[HH] Cambridge Internet of Things Practitioners

[Tom Metro]

This is from a UK publication, so I assume they are referring to
Cambridge, England. (And that perhaps explains the wordy organization name.)


Innovators converge this week for First Cambridge Internet of Things
Practitioners' Night Demos
http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/internet-of-things/2012/12/bottom-uop/index.htm

  I experienced some of the vitality, sophistication and breadth of
  activity in open hardware and associated software and comms this week
  at the first Cambridge Internet of Things Practitioners Night meetup.

  That demonstrated how a rapid expansion of IoT enabling infrastructure
  is welling from the bottom-up, and that it's just a not-too-long
  matter of time before high-impact applications start to appear.

  Among the things that struck me talking to people at the meetup this
  week were:
  [...]
  -Crowd-funding is beginning to kick in as a successful alternative to
  looking for angel investment or venture capital funding for open
  hardware innovation

  -The cost of robust IoT application enablers is plummeting - with high
  powered Internet connectable boards and components- the nuts and bolts
  of IoT - costing a fraction of what the industry has become accustomed
  to.

  -The recession is forcing young technologists to do things in new ways
  and come up with novel capabilities


The article goes on to describe from of the IoT (Internet of Things)
companies that demoed their products. This one sounds cool:

  Novalia: highlighted the newspaper that has electronics (capacitive
  touch tool and a low powered Bluetooth connection) printed into
  newspaper so that simply touching an item in the printed paper can
  generate sounds and video related to the printed story. Dr Kate Stone,
  Managing Director of Novalia, said these electronics can be printed
  in bulk on large presses, such as off-set litho.


While I've heard of the term the Internet of Things, I didn't think it
was being used as a label for a class of hardware that's so distinctly
different from general hardware startups as to warrant a dedicated user
group. Is it really that meaningful to add the "Internet" adjective
these days, when pretty much everything will have some direct or
indirect net connectivity.

 -Tom