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environments these days. With seamless convergence, computer
and communicator are often interchanged.
• Entertainment, edutainment, and infotainment media systems.
ere are several notable innovations in media technologies
and products. Today we boast about fixed, portable, mobile,
and handheld devices for ubiquitous learning. IP-enabled
television sets are being produced in mass quantities, increas-
ing our choice, convenience, and comfort considerably. Web,
information, and consumer appliances are plentiful and pio-
neering. Technologies for social sites (Web 2.0) are on the
climb, facilitating higher productivity for humans and for
forming digital communities for real-time knowledge shar-
ing. Home theaters, music systems, DVD devices, game con-
soles, and so on are for entertainment.
• Home networking. All passive, numb, and dumb items are
being transformed into digitalized objects. ese are being
wirelessly and wisely networked with all sorts of household
electronics to connect and communicate (directly [peer-to-
peer] or indirectly [through a middleware]) to derive com-
petent people-centric, networked, and embedded e-services.
Home networking infrastructures, connectivity solutions,
bridging elements, and other brokering solutions are being
found in greater numbers these days. Home networks also can
connect with the outside world via the pervasive Internet. is
enables remote monitoring, management, and maintenance of
home devices. Car multimedia, navigation and infotainment
systems, parking management systems, and so on are get-
ting connected to household systems directly or via box-based
middleware for real-time connectivity and interaction.
• Home access control. E-locks are emerging as a crucial security
measure for home access control.
• Kitchen appliances, wares, and utensils. A modular kitchen
comprising all kinds of electronics emerges as a key factor
for smarter homes. Coffee makers, bread toasters, electronic
ovens, refrigerators, dishwashers, food processors, and so on
are being enhanced to be smarter in home environments.
• Relaxing and mood-creating objects. Household items such as
electric lamps, cots, chairs, beds, wardrobes, windowpanes,
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couches, treadmills, tables, and sofas as well as objects in spe-
cific places such as gyms, spas, bathrooms, car garages, park-
ing slots, and so on are being linked together in an ad hoc
manner to greatly enhance the experience of users.
• Healthcare materials. Medicine cabinets, pill and tablet con-
tainers, humanoid robots, and so on are occupying prime slots
in guaranteeing good health for home occupants.
Statistical estimates and forecasts predict that there will be hun-
dreds of microcontrollers in any advanced home/office environment
in the days ahead. e much-touted edge technologies such as cards,
chips, labels, tags, pads, stickers, smart dust and motes, specks, and
so on are enabling the onset of powerful environments. at is, our
everyday places are going to be saturated with a growing array of
event-producing and -consuming entities; environmental monitoring
and measurement solutions; controlling, actuation, and notification
systems; integration fabrics, hubs, and buses; visualization displays
and dashboards; networking and automation elements; and scores of
handhelds, wearables, portables, implantables; and so on to make our
lives and locations pleasant and liveable.
8.6 Envisioning Smarter Homes and Buildings:
e Role of the Cloud eme
Broadband communication, mesh networking, streams of home auto-
mation systems, and resilient home integration middleware enable
the realization of smart homes. However, the current trend is the
centralized approach through a home server or gateway. at is, the
box-based central approach dominates current smart homes across
the globe. e complexity is being pushed to the home integration
box and with the addition of newer and nimbler devices will in time
add greater and more uncomfortable complexity. Hence the logical
move is to divide and conquer the threatening complications arising
from the centralized approach, which is also responsible for the sin-
gle point of failure. Off course, there are dependable approaches for
overcoming the persisting difficulties. e point here is to abstract all
the generic functionalities and put them in the cloud, which is the
core, central, and cognitive IT infrastructure for enterprise, device
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(smartphone, wearables, etc.), and Web users. Many consumers could
utilize cloud-based applications at the same time through the famous
multi-tenancy feature. Only specific features are made available in
home/office-bound devices. Further, the connectivity capability is
embedded into devices to search and use capabilities of nearby devices
as well as remote applications. is way, additional functionalities
can be readily added at cloud applications, and ground-level physical
devices at any point in time can access and leverage newly added ser-
vices dynamically to be more powerful and purposeful.
Another unique trend is emanating with the pervasiveness of cloud
centers across the world. For smart phones, thousands of creative ser-
vices are being developed and deposited in cloud-based application
stores and service repositories. Mobile users can subscribe to and use
them according to their preferences, passions, and purposes. Similarly,
new devices are emerging for a variety of needs, situations, spaces,
interests, and so on in our personal, social, and professional lives. For
example, home integration devices are very popular these days and
thousands of imaginative services are being conceived, concretized,
and stored in cloud-based stores to facilitate worldwide families to
discover, decode, and use them with all confidence.
e cloud paradigm breeds innovations relentlessly and leads to
innumerable fresh opportunities and possibilities for all. e telling
impacts of the cloud theme are many and momentous for business
establishments, service providers, creative thinkers, software engi-
neers, research professionals, and so on. e extraordinary momen-
tum created is still being sustained as a result of the inherent potential
of cloud technology. Undoubtedly cloud computing has turned out to
be a game-changing factor for business houses these days. Clouds are
irrevocably and irresistibly the next-generation IT infrastructure for
affordable, optimized, elastic, and instant-on IT.
Techniques have been developed for reliably transforming data to
information and to knowledge. e data-driven insights are being
smartly leveraged by product vendors and service providers to be pro-
actively and preemptively inventive to provide premium and state-of-
the-art services to end-users. With cloud technology, consumers do
not need to have knowledge of, expertise in, or mastery and control
over the technology infrastructure in the cloud. Chapter 3 in this
book provides details on cloud computing.
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INTELLIGENT CITIES
8.7 Smarter Environments Are Instrumented,
Interconnected, and Intelligent
As part of the smarter planet vision, IBM has come out with three
distinguished characteristics:
• Instrumented. is is the ability to sense and capture changing
conditions. Instrumented devices provide detailed informa-
tion and control about their own functioning and also provide
information about the environment in which they operate.
For instance, a washing machine can report information
about the state of its components to support preventive main-
tenance for avoiding unforeseen outages. At the same time,
it can sense its wash load to optimize its operations; it can
send usage information to the manufacturer for data-driven
product innovation; and it can be remotely operated when the
energy cost is lowest.
• Interconnected. is is the ability to communicate and inter-
act with people, systems, and other objects. Interconnection
enables devices to make remote access to information about
another device and control of it. us the Internet of Services
(IoSs) will thrive and the complexity is therefore distributed.
Consumers get to know the status of their devices from any-
where, any network, any device. Service aggregation will
become compact and casual.
• Intelligent. is is about the ability to make appropriate deci-
sions based on accurate and recent data. Intelligent devices
support the optimization of their use, both for the individual
consumer and for the service provider. For instance, a utility
can send signals to consumers’ homes to manage discretion-
ary energy use to reduce peak loads.
e adoption of smarter home/office devices requires that they also
be intuitive. Consumers will adopt new services only if they are easy
to use and fit smoothly into their lifestyles. e learning curve for
newer services has to be very minimal and the benefits of adopting
them must be immediately apparent. e following illustration shows
the various advantages for smart homes.
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Connected consumer
electronics
Smart home
Connected household
goods
Security and
surveillance
Energy and
utility managemen
t
• HVAC management
• Lighting management
• Home
security
• Asset
security
• Appliances
• Small appliances
• Tools
• Printers, scanner
s
• Video games
• Digital cameras
8.8 Smarter Home/Building Capabilities
e outcomes of smarter homes are many, including making consumers’
lives more productive, healthier, and happier. e four service areas are
• Entertainment and convenience. ere is an increased conver-
gence these days. Increasingly Web content is being made
available via television, and, conversely, TV programs are being
viewed through Web browsers. ere are digital, smart, and
Internet-enabled TVs aplenty. Product vendors, content cre-
ators, IT service providers, communication service providers,
and end-users are working harder in taking the entertainment
industry to its next level. ere are public displays, security and
surveillance cameras, and flat panel TVs in public places as the
threat quotient is on the rise. e convergence momentum is
highly beneficial for people as well as building managers.
• Energy management. Future demands on the electrical grid
will encourage minute-by-minute home appliance manage-
ment to prioritize energy services while delivering automatic
savings to owners. Automatically synchronizing lighting,
home appliances, climate and environmental sensors, and
all household smart objects sharply minimizes energy con-
sumption based on changing environment conditions and
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