Process + Brand = Experience

HP is one step closer to improve security for Internet of Things

The Internet of Things is a problem because there is no security infrastructure for them. 

HP decided to change this, starting with their printers. They are leveraging technology from Red Balloon Security that takes the problem of security out of the hands of users and into the world of devices.

The biggest security risk in the IoT area is routers/networking. Get a virus or other hack in the network and watch problems spread. And if the industry continues to leave responsibility for security to the users, frankly, not much will happen (most users don't see the larger security threats).

It's great to see device manufacturers taking a stand to protect their devices and the network - and move security out of the hands of users. It's really not their job.

I can't wait to see what HP does next!

What's your cybersecurity personality? Fun quiz from Heimdal Security and a movie suggestion

Heimdal Security is one of my favorite companies because they offer the best free consumer eduation about cybersecurity, backup, and privacy. It's so needed in today's transactional world that includes commerce, community, and IoT. The more "things" that go online to the virtual world, the greater chance they have of being hacked. The hacks that we see now are getting larger and more bold -  the latest was at Anthem and impacted millions with very sensitive health insurance info). You can't be too safe out there!

This fun personality quiz asks questions based on online habits. Depending on how you answer indicates how open  you may be for an attack. It's 6 questions and pretty fun!

 

If you aren't into quizzes, I saw a great movie other night about the Internet, security, and how our lives are changed from it - Men, Women and Children. Security, privacy and online identity is impliedin a few of the storylines (it doesn't cover hacking, but some of the parents do know their children's passwords - and use their accounts! A definite grey area.), but it generally tells the tale of how 4-5 families react to kids growing up with social media, online games, online businesses and the impact of that. There's lots of relationship weirdness (Jennifer Gardner plays a crazy scary mom - and that's the key to the security/privacy storyline), lots of coping, lots of sex, lots of sadness, a lot of love, and a lot of joy. If anything, it shows how our world got a lot more complicated from the Internet, or rather, how we made it more complicated. The same rules of the offline world do apply to the online world, but unfortunately, we don't necessarilly see that because what's online isn't "real." 

Anonymity doesn't mean no person exists. It's something we need to remember.

The lesson of the movie: keep it safe as you would offline! The online world can complicate your life if you let it.

 

 

So if you have a few minutes and want to see how you rate regarding security - take the quiz!

If you want to see how the Internet has changed our lives and the importance of security and privacy even within families - watch the movie.

 

Expanding wearables beyond the iWatch, EMERGE, and a hackathon this weekend

Wearable technology will have a huge impact in our lives. The concept of wearables allows the common perception of technology to emerge from communication and entertainment purposes to more practical and beneficial uses.

 

I’m not talking about the iWatch. Although cool and very James Bond/007, that is still technology with mainly communication/entertainment uses. It's a luxury item. 

 

I like writing about technology that adds value to our lives. I have admitted in the past that I'm not a fan of wearables - but that's because I prefer to see technology that improves our life (not a gadget to possess and make your friends jealous). I love home technologies for that reason. And I'd love to read more about wearables that are helping us do more in the world - like explore the ocean or space.

 

A few weeks ago, I met with Molly Cain and Clarisa Lindenmeyer at Tech Wildcatters to get their insights about the myths that women hear that prevent them from starting companies. One topic that came up was women in STEM. They told me that wearable technology may attract more interest from women and shared a story about this team of I believe 17 women who worked on a suit that kept track of temperature and a number of other factors to keep someone safe (I believe it was for first responders or possibly space - I need to re-read my notes). (More on this in a future article in the series I'm writing in InPowerWomen.com when I get to the section about STEM.)

 

Tech Wildcatters started a new accelerator focused on wearables, EMERGE, which is a partnership with the Department of Homeland Security Science & Technology.

 

This weekend, EMERGE is sponsoring a hackathon to encourage ideas for wearables for first responders. (I probably should have gotten this out earlier in the week, but better late than never, right?)

 

This should be an exciting weekend to see what people come up with! I almost want to crash at the end of the weekend to hear the ideas.

 

Two immediate ideas I would contribute to a group if I were to attend the hackathon:

• A suit made of a fabric could protect him from extreme heat (and light enough so it wouldn’t hold him or her down while doing his job and adapt to changing temperatures)
• Sensors that would let him see where people were - if under rubble or hidden during a fire (something in glasses maybe? or contact lenses?)

I could tell you how to use these items, but I’m not sure I could tell you how to start creating them. But this is why hackathons exist - technologists in different disciplines come together to collaborate and create something new. 

 

When I consider wearables beyond that iWatch/entertainmnet/communication use, I have a few other ideas. And again, technology uses beyond communication and entertainment excite me because technology should make our day-to-day life simpler, safer, and better.

 

Technology shouldn't be just a curiosity to one-up friends. It should benefit our lives in some way. 

 

Transportation

• Build a virtual dashboard in a motorcycle helmet that someone could use voice commands to manage. It could show a 360 view of what's around the driver and possibly let him know of traffic that is a little too close for comfort and a threat.

 

Medical

• Imagine putting on a medical gown and it scanned your body for symptoms before the doctor arrived to examine you? Talk about making the process easy.
• Or wearing glasses that could refactor anyone's vision to 20/15 immediately after a quick eye scan?
• Prosthetics that could help someone experience touch in a missing limb. I’m not sure how this would link to the brain, but it could have sensors that mirror feeling. (This may exist today…I would need to confirm)

Fitness

• Exercise clothes that regulate your body temperature (great for hot or cold climates) and prevent sweat in the cold so you don't get hypothermia. This is for more extreme sports, but could be amazingly useful for fitness and other uses (like first responders).
• Shoes that track the steps you take. Rather than the fitbit tracking what you do with movement (and if you speak with hand gestures, you can be in trouble and “walk" much further), track where you step - in your feet. Imagine fitness shoes coming with a tracking device to track your movements and strength? I'd sometimes like to know how much force I use when I work out.

 

Fashion (more convenience and less life or death use):

• Heaset/earrings combo. I'd love this! I wear earrings almost every day. It would make life easier if I could touch my earrings and accept a call. So convenient! This could extend to necklaces as well to be like the LG headset. (And yes, this kinda puts me in the curiosity camp...I think...)

 

What are your ideas for wearables and how they could change our perception of technology and have a simpler, safer, easier life?

 

And if you attend the hackathon (first prize is $25,000 and automatic entry into EMERGE), I look forward to reading about your creation!

I told ya so! (I know - I haven't yet quit it on security and data privacy)

I saw this news item today from HP - HP Study Finds Alarming Vulnerabilities with Internet of Things (IoT) Home Security Systems.

And what have I been saying?

• 4 possible reasons users are apathetic when it comes to data security and the Internet
• Internet of Things, the cloud, and data security: Why we need to care
• 4 ways to improve privacy and security communication

Security and data privacy  is becoming a serious issue with the Internet of Things. Something to keep in mind...

 

"I will what I want" (Under Armour) challenges "Just do it!" (Nike) - and is winning

Under Armour traditionally has been a male brand. Personally, I like the brand and always found the clothing to be well designed and engineered - right down to the fabric. The clothing lasts forever and either keep the heat in or out - depending on what you choose. They make great clothes!

I also like them because they have innovative beginnings that are product focus, making a breakthrough in athletic wear:

As a fullback at the University of Maryland, Plank got tired of having to change out of the sweat-soaked T-shirts worn under his jersey; however, he noticed that his compression shorts worn during practice stayed dry. This inspired him to make a T-shirt using moisture-wicking synthetic fabric.^[6] After graduating from the University of Maryland, Plank developed his first prototype of the shirt, which he gave to his Maryland teammates and friends who had gone on to play in the NFL. Plank soon perfected the design creating a new T-shirt built from microfibers that wicked moisture and kept athletes cool, dry, and light.^[5] Major competing brands including Nike, Adidas and Reebok would soon follow in Plank's footsteps with their own version of Under Armour's moisture-wicking apparel.^[7]

--Wikipedia

Nike designs and engineers great shoes and makes fashionable athletic clothes. They make some of the best shoes on the market, although Under Armour is now challenging that.

I should also say that I had the chance to meet and workout with Team USA Women's Soccer Olympian (and Under Armour endorser) Heather Mitts recently, who told me Under Armour running shoes were "by far" the best shoe she has ever worn for serious runners and athletes.  I was already wearing UA shoes at the time, so I don't think she was trying to "sell" me. 

--NIKE VS UNDER ARMOUR, TheFitnessChamp.com

 

Products aside, Under Armour has adopted a tag line for a women's ad campaign that is seriously booting Nike in the pants.

"I will what I want."

The model, Gisele, did an ad segment with them. At first, you think she's just a model, does she really work out? Doesn't she, like, just not eat? Like, eat just a carrot for dinner?

I saw the Web site. I dare anyone to hold a plank like she did for that long. I dare you to try it! (Personally, I hold it for a minute at best.) She's a machine and I respect her for that.

 

Under Armour created a site for women that lets us track and share workout activity and performance with others. When you work out, it's key to be part of a community - not to compete, but to watch the actions of others and see what's possible. I get motivated watching other people workout hard and achieve great things. It makes me realize that doing about 100 crunches and squats will get me to where I want to be - body-wise, mind-wise, and endurance-wise. This was brilliant on their part.

Nike's just do it campaign is great and has a ton of variations, and it has grown beyond women achieving more to become a proverb, so to speak. It's excellent. 

However, Under Armour evolved it.  

 

Under Armour won Marketer of the Year for Ad Age. Why? 

The goal was to celebrate women "who had the physical and mental strength to tune out the external pressures and turn inward and chart their own course." They took Nike's story one step further....

At the rate it's going, Under Armour might "just do it." While Nike's sales are still 10 times larger, Under Armour, in the 12 months ending in August, increased revenue at three times Nike's pace, Bloomberg reported in early September. It's "well on its way to becoming the second-largest global athletic brand, ultimately eclipsing Adidas," Canaccord Genuity stated in a Dec. 1 report to investors, projecting the company would surpass $10 billion in sales within five years.

--E.J. Schultz, Ad Age's 2014 Marketer of the Year: Under Armour, Ad Age

 

Their approach is working. What did Under Armour do?

• They sell a vision and an experience. Nike taught us to do it; Under Armour shows us that in the face of adversity - rejection, illness, any personal challenge - there are women out there who have overcome their problems and succeeded. They show possibility and become role models for breaking through boundaries to achieve any goal. It's a positive message and story - and who doesn't like a positive champion who wins in some way?

• They are paving their own path to #1. What's the saying - don't compete, stand out? They aren't really competing with Nike because they are taking a slightly different angle. And they have slightly different products. They aren't copying the competition; they aren't using them as a baseline for parity; they are paving their own way using marketing best practices - a great tag line and a new vision for the target audience. It's almost like their ad campaign mirrors how the company operates.

• They are about the products. That's what I have always liked about Under Armour - you are buying not just stylish athletic gear, it has another function. Knowing that your clothing will keep you dry while you sweat is a bonus; or keep you warm in the cold when you sweat. You don't just look good - you feel good. And their clothes last forever. They use great athletic technology. If you don't have a good product, then you won't go far. This is why UA is going far.

This approach even has the financial analysts roaring:

Under Armour is broadly successful at gaining market participation via high-quality products and a strategy of permanent innovation, and the company has enormous room for growth by expanding into different sport disciplines and geographical markets in the years ahead. 

--Andrés Cardenal, Best Buy in Sports Apparel: Nike, Under Armour, or Lululemon? Fool.com

I can see why they won Marketer of the Year. What are your thoughts? 

Informal research: Does anyone use Yahoo anymore? (Or has Google simply won?)

I'm being serious - does anyone use Yahoo anymore? I just read how Melissa Meyer is disappointed in her company's ad revenue. But I don't know anyone who really goes to Yahoo - except to get sports stats. Even 2 years ago, all signs pointed to its death. 

So I'd like to do some casual/informal research:

• Do you use Yahoo? Why?
• If you aren't a fan of Yahoo, what made you switch?
• Do you use Google? Why? 

Feel free to provide your responses in the comments section.

Thanks! I look forward to the conversation!

Apple and IBM - a partnership to benefit the users!

This morning I woke up to TechCrunch's article about this partnership between Apple and IBM.

Personally, I think this is fantastic! It's about time that Apple will officially be brought into the workplace. People have been unofficially bringing Apple into the workplace for years through BYOD. They were the outlaw/bandit technologies. In some places, there would be an option for people to choose to work with a Mac or a PC; but those working with a Mac were either developers or creatives. Business people have a hard time adopting them for work. 

I find this ironic because I remember when an office would have BOTH Macs and PCs and there would be races on complex calculations in Excel to see which computer system would win (hint: Mac always did). The Mac was always the superior computer - even for the business team.

Apple is like the pretty girl at a party - no one expects her to be smart, good at math or science, and actually be able to hold a conversation. Unfortunately in our society, the qualities of being efficient and effective doesn't include beauty. Or fun. Or entertainment. 

More irony -  to run entertainment "products" and projects you need some seriously hard core systems due to the extremely large file sizes and the need for granular processing (at the pixel level). Audio and video files are massive! Dreamworks buys high-end HP servers to support their animations, which have amazing levels of detail. Detailed photographs require amazing pixel level control to mirror what happens on traditional film - and it requires amazing amounts of computer power to process that. Art/entertainment is really big IT business...but some conservative IT professionals sadly just don't see it.

Consumers are behaving differently than in the past. 10 years ago, people used the devices they were assigned at work. Today, they see how these devices are easy to use and bring them to work to use their. The division between work and personal life is fast deteriorating. Technology needs to helping people do more in their lives so they can enjoy living rather than only optimize the workplace. Apple and IBM seem to have caught on to that. And hey - if you can't beat 'em (I think the whole BYOD movement has demonstrated that), join 'em.

Little known fact - Apple was in the enterprise market with their servers (they recently pulled to the small business market). Again, the speed of the Apple OS makes it superior, but there were some key components missing - they fixed the multi-user management, but integrating with other proprietary systems proved challenging. Apple's OS is REALLY Unix - it is from NeXT (and I know most hard core Unix fans believe that they had a superior system). This is why Apple's OS performs so much better than Windows. But this proprietary nature of Apple made it hard to be enterprise class.

Windows run on any type of PC, just like Microsoft server software. And Bill Gates gave away a lot of enterprise software for free to get customers "hooked." As a strategy to get marketshare, Microsoft SQL was given away for free when it first came out. It worked! I remember a number of IT directors telling me that we wouldn't use the better Oracle database for a project because the Microsoft license was free. Sure, they got stuck with a Microsoft database, but at the time, $30K vs free was an easy decision. 

Today, more IT decisions are being made from users than it is from the directors making the decisions. Why this partnership between Apple and IBM makes sense.

In some ways, we all should have seen this partnership coming. IBM got out of the hardware business, but it is still working with businesses, so what was it going to sell to them? I doubt Dell products. 

Apple will get further into the enterprise business, and IBM showed that it is listening to its customers with this BYOD problem. Sure, some companies will have a hard time accepting iPhones, iPad and Macs in a workplace, in the same way that some labs can't accept the pretty girl finding a cure for cancer. But the companies' employees will be thrilled that they can use 1 device - not one at home and one at work - do their job anywhere.

We will have more blurred lines between work and leisure, but more opportunities for living.

Technology for convenience vs Technology for efficiency/connectedness

Technology is supposed to make our lives easier. At work, it has boosted our productivity beyond expectations. We no longer need a pool of typists to create documents - it's now self-service with a computer and printer. We have accounting software that provides the most financially ignorant a way to maintain their books. There are RFID chips and scanning technologies available that help track inventory and revenue that would have previously caused a quarterly one- to two-day shutdown to double check records. We can now be reached by anyone, anytime, anywhere with mobile technologies. It's quite impressive how far we have come in such a short time.

However, there is a price: we are rarely unplugged and often focused on being "efficient." Technology is dictating life to us rather than the other way around.

I love weekends because it's when I choose to be inefficient. The phone and email isn't running my life. I'm not focused on finishing my to-do list, except for a few errands, and more focused on living life. 

This is why I'm not a fan of the concept of "wearable technology." It's one thing to have better fabrics that don't show perspiration or stops smells, but it is another thing to integrate the Internet and phone technologies into earrings or a watch. Innovations like Google glass are a great step forward - no doubt. But for those of us who no longer multi-task and instead, focus on the moment at hand and don't want constant connection, it's a challenging concept. It's almost like we can't escape being connected. I grew up in a small town and even there, someone could escape to the corner of a park and be completely alone for a few hours. Technology is getting a little too in our faces - literally. Even tracking all of your physical activity to determine how many calories you burn - isn't that getting a little intrusive? What happened to walking just to walk - or climbing stairs just to make a destination? 

I often wonder why we won't incorporate technology in our home to improve our quality of life. I'm not talking about incorporating connection technologies - I'm talking about making life more convenient. I have some initial thoughts below. Sure, some need more thought and I hope some are in progress to be made (let me know if they are - look forward to it!).

Home server - I'm not thinking about access to the cloud, I'm talking about having a server at home that stores files (music, photos, etc.) and there is a way for people to access them from any device in any location at home. And yes - there would be no way for your neighbor to access them. There are so many times I want to access a movie, but I don't want to download it from a cloud or stream it (that's slow) - I want to play from my speedier home network. I also don't want to use rented space to store the file. I want to use MY space that isn't shared and has a partition from the outside world. Sure, there is a risk that it could be hacked, but I'd feel better if I had access to a server that isn't necessarily connected to the internet and I'd use a local network to get files. 

Home doctor - rather than going to the doctor's office, we could save on health care costs (and insurance) by having a "home doctor" in the bathroom. I don't see why a device couldn't be created that could do urine and blood testing, track temperatures, weight, and be a virtual medical book. There could even be some type of scanner included in the kit - maybe something hand-held. If test results and symptoms hinted at a medical condition, the "home doctor" could suggest you see a real doctor - and maybe even book an appointment. And in compliance with HIPAA regulations, this could be stored in the safety of your home and not shared unless you chose to share it.

I mean, let's face it - who likes giving a urine sample at the doctors? It is messy and uncomfortable. Wouldn't it be easier to use a wand to indicate on the spot what is wrong? Why can't we do this today?

Home cooking - access online recipes in a single place (yes, I'm thinking of an aggregator that compiles recipes from online sources, cookbooks and your own entries), built into the counter. Once you select what you want to make, your system tells you what you don't have in your kitchen, suggests some substitutions or indicates which stores in the area may have what you need, and pre-heats your oven for whatever you are making. Much of this technology is available today. And no, it doesn't need to be connected to the Internet to track your inventory and provide substitution information. This could be a on a private network to maintain security, leveraging information from the Internet as needed. And there could be manual overrides to give someone more control if needed.

Home entrances - There needs to be more thought required here to ensure security - but rather than having keys to get into a home (a dated approach to security anyway), why not use retinal scans? Let's say you have local retinal scans to ensure you live in your home. When your scan is successful, you walk into your home, the lights and heat goes on and all is good. If the scan fails, some type of intruder message is played. And if someone breaks in, same thing. And you could keep people out easily. It may cause some interesting young sibling interactions (brothers and sisters deleting access from each other), but it would definitely more secure than a key. And no more worrying about losing your keys.

Virtual/robot butler - wouldn't it be great if you were in the middle of cooking a meal, the phone rings, and a voice says, "Mary, it is your mother. Do you want to accept the call?" and I can talk to my mom on speaker. Or I get an email from a friend, or an urgent work email, and I get an announcement about it - or a reminder that I need to respond. Or I decide to watch a movie and I just tell my home server/computer " Computer, show X-Men on my tablet." Or I'm practicing my belly dancing and I want to practice with my cane, which is in my closet. I could say "Little robot, can you please get my cane in the closet?" Sure - that's the most advanced case, but some of the virtual butler cases - why can't we do that today? 

Instead of having a more conenvient home, we focus on having bras that tweet about breast cancer. Technology is running a fine line between giving us a better life and dictating efficiency 24/7. We have to have control over it to keep our life our own private universe.