Author: Don Kasprzak

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Introducing the AWS IoT cloud

The emerging IoT developer community received a much anticipated jolt of news when Amazon finally announced new enterprise services dedicated to the AWS IoT cloud launch at their 2015 re:Invent conference.
AWS IoT Cloud PlatformThis new AWS IoT cloud service will permit web based interfaces to manage IoT events from various devices: sensors, wearables, drones, and of course mobile tools and apps around an established AWS ecosystem.

The AWS IoT cloud emerges as Amazon’s long term platform following the SalesForce Thunder platform announced last month. Both vendors look to establish key IoT cloud solutions in the corporate enterprise space. They join Cisco’s IoT, Microsoft’s Azure IoT, Oracle’s Movintracks along side GE’s energy launch of Current IoT. The race is now on to process millions of data events from light bulbs to dishwashers and cars over the MQTT protocol and process those messages in their respective clouds.

Amazon is leveraging 11 services around their IoT Cloud strategy to include existing AWS services: Kinesis, Redshift, S3, SNS, SQS, ML, DynamoDB and Lambda. A key investment to this strategy was the recent acquisition of 2lemetry, a IoT enterprise company tuned for transforming raw data from IoT devices onto their ThingFabric platform.

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Cloud Cyberinfrastructure Education Globalization Innovation Network Reading Technology

Latest read: The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires

Tim Wu’s second book The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires is wonderful examination how American information empires were established and stifled innovation at the same time. This is my second book by Wu following his brilliant Who Controls the Internet.
The Master SwitchWu identifies long business cycles surrounding the birth of information systems. While they begin open over time they were consolidated and driven by the market to become closed.

We displays how they become open again following amazing innovations force a business change in order to survive in the new marketplace.

The Master Switch opens with the birth of the Bell AT&T telephone monopoly. This is a facinating story when held against the garage startups of Apple and Google.

There is an amazing look at how countries and cultures also view information empires differently. The case for Wu is the capitalist, independent market approach to radio vs the UK’s BBC dominated by the royal family.

The Master Switch reveals how four key markets actually hold government infrastructure: telecommunications, banking, energy and transportation. These four and their capitalist owners for generations established control over any citizen’s attempt at challenging their monopolies. The lesson Wu establishes is corporate control by closed technologies. Yet one cannot help but understand they magically protected the country from the devastating affects of revolution leading up to and more importantly the horrific aftermath of World War I that forever removed Paris as the hub for film entertainment.

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Education Reading

Latest read: Navigating the Health Data Ecosystem

The unique data issues explored in Navigating the Health Data Ecosystem by O’Reilly prove to be accurate regarding today’s modern, fast moving data environments. Health care has the unique demand regarding datasets that do not sync when compared to retail or corporate enterprises.
Navigating the Health Data EcosystemThe most perplexing issue surround support for human physiology is computing standards and compliance requirements. I recall working directly on large datasets for clinical trials that confirm the challenges outlined.

Navigating the Health Data Ecosystem indeed has “Six C’s”: Understanding the Health Data Terrain in the Era of Precision Medicine. Honestly at times it felt like 6 dozen C’s in O’Reilly’s guide from 2014.

Clearly the biggest “C” challenge is complexity. From the outside it may seem like an uphill battle but from within the health care data marketplace its like climbing Mount Everest…over twenty times. Many views navigating the Health Data ecosystem are a direct result of the Affordable Care Act.

However we should not ignore the opportunities facing the health care industry. It is still surprising to fully understand that electronic medical records (EMR) is still hand coded, data can be accurately labeled in multiple ways (including fax) while legacy data systems are still in operation. This causes a tremendous burden for effective change management systems to be effective given the unrealistic demands the public has regarding Health care data.

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Design Education Globalization Innovation OpenSource Reading Technology

Latest read: The Internet as Material Empowering the Next Phase of Connected Hardware Innovation

Ayah Bdeir wrote The Internet as Material Empowering the Next Phase of Connected Hardware Innovation as a way to introduce the iPad generation to digital legos. This is a resource that should be in every elementary school across America.
The Internet as MaterialLego turned the cement block into a toy that we have all played with growing up. Ayah is doing the same for the circuit board.

littleBits Electronics has launched a revolution in the open hardware movement that somehow remains in a ‘quite’ mode.

Her idea needs a bigger platform like for example the Gates Foundation to be catapulted across a national audience.

littleBits has a product solution for children that is the next step to the Raspberry Pi’s breadboard. Microsoft has really embraced Raspberry Pi and breadboards for their IoT projects.

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Education Reading Watergate

Latest read: The Emperor’s New Clothes: Exposing the Truth from Watergate to 9/11

Richard Ben-Veniste’s book The Emperor’s New Clothes: Exposing the Truth from Watergate to 9/11 is a unique look at the political coverups that have engulfed Washington and the country. I find his approach to understanding the facts of highly publicized events to be a lesson in approaching internal reporting.
The Emperor's New Clothes: Exposing the Truth from Watergate to 9/11Ben-Veniste proves in The Emperor’s New Clothes that time will not and cannot alter Washington’s presidential change of power and the implications when tragic mistakes lead to institutional change.

It is clear to Ben-Veniste that established, solid governance can actually alter the accepted, institutional approaches in seeking important answers to events that bring organizations to the edge of collapse.

Clearly lessons from Watergate still ring true today. Since The Emperor’s New Clothes was published in 2009 Ben-Veniste‘s experiences as a commissioner on the 9/11 Commission have been given time to understand his successful, seasoned approach in dealing with the Nixon Administration and the conflict over Archibald Cox and the Saturday Night Massacre provide lessons in dealing with Condoleezza Rice and Attorney Generals (John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales) under W. Bush regarding executive privilege, another throwback position to Nixon and his defense of the White House taping system.

It would not be pressing to understand how Ben-Veniste is an accomplished lawyer, Assistant US Attorney for the Southern District service from 1968 to 1973. And then from 1973-1975 serving as the lead prosecutor on the Watergate Task Force. He was also a presidential appointment to the US Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group in 2000.