Tag Archive for "Internet of Things Expert"

Internet of Things Expert: Joshua Broder, President of Tilson

One of the best aspects of playing a role in the technology industry is getting to meet the innovative leaders who are making things happen. That’s why we bring you this monthly series: Internet of Things Experts. These are the people that inspire and motivate us everyday, and we hope they’ll do the same for you. Today, we bring you Joshua Broder, President of Tilson.

Josh Broder is the President of Tilson where he is responsible for strategy, leadership and business development. Prior to joining Tilson, Josh served as an Army communications officer, managing the network operations center that controlled the government communications network in Central Asia in 2005/6. He also serves on the Boards of Directors of the Gulf of Maine Research Institute and HealthInfoNet. Under his leadership, Tilson was awarded the 2010 Governor’s Award as Technology Company of the Year and selected as #901 of America’s fastest growing companies in 2012 by Inc. Magazine.

We were excited to explore Josh’s thoughts on the current and future state of the Internet of Things and how he’s become a key player in the industry.

The Internet of Things, specifically the industrial internet of things, is starting to get more attention from the media, businesses and the public. As awareness increases, the question about how connected objects can improve industries does too. We asked Josh about his thoughts on what is being called the next revolution in so called “machine to machine” communications. Josh describes the valuable impact as world-changing, “Allowing machines to talk to each other without human involvement will make things more efficient. In fact, it will define the rise of productivity in the postindustrial era. It’s the next big value we’ll get from the Internet.”

This value is vast and will touch many industries, but Josh pointed out three areas that he is most excited about. He sees these as the “fast movers.” These fast moving sectors are: smart grid, intelligent transportation and consumer facing mobile applications.

Why these sectors?

Smart Grid
Because, the safe and reliable delivery of power touches every consumer. “Power is a huge expense and has a large environmental impact, but is a critical enabler of virtually everything we do. Since we manage well what we measure well, getting better data about how consumers and grids behave is critical to getting the most from our grid. What makes grids smart is a telecom network that allows utilities and consumers to both have knowledge of how the grid is behaving, and take actions to control it.” Josh explains that Smart grid technologies provide an opportunity to increase the efficiency of grid operations, reduce costs to rate payers and have a positive carbon impact. “Smart grid technologies are stretching what utilities and consumers can do with our current investment in generation, transmission, distribution, and mechanical control infrastructure. The rapid commoditization in machine to machine network technology enables us to deploy more sophisticated grid control systems at a cost with a near term return in investment for consumers.”

This week @tilsontech our #wireless team is installing @digidotcom #cellular #modems for #smartgrid automation

— Joshua Broder (@joshuabroder) December 7, 2012

Intelligent Transportation
Josh points out that transportation is another sector that affects each one of us. Increasingly, traditional transportation is being transformed by networked information systems, improving safety, decreasing operating costs, and boosting efficiency. “We all utilize roads, trains and air travel, and our economic and environmental fortunes are closely tied to transportation efficiency. Our clients are increasingly calling for remote weather data collection, configurable signage, real time video and tolling automation. This requires significant network infrastructure, which, as prices fall and commercial networks grow, is increasing available to implement good public infrastructure policy.”

Consumer Facing Mobile Applications
Consumer facing mobile applications are not new, but Josh and his team are seeing an increasing demand from smart phone users for wireless coverage and capacity in all of the nooks and crannies that we spend our days in– stadiums, shopping malls, hospitals and campuses so that they can use the increasingly rich world of mobile applications. “We are seeing an increase in cellular build outs of distributed antenna and small cell systems that provide coverage and data capacity down in those nooks and crannies where people gather and travel through.”

In addition to overseeing these deployments and running Tilson, Josh is the youngest ever recipient of the Portland Regional Chamber of Commerce’s President’s Award. He was recognized on MaineToday Media’s inaugural Forty Under 40 list, which recognizes forty up and coming leaders, and was named to MaineBiz 2011 Next List.

With such incredible accolades, we had to ask Josh how he got to where he is today. His answer? “I was a liberal arts guy that encountered technology through a stint in Army during a time of unprecedented network deployment. After coming home from several years overseas, an entrepreneur took me under his wing during Tilson’s formative years.”

Having a knack for turning the complex into the simple, Josh gives incredible, tangible advice to those looking to get involved in the field of the Internet of Things, and in business in general. “Find problems that need solved. Solving problems for consumers can be incredibly rewarding if you get it right, but it’s also extremely competitive. Business have problems that individuals can and should solve.”

Would you like to connect with Josh? You can watch his TedX talk below and follow him on Twitter here. You also follow Tilson on Twitter to learn more about their work in the Internet of Things.

Internet of Things Expert: Janice Cheam, President & CEO of Energy Aware

One of the best aspects of playing a role in the technology industry is getting to meet the innovative leaders who are making things happen. That’s why we bring you this monthly series: Internet of Things Experts. These are the people that inspire and motivate us everyday, and we hope they’ll do the same for you. Last month, we interviewed Zachary Lieberman. Today, we bring you Janice Cheam, President and CEO of Energy Aware.

Janice Cheam is an entrepreneurial executive whose vision, commitment, and passion have been the driving force behind Energy Aware since inception. Before launching Energy Aware, she demonstrated leadership and visionary success with the marketing group of CTV, Canada’s most watched television station. Janice holds a Bachelor of Commerce (BCom) with a specialization in Marketing from the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia.

As a student at the University at British Columbia, Janice and her team were tasked with creating a product and writing a business plan. They decided to take the opportunity and to do it right. “We wanted to make something meaningful that had a long lasting effect,” Janice said. When they looked at issues to address, they each found that the environment and global warming topped their list. That’s when a plan for educating people about energy on a grander scale started to form– that plan became Energy Aware.

Energy Aware exists to do exactly what the name says: increase energy awareness. “We take energy consumption data and make it useful to consumers. The data helps people better understand what’s going and how they can make simple changes. This is how we create impact: we help individuals feel empowered when it seems like a daunting problem.”

So, how much impact does Energy Aware make? The results from the Perth Solar City program are a great example. Using Energy Aware monitors, homeowners’ bills dropped up to 8.5 percent as residents practiced simple actions.

Janice explained, “On average domestic use reduced by 6.82 percent, but got up to 57.9 percent at times, which is really amazing.”

Janice emphasizes that there’s so much opportunity in the industry right now. “People just don’t fully know what they can do in this space yet. Energy has been around for a very long time, but smart metering and how we turn the grid into something that communicates are very new. There are so many new things that can be done.”

We’re looking forward to seeing what innovations Janice, Energy Aware and other passionate people entering this space bring to the future. We’re excited by products that empower people, and Energy Aware is all about the power of choice.

You can read more about Janice and Energy Aware in this post from her alma mater: Sauder BCom graduate develops tool to save energy at home.

Internet of Things Expert: Zachary Lieberman

One of the best aspects of playing a role in the technology industry is getting to meet the innovative leaders who are making things happen. That’s why we bring you this monthly series: Internet of Things Experts. These are the people that inspire and motivate us everyday, and we hope they’ll do the same for you. Last month, we interviewed Rob van Kranenburg. Today, we bring you Zachary Lieberman.

Zachary Lieberman’s work uses technology in a playful way to explore the nature of communication and the delicate boundary between the visible and the invisible. He creates performances, installations and works that investigate gestural input, augmentation of the body and kinetic response.

Zach has created a number of installations through his interactive collective, YesYesNo. In addition to making artistic projects, he is co-creator of openFrameworks, an open source C++ framework for creative coding. He also teaches at Parsons School of Design.

YesYesNo work includes a range of projects from small scale performances, installations and workshops to much larger scale projects for companies like Sony. To create such installations, Zach obviously has a passion for using technology for art. We asked where that passion stems from.

He’s always been interested in art and actually studied painting. “Like all college students, I eventually graduated and had to find a job. At the time, everyone was talking about Web design and it seemed like a great avenue.” When the economy took a downturn, Zach had free time at work. He put that time to use by learning how to program. “I got excited about programming and animation,” Zach said. ”You can learn anything you want to through books.” In fact, Zach was a completely self-taught programmer until he attended grad school.

While it’s remarkable that Zach found his way into programming by books, it’s even more exceptional in the way he pairs his technical knowledge with creativity– a creativity so substantial that Zach was named one of Fast Company’s “Most Creative People” in 2010.

Zach explained that events, talks and going to museums act as a source of creativity. As he put it, “it’s all about research and exploring– experience what’s out there for inspiration. Go to the bookstore and get magazines that show you things you never would have otherwise been exposed to.”

“When it comes to inspiration, your input is your output.”

Collaboration is also important to Zach, he explained that working with people and sharing resources is a key source of inspiration. “Stuff works the best when you work together.” He also mentioned the importance of working with people different than yourself. For instance, Zach has worked with a magician. His work has appeared in numerous exhibitions around the world, including Ars Electronica, Futuresonic, CeBIT and the Offf Festival. His current collaborative project, Connecting Light, may be his most impressive yet.

Connecting Light is a major art installation for the London 2012 Festival in celebration of the 2012 Olympics. On August 31-September 1, the installation will span the length of 73 mile-long Hadrian’s Wall across the north of England, one of the most significant structures from the Roman Empire.

Using a series of tethered balloons lit by internal LED lights, the installation will become a line of pulsating colors. The changing colors will use the iDigi Device Cloud along with over 400 Digi Programmable XBees and around 20 ConnectPort X4 gateways to respond to text messages sent across the wall by audience members.

Zach was approached by the London organizational committee for the Olympic games. He was tasked to respond to Hadrian’s wall with a project that would engage people who are both physically there and who are watching remotely. When Zach went to London to visit the wall, he realized a very symbolic connection between the wall and the Olympics– the wall representing what was once a border and the Olympics being an extension of borders. He responded by creating a communications infrastructure that would allow people, anywhere to send messages along the wall.

Zach found that Digi products would be the perfect fit, and he believes there’s something magical about radio. Not only will people be able to interact with the wall, the pure scale of the project is something that Zach explained does not happen often. His hope for the project is that as many people as possible will send communication along the wall. ”It will be interesting to see what people write and what language comes out of it. Our hope is that the messages will have meaning that evoke feelings nationwide. We have communication all around us, but we don’t have ways of visualizing it. This project will make that journey visible.” Those at home will be able to send messages and follow via a live web stream.

Zach’s advice to others who want to create at the intersection of art and technology is to focus on the poetic gesture. “It’s easy to get excited about the tech and nerdy details, I know I do,” Zach admitted. ”Find creative and strange ways of using technology, we have all of these devices that we live with, take anything you have and find what the beauty or unexpected thing is.”

Zach encourages those who want to practice art and technology to think about not answering questions but asking them.

An exercise that Zach suggests to his students is to go to the bookstore and visit the technology section. Look at what’s there and then try to connect the technology section to the other sections of the bookstore. For instance, how can that book on Javascript be connected to ceramics? How about Python and poetry? Make the connection.

Zach also encourages others to leverage communities and open source toolkits, including the Python framework that is used in our ConnectPort products. Of course, he’s an advocate of his own openFrameworks infrastructure, open hardware, and sites like Make and Instructables. “Also, find the vocal hackerspaces. Have fun and learn.”

You can learn even more about Zach and project collaborators on thesystemis.

We here at Digi are extremely excited to be helping Zach design and build the Connecting Light project. It’s a delight to have our hardware and professional services being employed in such an innovative and inspirational way. It’s also a terrific example of how a large scale and highly customized wireless network can be rapidly designed and built with help from the experts. Keep an eye on the iDigi blog for more updates on Zach’s latest project, Connecting Light.

Internet of Things Expert: Rob van Kranenburg

One of the best aspects of playing a role in the technology industry is getting to meet the innovative leaders who are making things happen. That’s why we bring you this monthly series: Internet of Things Experts. These are the people that inspire and motivate us everyday, and we hope they’ll do the same for you. Last month, we interviewed Alicia Asín Pérez. Today, we bring you Rob van Kranenburg.

Rob van Kranenburg is a teacher and the author of The Internet of Things, a critique of ambient technology and the all-seeing network of RFID. He is the Co-Founder of Bricolabs and the Founder of the IOT Council. He ranks number 6 on the top 100 Internet of Things (IoT) thinkers list on Postscapes.

We spoke to Rob about the inception of the Internet of Things. Here’s his take on what he calls the next natural step of growth for the Internet.

Connected cars, smart cities, smart shopping– the Internet of Things is in every domain and every activity. Rob started our conversation by explaining that the Internet of Things is unavoidable, yet difficult to delineate. “The moment you want to break it down you get a list of too many things. And, it’s not something that one can easily define– it can relate to body, home, car or city. It’s everything and it’s nothing. Yet you can see the Internet of Things happening, and to some it feels very natural, especially for the younger generation.”

Rob explained that the Internet of Things is inherent to the world of the younger generation, because young people collect, utilize and share data everyday without thinking about it. “We can no longer look at young people and teenagers like they are the young people from 100 years ago. Most 14 and 15 year olds collect more data on a daily basis than politicians.”

The ways in which the Internet has evolved impacts our everyday lives, yet little has changed in some traditional settings like the school system or in the way businesses are set up, Rob pointed out. “Even though the browser is only 19 years old, it is a key point of life. Pick a computer and open your stuff, it’s the same no matter where you are– it makes you feel at home. We are building an interface as if it’s there just for us.”

Also, inside of this browser, the whole world works together. After all, the Internet as we know it would not exist if it weren’t built in open protocols. Rob notes that although we experience all of this collaboration online, when you close your browser or put away your mobile phone, it ends. The world still functions with an older mentality—far less collaborating. “The whole generation that is growing up now realizes that collaboration is everything or there is no point. Young people realize that if they want the life they experience in their browser to exist in the real word they can make it happen.”

This collaborative and open way of thinking must extend to businesses, which Rob explains, not everyone in traditional commerce is fond of. “Some are moving against it. The Internet of Things favors transparency because it brings about data. This transparency can cause trouble for governments, institutions and businesses. Young people are becoming harder to persuade—they no longer buy marketing.”

Rob brought up the example of collaborative consumption– for instance, sharing cars. Car sharing is a problem for the automotive industry. “Also, in general, young people are not so into materialistic things,” Rob claims. “Young people have a different way of thinking, and they are ready for a new kind of connectivity.”

Because of this new school of thought, industries can no longer make money in the same ways that they used to. The new way of doing things focuses on real, organic relationships. Rob introduces the idea that industries need to try a new business model—leasing versus ownership.

“The Internet of Things creates a reality where end users and simple citizens are much more stakeholders. Businesses need to change their way of working: be slower to make money, be better at building relationships and create a value driven business.”

While the Internet of Things is the next logical step and may be inescapable, Rob believes there are two major reasons that everyone, skeptics included, should appreciate its inception.

Climate Change
“One major reason for having the IoT is because we need a smart-grid. We need to get some efficiency in how we deal with energy.” To do this, Rob explains that all of our things will have a unique ID, so they can all be addressed from the outside and can be controlled by a neighborhood server.

Co-Creating As Citizens
Since climate change seems like a too distant problem for many, it’s not always an easy sell for the Internet of Things. So, the important element that the Internet of Things can bring to life is the ability to co-create as citizens. With the data coming from our bodies, we can learn a lot about ourselves and others. We can even be put in contact with others.

“For example, at the moment, the number of psychological issues that children are having are rising. The world’s health organization has stated the psychological problems will be the next big wave of issues. So, trying to get quality information about ourselves and our behavior is a huge positive.”

Co-creation of data may engender population sensors, noise sensors, how-do-I-sleep sensors and more. “These sensors will expose that we haven’t been governed so well in the past hundreds of years.” The information collected from sensors could be a new decision making tool for food, energy and all of the things that really matter in communities. “The IoT can be this global backbone and the rest would be local decision making on the ground.”

“The Internet of Things is not something that’s beyond us. There’s a deep need in humans to be close to our things, friends and family as we’ve spread across the world to different cities. We are still in need of our tribes to feel safe and happy, and now we are able to do this as we build our own desktop that’s in the cloud.”

You can follow Rob on Twitter here and see his website here.

Internet of Things Expert: Alicia Asín Pérez, CEO of Libelium

One of the best aspects of playing a role in the technology industry is getting to meet the innovative leaders who are making things happen. That’s why we are bringing you this monthly series: Internet of Things Experts. These are the people that inspire and motivate us everyday, and we hope they’ll do the same for you. Last month, we interviewed Nathan Seidle. Today we bring you, Libelium’s Alicia Asín Pérez.

Alicia Asín Pérez is the CEO and co-founder of Libelium, a company that designs and manufactures hardware technology for the implementation of wireless sensor networks. These networks are used by system integrators, engineering and consultancy companies to implement reliable Smart City solutions.

Alicia started Libelium 6 years ago during her last year in university. Although the Internet of Things was not yet a hot term, she saw an opportunity with sensor networks. ”We had the young mindset. We believed that anything could be done– that anything could happen. We believed that sensors could be anywhere.” Her mindset has stayed the same over the years, but Libelium has changed. Alicia explains, “We now aren’t just talking about sensors. We’ve gone from hardware providers to sensor networks to platform providers that enable the Internet of Things.”

In her Opinno article,”The Internet of Things: the next tech revolution,” Alicia explains that the Internet of Things will be the next great technological revolution. So, we asked, what makes the Internet of Things so exciting? “The Internet of Things will be everything. The most exciting thing is that it’s going global in all of the markets and the technical advances have been amazing.”

Libelium published “50 sensor applications for a smarter world.” All of the applications on the list are notable, so we wanted to know what Alicia thought would make the biggest impact. She identified a few of the sectors that the Internet of Things will change, transportation, energy, security and environment control. She says, “It’s not only about having the technology for monitoring things, it’s about all of the changes the technology will make.” Alicia identified smart parking as one of the strongest applications, because it combines quality of life, saving money and helping the environment. She also said that the Internet of Things will solve some of the issues in trash collection. Then, she identified a broader use. ”Many people are talking about smart cities and how they will save money smart parking, trash collection, but there’s another interesting thing. If we can monitor anything we will be able to evaluate politicians’ performances.” Smart cities can quantify the effectiveness of public policy by demonstrating progress as things are done differently. “Transparency is key, and the Internet of Things makes progress transparent.”

Alicia finds that the most exciting stories come from customers sharing cases of how Libelium’s products are being used, like the Waspmote. The Waspmote is a cost effective open source wireless sensor platform that focuses on the implementation of low consumption modes to allow the sensor nodes (“motes”) to be completely autonomous and battery powered. These wireless sensors have been used for a wide range of solutions. Some uses of Waspmote include:

Food sustainability
Forest fire detection
Pollution
Controlling irrigation in agriculture

Alicia pointed out that “30% of water used is wasted through irrigation– a huge source of water waste. These sensors can fix that.”

Alicia’s passion and work in the Internet of Things is inspiring, so we were curious, who inspires her? ”I’m inspired by a little bit of everyone. It was a milestone when IBM started saying ‘let’s make a smarter world.’ I’m inspired by the companies that constantly reinvent themselves, like Apple. They prove that it’s possible to innovate every day.”

Internet of Things Expert: Nathan Seidle, CEO of SparkFun on a Mission to Introduce Kids to Electronics

One of the best aspects of playing a role in the technology industry is getting to meet the innovative leaders who are making things happen. That’s why we’re bringing you a monthly series: Internet of Things Experts. These are the people that inspire and motivate us everyday, and we hope they’ll do the same for you. Last month, we interviewed Tom Igoe. At the end of Igoe’s interview, he suggested we chat with Nathan Seidle. So, we bring you, Nathan Seidle, the Founder of SparkFun Electronics.

Nathan Seidle started toying with electronics in 2002. When he went online to find a specific part, he realized that the websites that sold electronics were confusing. They didn’t offer enough information or a positive experience to customers.

A true entrepreneur, Nathan saw the void and jumped on the opportunity to do things right.

In 2003, SparkFun Electronics was born in Nathan’s bedroom.

“It was a little bit of thinking and a whole lotta luck. Suppliers didn’t realize that people needed photos, smaller minimum quantities and to be able to make an order without calling or faxing.”

At the time, Nathan recalls that embedded systems usually meant a crowd with button-up shirts.

“But, just look now, we have things like Maker Faire. It’s fantastic, we have people that don’t need electrical engineering degrees to make things. The industry has been changed by the people involved in the community and the tools that they have made accessible.”

It’s not just the sales process of electronics that Nathan is disrupting for the better. He’s on a mission to make sure that people don’t have to wait as long as he did for an introduction to microcontrollers. He didn’t discover them until his senior year of college, and he wants to ensure that kids have the opportunity to learn about these little computers at a much earlier age.

“You teach 9th and 10th graders how to blink an LED and you see this mental light click on. Imagine the possibilities if they could learn it even younger.”

Nate and the SparkFun team are working to show parents and kids that electronics are more than parts, they are empowering tools that can open up other avenues– from music to interactive art to scientific inquiry.

“It’s about someone having an idea and electronics not being a barrier to execute.”

So how will that happen? How do you get kids to have a hands-on experience with electronics early on? Nathan would like SparkFun to be present in the classroom to create that positive experience with electronics. He would like SparkFun to be there to make sure it’s as easy as possible and that electronics aren’t scary. “I also want to let kids know that electronics aren’t just for boys. I want to create products that my niece and I can do.”

Nathan is working to reach kids under 6th grade, the ones that don’t have any preconceived notions about electronics. Just get kids to start creating—that’s the goal. He mentions that the biggest challenge of getting electronics in the hands of kids in classrooms is that many school admins are hesitant towards electronics. So, the educators must be educated first. The SparkFun team is talking to school boards and getting whole school districts involved from the top down. From the bottom up, they are getting kids to build stuff on their own and take it into class.

Nathan and the team encourage parents to get their kids to explore creating early on. He recalls he and his dad taking things apart and putting them back together. His suggestion? Find something at home and fix it. ”There has to be something in the house that’s broken. The easiest and most successful way to get kids started in electronics is to find out what their other interests are– maybe it’s soldering, LEDs or woodworking.” This is the first step in creating the innovators of tomorrow.

Nathan considers himself his own number one customer. When he started SparkFun he felt like he was still playing, because his passion aligned with his motivations — and that’s exactly what he hopes to ignite in future generations. His advice in getting started — in electronics and in starting a business:

“Get started quick and see where the adventure takes you.”

Keep an eye out for our next Internet of Things Expert. We’ll be hunting down Nathan’s suggestion for our next interviewee– stayed tuned to see who it will be!

Have a question you’d like to ask our next Internet of Things Expert? Know of an Expert you’d like us to interview? Let us know in the comments below. We’ll choose a couple of reader’s questions for the next Internet of Things Expert interview.

Internet of Things Expert: Author, Arduino Team Member and Teacher,Tom Igoe

Tom Igoe may be one of the more interesting people you’ll ever meet. He’s a professor, author and a core member of the Arduino development team. He even works with monkeys— more on that later.

Tom Igoe, author, core member of the Arduino development team and teacher.

Igoe teaches physical computing and networking at the Interactive Telecommunications Program in the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU. He and his students explore ways to allow digital technologies to sense and respond to a wider range of human physical expression. He’s the co-author of Physical Computing: Sensing and Controlling the Physical World with Computers, and the author of Making Things Talk. You may have also come across one of his regular contributions to MAKE magazine.

Igoe is not a fan of the term “Internet of Things.” So, of course, that was our first topic of discussion. After all, we needed to know what to call it.

“The behavior and communication is what’s important, not the things. That’s why I called my book Making Things Talk not Making Talking Things.” He believes we need a term to help us use the Internet more effectively, enabling a wide range of human behavior. “Instead of calling it the Internet of Things, just call it the Internet. A computer is already a thing.”

Now we were able to get into specifics, like where these physically connected objects will make the most impact.

Igoe first mentioned gaming and leisure activities, like what we are seeing with the XBox Kinect. One attribute that made speaking with Igoe interesting is that he’s strikingly honest. His answers also reflect his expertise in human behavior. ”People are focused on the areas where they can make money, which is what the press mainly covers, like 3D printing. It’s already making an impact on the arts, but we don’t hear much about that because it doesn’t make much money.” He mentioned the huge impact that device networking is having on health care, physical therapy and also in transportation, “Who do you know that goes somewhere without a GPS these days?”

“We were expecting the cyber world to take over the real world, but the real world just got on the Internet.” Igoe relates it to William Gibson’s first novel, Neuromancer, where he describes a bartender named Ratz with a Russian military prosthesis arm—the arm just becomes a part of the reality. It’s interesting how a conversation around the Internet of Things (sorry, Tom) can open up a wide range of other conversations. Igoe’s other, very apparent, interest is clocks. Above his computer hangs an electronic clock made of old-fashioned glowing “nixie” tubes.

That got us thinking, what can clocks learn from the Internet?

Igoe immediately mentioned Crispin Jones of Mr. Jones Watches. Mr. Jones is rethinking the scale of time. “Think about why we measure time. For example, think of time in the kilobytes of emails in your inbox—one of my clock projects tied time to the activities we engage in online.” As we talked about how clocks are used to determine subjective activities and coordinate with other people, Igoe shook his head and said, “collaborative time, this might be a future project.”

What can clocks give to the Internet?

“The Internet is based on a time scale. It would be great if my clock knows enough about my actions and could tell me, ‘don’t make that call/send that email/IM’ at a certain time. ”

Clocks should provide coordination with moods. “Not so much a clock, but a I wish my email knew when the best time to send an email was.” Inbox timing is important. We’ve all received that poorly coordinated email, the one that stresses you out on a Saturday, or the unwanted message that just made your busy day even busier. “The clock tells you something about what time space you’re in by activity.”

Igoe mentioned that we should create clocks that work in cycles, for instance like ITPs 2.5 hour and 30 minute break schedule. “Most communication is done through local networks. That mirrors our lives. I don’t want everything I say to be broadcast to the entire world, just to individual networks.”

So, besides clocks, what else is inspiring and exciting Igoe right now?

Not unexpectedly, the open-source Arduino project is on the brink of more new products that expand the reach of common protocols. Possibly not so predictable, Igoe has started working with monkeys. Taking his study of behavior to a new level, he is working with Anthony Di Fiore, a Biological Anthropologist at the University of Texas at Austin. He and Di Fiore are studying primate behavior in the Amazon, interaction design for wild life. As Igoe put it, “This is for people who don’t want to make the next iPhone. We give people the chance to influence scientific research– it’s a challenge for interactive designers.”

We are so inspired by Igoe’s broad range of interests, and his expertise in human behavior and the Internet. This made us curious– who inspires him?

“Two people come immediately to mind” said Igoe: “Graham Pullin, author of Design Meets Disability, who is an interaction designer that rethinks how we design for disability and why we’ve done so poorly up until now. Also, Dan O’Sullivan, my colleague and chair of NYU’s ITP. Dan introduced me to the term ‘physical computing’ is an inspiration as well as an advisor and collaborator.”

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