Does hardware dream of electric sheep?

blurring  the  lines  between  physical  &  virtual

Panelists:  Jessica  McDonald  —  Director  of  Strategic  Growth,  RF  Digital  

Represen'ng  the  business  perspec've.    !

Shawn  Hymel  —  Crea@ve  Engineer,  SparkFun  Electronics  Pamela  Cortez  —  Connected  Devices  Developer,  SparkFun  

Electronics  Represen'ng  the  engineering/developer  perspec've.  

!

Adam  Benzion  —  Co-­‐founder,  Hackster.io  Represen'ng  the  community  perspec've.

50  billion  connected  devices  by  2020.

a thing for things

IoT  is  no  longer  the  purview  of  industrial  electronics  companies  or  hardware  

manufacturers.

Ten  years  ago  building  embedded  electronics  required  knowledge  of  

electrical  engineering.  Now  it’s  a  hobby.

Let’s not create Skynet,

okay?

!

!

!

Hardware  that  acts  like  soSware:  IP-­‐addressable,  capable  of  procedural  languages  

and  APIs,  part  of  larger  systems  !

SoSware  that  interacts  with  the  physical  word:  parses  data,  adjus@ng  to  real-­‐@me  and  real-­‐life  changes,  intelligent  decision-­‐making  

Now  we  have  a  reality  where  engineers  must  also  be  programmers,  biologists  must  be  engineers,  designers  

must  be  robo@cists.  Makers  come  from  everywhere,  and  with  diverse  and  mul@-­‐faceted  skill  sets,  are  conquering  

problems  without  the  help  of  industry  giants.  !

!

!

Technology  has  been  democra@zed.

Technology for allDistributed  problem  solving

Mick  Ebeling  and  crew  built  an  eye-­‐writer  for  a  man  with  ALS  using  a  copper  coat  hanger,  the  camera  from  an  Xbox,  and  a  pair  of  sunglasses  

from  the  Venice  Beach  boardwalk.    

Not Impossible Labs

A  network  of  scienGsts,  developers,  engineers,  educators,  and  hobbyists  who  use  the  power  of  distributed  community  to  work  on  everything  

from  studying  and  classifying  galaxies  to  idenGfying  ancient  documents.  

Citizen Science

CRAZY S%&T

These  examples  show  the  convergence  of  disciplines.  So  does  Qualcomm’s  Snapdragon,  Intel’s  Edison  and  Curie,  

and  Par@cle’s  Photon.

Your hardware is

thinking

What  does  this  mean  for  business  and  industry?  

!

What  does  it  mean  for  engineers  and  developers?  

!

What  does  it  mean  for  the  community  and  the  maker  movement?

The engineer is dead. Long

live the engineer.

Q&ADiscussion,  navel  gazing,  and  forecasGng  with  industry  pros

Is  Bluetooth  Low  Energy  the  next  Big  Thing  (tm)?  What  does  it  signal  that  companies  like  Intel  and  Qualcomm  are  geNng  into  the  embedded  game?  What  opportuniGes  exist  for  businesses?  How  do  established  and  start-­‐up  companies  benefit  from  this?  

!What  kinds  of  connected  devices  might  we  see  soon?  Is  it  going  to  be  Raspberry  Pi  and  Arduino  forever?    What  cross-­‐funcGonal  skills  are  going  to  be  necessary?  Are  the  segregated  roles  of  hardware  and  soSware  developers  dead?    !Is  this  convergence  making  things  easier  or  harder  to  build?  Is  the  community  of  makers  and  hobbyists  going  to  become  so  blurred  that  it  ceases  to  be  useful?  How  can  we  conGnue  to  support  and  grow  peer-­‐to-­‐peer  learning  to  keep  technology  accessible?

Discussion topics

THANK YOU...