ups attempting to dominate
the emerging smart home market.
If AT&T used their massive resources and market reach to take on the smart home market, I
believe they could have long term success, but only if they make efforts to include a broad set
of developers and foster the entrepreneurial “App” based market platforms that mobile users
have become accustomed too. By keeping their innovation strictly closed, they are impeding
progress in the field by forcing start-ups with fewer resources to try alternative solutions
rather than focusing on one solution that has the potential to make a huge impact.
Daniel Ryan Knipmeyer, Student of MSc. MTEC, 3rd semester
34

The paper has been another opportunity for me to realize how the technology is evolving in the
timeframe that we are living, just by having a look at the locus of discussion and remarks. In 2005
I would not probably see myself as a creator objects, which was stated by Von Hippel, whereas now I
am aware of the increased opportunities I can take part. With a drawback of growing complexity,
which on the other hand seems to be compensated by technologic advancements, we can continue
creating more productively. Thus I believe the challenge of complexity allows us to design more
customized, focused and smart solutions, which enhance our daily life. I certainly think that Do it
Yourself (DiY) approach is an appropriate one, considering that no one is the master of everything
anymore, besides everybody has a different profession and key skills differ among people groups and
individuals in a highly distributed manner. Thinking it like a division of labor perspective in
development, the age of computerization allows us to elaborate ideas with the tools and similar
minds brought together, e.g. via online platforms.
From my perspective, the idea behind developing things is more related to motivational psychology,
by recognizing the influence of the ambition to solve a problem, and providing a useful solution to
humanity. Besides, I came up with some examples in the history of Technology and Innovation
Management that some people turn out to be well-known developers, beginning with a passion to
have a good reputation within the society. Putting it together with the evolution of technology and
the Internet, I believe people are increasingly motivated to create something, with such enabling
factors. An example could be millions of creative apps developed by anonymous developers on Apple
AppStore. Nevertheless, from an environmental perspective I find DiYSE project’s concern with ecoawareness
and eco awareness very useful, with an aim to address those issues in a more tangible
manner, in order to leverage those facts to a concrete level. For example, I use in car GPS and
Google Maps to get optimal route to reach an address, which saves energy and makes me feel more
environment friendly, as the distance I drive decreases significantly from time to time. Among the
smart home examples mentioned, I think the auto-regulation of heating is significant, as I know
many people including me, who might forget to turn off or decrease the level of heating before
going out, which is a pure energy loss. Also, the automated light control is also a good example,
which might be a solution to the darkness while entering home with a more comfortable feeling.
From my point of view, such smart solutions should be easily installable, and if they can’t be so, they
should be very significant and life changing which could then convince people to take the burden
of installation anyway. The 24/7 connectivity is another requirement I would consider important,
as the interaction between the smart environment and the person should not be distracted.
Moreover, the multiple standards and various different interfaces is a challenge, which could be
overcome via enhanced drivers in low level, as discussed in the article.
There is a reason beyond Google’s market value: The Internet is a huge chunk of distributed
documents and information, and Google can index them so that we can reach whatever we need.
The same challenge holds for the IoT. The vast volume of devices and data makes it tougher to
incorporate them and work in the same domain. I believe a formal vocabulary could be from that
aspect helpful to specify concepts, which should also adapt to evolving technology. Furthermore, the
dynamic changes both in temporal form and the environment could be used to adapt to the
situation, thanks to context-aware computing. Nevertheless, smart companions bridge that gap
and gradually become parts of our lives, with capabilities such as speech/face recognition, as well
as sense and change the environment. In the article I got the feeling that authors find it
disappointing that the companions cannot sense our moods yet, but I believe it is a milestone,
which could not be implemented into the smart companions in a short time. Therefore, emotional
adaptation of those companions is a multidimensional and complex issue, which should be given
time to realize.
It is true that human-computer interaction is yet unnatural compared to human-human
relations, but this gap will diminish over the time, depending on the achievements in affective
recognition area. DiY approaches will continue enhancing the creativity in IoT, with supportive
measures being taken and to be taken in the future.
Onur Görkem Özcan, Student of MSc. MTEC, 2nd semester
35

Lecture #12
Management Implications of the
Internet of Things
Summary:
This session reviews the management practices form the 80ies and 90ies (Total Quality
Management, Six Sigma) as a starting point for understanding how businesses could be
managed based on sensed data. As the two possibilities the data driven company (“highresolution
management”) and products-as-a-service are derived (see http://bit.ly/N0NXO3 for
the slides).
The following opinion papers provide some rationale why this has not happened yet.
Literature:
1. Subirana, B., Sarma, S., Fleisch, E.: High-Resolution Management. IESE Alumni
Magazine, 8–13 (July/September 2006)
2. Heapy, J., 2011. Creating Value Beyond the Product Through Services. Design
Management Review, 22(4), pp 32-39
3. Kevin Linderman, Roger G. Schroeder, Srilata Zaheer, Adrian S. Choo, Six Sigma: a goaltheoretic
perspective, Journal of Operations Management, Volume 21, Issue 2, March
2003, Pages 193-203, ISSN 0272-6963
4. Fleisch, E., ITEM-HSG, Auto-ID Lab St. Gallen (Eds.), (2010). What is the Internet of
Things?: An Economic Perspective: ITEM-HSG, Auto-ID Lab St. Gallen.
36

Management is an ever changing science so to speak and to quote a chapter called
Leadership and Management (Shackleton_Wale_2000) that I just read for Human Resource
Management, „there is no one solution about how to be a successful leader, which qualities,
behaviors and approaches need to be adopted in order to be a successful leader. The only
certainty is change.“ And the challenge there for the leader or the management team is to
find out and decide what kind of changes to undergo at which time, to choose the direction
the company is heading for.
The High-Resolution Management approach suggested in the High-Resolution Management
article is quite interesting and provides persuading arguments of the benefits companies
should expect if they choose to adopt this approach. Managing a supply chain can be a very
complicated task and the solutions offered to combat the four troublesome areas; shrinkage,
out-of-stocks, inventory costs and handling costs through RFID tags sound oh so appealing!
But this article was published in 2006 and now just about 6 years later the question is, why
has it not been adopted more widely? And the answer to that is not to be found in this
article, since it is very focused on stating only the potential benefits but not so much the
challenges behind the adoption of High- Resolution Management. As we have seen with
previous articles in this course and also from discussions in class, the hurdles companies need
to go through in order to adapt high-resolution management are quite a few, and like we
were told in class about the project at Galery Kaufhof, which is no longer operating with RFID
tags because it was not able to convince it‘s whole supply chain of adopting RFID tags, and it
was too costly and time consuming to create the additional task of tagging every single item
as it entered the stores. So in the end it is all about evaluating the pros and cons, managers
need to do a cost benefit analysis and weigh the costs accompanying the adaptation against
the potential benefits. I believe that one possible reason for why RFID tags have not been
adopted more widely in businesses is that managers are not looking enough at the big
picture, they are being too short sighted and perceiving the hurdles that need to be overcome
as bigger obstacle than they are. It will need a lot of effort but I think the benefits will proof it
to be worthwhile for the long run.
The article ‘Creating Value Beyond the Product Through Services’ was very interesting and
had some excellent points about how the society and consumer expectations are changing as
the technology and the Internet have become omnipresent. But accompanied with the
technological advancements are various different challenges, this article gives many
interesting examples of the „winners“ and how some companies have been innovative and
successful in providing their products with additional services and creating a lock-in effect
(like Apple has done so well for example), but the sentence about how the increasingly
empowered customer base made me think of other sectors maybe not so informed or
intertwined with the technology that are still being hugely affected by the technological
advancements. Hotels for example, even though the Internet has been around for a while, it
is rather recently that the mass started to use it for basically everything and it seems to be
only increasing and now especially with all the smart phones. With sites such as
tripadvisor.com becoming ever more popular hotel managers really need to emphasize
quality control more than ever before. It is so important to provide stability, so at least if a
hotel is aiming for quality it must strive to provide it at all times, and if there are some
complaints or customers are unsatisfied it is very important to try to take care of that with a
successful ending because if people are very disappointed with your service they will tell – and
not anymore just to their friends – now they can basically tell the whole world with very little
effort, it takes them just a few minutes!
Then I would also like to mention that I think it is really cool how companies are partnering
up to provide the consumers with ever cooler and better products, using each other
competences and combining it into a new experience for the consumers. In that way
companies get the competitive advantage of using for example each others’ knowledge – one
being experienced service provider and the other an experienced manufacturer and the
consumers get better products – it‘s a win-win!
Hjördís Hugrún Sigurdardóttir, Student of MSc. MTEC, 2nd semester
37

I believe that the two papers from the literature assignment complement each other quite
well. The paper by B. Subirana, S. Sarma and E. Fleisch provides an overview of the historic
evolution of management from mass production, to lean production and towards what they
call “high-resolution management”. On the other hand, the paper by J. Heapy is more
marketing-oriented and strongly argues for value creation through service provision. I will
discuss both papers and present my own views with respect to the impact of the Internet of
Things in the presented topics.
The first paper entitled “High-Resolution Management” argues the necessity of embracing
digital technologies such as RFID, GPS and digital video cameras by companies into their
management processes as a natural evolutionary step from lean management, which was
coined over half a decade ago. Of course the prospect of having more detailed information
about your company that can be used for decision making purposes sounds ideal; however,
my feeling is that some companies/industries (that maybe are not very IT-savvy, that do not
have a history of using the latest IT technologies or that simply believe the IT behind is more
complicated than it really is) are still not convinced that ‘high-resolution management’
brings a benefit. Nevertheless, I believe that using such technologies will become a benchmark
in the future (at least for some industries), and companies who fail to recognize this will face
a competitive disadvantage along the way. Of course, ‘high-resolution’ is not needed
everywhere.
The classical application of “high-resolution management” is supply chain management. Of
course, this is maybe the use case that is easiest to argue, but I see applications also in
product lifecycle management or after-sales management. For example, companies can
better understand how consumers are using certain products using RFID or similar
technologies (of course, as long as the cost of these technologies is significantly lower than
the cost of the actual product). I believe that one statement from the final paragraph of the
text is quite important. The key management skill will become “cropping the unnecessary
information”. I believe this is easier said than done, as managers will need to develop
competencies that would support this skill (i.e. be more data driven, have a more sound
knowledge of statistics etc.). Moreover, ‘old-fashioned’ managers could pose some resistance
against developing these new skills after previously being used to a more heuristic approach
to management and to their job.
The second paper entitled “Creating Value Beyond the Product Through Services” actually
uses the term ‘Internet of Things’ in the text, as opposed to the first, however it does not
develop on the topic. The shift from a product-oriented approach towards a service-oriented
approach is not something particularly new. However, the Internet of Things is, in my view, a
strong enabler of this new service-oriented paradigm. It will transform simple products into
service surrounded and service generating items. As consumers will be able to interact with
their products and as products will be able to interact between themselves, I see a lot of room
for service delivery by companies. Moreover, customization is another important concept and
is related, in a way, to the concept of empowerment, which was previously discussed by us. As
products become “smarter”, they also become more customizable and this creates a need for
additional service delivery. Another benefit of the IoT in this service-oriented paradigm is
the fact that it facilitates companies to better know and understand the users of their
products through monitoring techniques, and this can in turn lead to other services being
proposed by the companies.
Bogdan Mircea Ivan, Student of MSc. MTEC, 2nd semester
38

Lecture #13
Outlook of Emerging
Applications and Technologies:
The Difficulty of Predicting
Future Usage
Summary:
This lecture reviews current and past predictions about future developments. In addition to
the technical evolution also the perspective of social trends is included as a more
comprehensive source of viewing technology use in historical context (see http://bit.ly/Jwdx7N
for the slide).
Literature:
1. Ferscha, A.: 20 Years Past Weiser: What's Next?, IEEE Pervasive Computing, 11(1),
2012.
2. Vannevar Bush. As we may think. The Atlantic Monthly, 176(1):101-108, July 1945.
3. Friedemann Mattern: Hundert Jahre Zukunft: Visionen zum Computer- und
Informationszeitalter. In: Friedemann Mattern (Ed.): Die Informatisierung des Alltags –
Leben in smarten Umgebungen. Springer, pp. 351-419, Berlin Heidelberg New York,
2007 Abstract, BibTeX, Paper
4. Schmidt, A.; Pfleging, B.; Alt, F.; Sahami, A.; Fitzpatrick, G.: Interacting with 21st-
Century Computers, IEEE Pervasive Computing, 11(1), 2012.
5. Christian Nold and Rob van Kranenburg: The Internet of People for a Post-Oil World, in
Situated Technologies Pamphlets 8, The Architectural League, New York, 2011.
39

Through those two news articles, we are introduced to the questions raised by the scientific
community regarding the future of pervasive computing. In first hand, looking backwards, we can
clearly identify different steps which have conducted to pervasive technology and its components
such as the Internet of Things. On the other hand, it seems to be quite challenging to predict the
future since technology, especially in computer and computing sciences, is not a streamline
evolution, but more prone to technological revolutions allowing completely diverse directions.
Beyond the technology itself, as compared with other sciences, we now face some ethical questions
which will have to be addressed in order to consider the future of pervasive computing.
As many technological trends, we can look backwards and analyze the paths which have
conducted to pervasive technologies. The emergence of Internet has undoubtedly boosted the
connectivity between single users, enterprises and social communities. The parallel improvements in
terms of hardware miniaturization, networking activities has supported the spread of Information
and Communication Technology (ICT). We can consider that this first step contributed to build-up
the infrastructure backbone. By taking for example the mobile phones, early 2000s was
characterized by the set-up of the telecommunication infrastructure for GPRS networks. The same
was done for Internet, for which in most of the countries, we saw the emergence of new Internet
Service Providers within a very competitive environment, competing against each other for
providing the best bandwidth offer.
The second and third steps were more about putting the emphasis on the interaction of this
technology with the human being, trying at a final point to start building some interpretation
capabilities based on collected data as well as trying to introduce some artificial intelligence to
explain behaviors. The use of sensors for capturing data coupled with intuitive programs allowed
ubiquitous technologies to understand the environment context, and facilitate the human
interaction with the technology. Nevertheless, the growth we faced over the past few years in terms of
pervasive technologies led to the explosion of data volumes and exchanges. This supposed to
optimize storages capabilities, and be able to interpret big data, which are most of the case not
normalized and structured at all. Moreover, beside the technical challenges, we are now facing the
complexity due to the societal levels. Nevertheless, researchers specialized in pervasive technologies
are trying to set-up a roadmap research in order to define the agenda for future steps. Referring to
the article published in The Atlantic, we can raise two major difficulties for projecting future
trends: technology ruptures and ethical issues.
Science and technology are not motionless and always develop through cycles. This is the duty for
researchers to constantly think about the potential of a given technology. When referring to the
article, it is quite interesting how people at that time considered the future developments of
technologies as continuous improvements of existing ones. This shows the difficulty to predict what
would really happen. Revolutions in technology means that any proven technology can disregard
what has been done before: we can consider it as a new branch in rupture instead of continuity
(example of the typewriter to the Personal Computer).
This is why it makes difficult for the researchers to establish a proper research roadmap and
agenda. Nevertheless, beyond the technology itself, we can predict what the future needs would be.
The focus will be probably on the processing of big data and the development of more intelligence
on the interpretation of the current environment for adapting to situational changes. Another
focus will probably be to target not only the individuals, but more one dedicated community
and/or society in order to determine some figures and behaviors as a whole entity. An example can
be the smart cities we studied before, where based on huge amount of data we are trying to analyze
some trends of the citizens groups.
In definitive, the potential of pervasive technology maybe no more rely on the hardware and
devices since we have now the capability to capture and store data. We can expect some
optimization in terms of capacity, but the needs more relies on the capability to interpret data, thus
putting analytics and interpretation as key items for the future. We can on the other side expect
more intelligent integration between existing technologies. Another point to be raised will be
probably how to address in an efficient manner the ethical issues around trust and dependence on
those technologies.
Jimmy Patrice Jean-Baptiste, Student of MAS MTEC, 2nd semester
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Just think about how the internet has changed our life, created many business fields and as
a result it created many, many, jobs, it is quite sure that the Internet of Things will change
our life too. I claim this will happen dramatically.
The technology speed is fast and it is faster than ever. May be it is difficult to justify this
claim, because if speed fast or slow is only relative. The 20th century is the century of the
transportations, telecommunications, and electronics. The world population move faster
than ever before. Data and Information availability is global and in real time. We can
claim for certain that the technology is faster than ever. There is a huge dynamic and I
believe that this dynamic creates the difficulty for predicting the future and its impact of this
emerging technology.
The good thing in the IoT or in the Pervasive Computing domain is that there are many
consortiums for discussions and research activities. The web portal www.perade.eu is a very
good initiation. I was not aware of it until I read the article “20 Years Past Weiser: What’s the
Next”. Thanks to internet we all have many opportunities to get involved in the activities and
shape its future and shape our future. It wasn’t like that in 19th century and it wasn’t like
that before the internet born. And just think about how it would be after the Inter of Things
will be borne. Dynamic. Complex. Scary. Exciting. It is sure, we will not get bored.
It is certain not a question if we will have surrounded with tiny, big, large any kind of robots
or not. They will a part of our life. Our coffee cup will remember us that the coffee is getting
cold. By the way it is really getting cold I’ve just realized.. My concern is more the ethical
issues. How does our society look like? Do we will have human being around us, or just smart
things and robots?
I think the discussion about such topics in the society is import. Many people from different
fields, engineers, doctors, biologist, psychologist, socialist, politicians and of course business
men and women, can contribute a lot in such discussions for shaping the future.
The future is now. If this would be our vision then predicting the future will not that much
difficult as we think. Just imagine and create ideas. What you can imagine, this will be real!
Not surprisingly that the prediction 100 years ago about that everyone will have a mobile
phone came to true. The futurologist had just thought about. The Future is here and now.
Esin Evrim Kocer, Student of MAS MTEC, 2nd semester
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