Jim Turley

Safety and Security Conference

September 14, 2016

With the growth of the IoT there is increased interest in the overlapping areas of safety and security. There is already a lot of knowledge on these issues and this has been shared by the IET’s International System Safety and Cyber Security Conference. The eleventh version of this conference is running from 11—13 October 2016 in London. The organisers state that it is the largest conference for system safety specialists held in the UK; and the only conference where both safety and security engineers from around the world can meet and share ideas, new research and network.
An … Read More → "Safety and Security Conference"

ARM: We’re Turning Japanese

by Jim Turley

July 18, 2016

This is what $32 billion gets you: Almost the whole world. UK-based ARM announced last night that it has agreed to be acquired by Tokyo-based SoftBank, a large holding company that owns many technology firms as well as some technical publications. It’s also the majority shareholder in U.S. celluar carrier Sprint. It’s fair to say that SoftBank’s holdings are wide-ranging.

What does this mean for ARM, ARM’s employees, and ARM’s customers?

Not much, really. Under the terms of the deal, SoftBank said many reassuring things. It will keep … Read More → "ARM: We’re Turning Japanese"

An Interesting – And Challenging – Take on Tech

by Jim Turley

February 1, 2016

309px-Jekyll.and.Hyde.Ch10.Drawing2.jpg I recently stumbled upon a limited series on Netflix called Black Mirror. I’m not accustomed to doing reviews, so this is a bit unusual – yet I found this series particularly compelling and worth some comment.

While it’s not a show about technology per se, it’s a show about humans and what they might do with technology. And it felt … Read More → "An Interesting – And Challenging – Take on Tech"

Securing the core

by Jim Turley

November 17, 2015

A Franco-German announcement brings improved security to SoCs for the IoT

Following Jim Turley’s report on Arm and ARC adding security to their small processor cores, and Bryon Moyer’s on-going series on IoT security, comes news of more core security for the IoT.

Cortus, the French based 32-bit core IP company has signed a deal with Cellnetrix, a German based company specialising in software security for embedded devices, which will see the CellSIM secure embedded operating system running on Cortus APS processor cores. Cortus’ cores are in sensors, communications and security applications, the … Read More → "Securing the core"

Golgi Connects via Web APIs

by Jim Turley

October 27, 2015

You may recall a discussion about Golgi’s role in the Internet of Things (IoT) this last summer. In effect, it served to enable device makers to leverage phones as remote controls, providing the cloud-based go-between that completed the connection.

While that might seem like limited functionality, what it reinforced for me is that, despite all the easy drawings about what the IoT should look like, actual implementation was coming rather more slowly – step by step. So getting devices connected by … Read More → "Golgi Connects via Web APIs"

We are doomed

by Jim Turley

September 25, 2015

I’ve written before on Future Horizon’s regular reviews of the state of the semiconductor industry. (The four horsemen). Malcolm Penn, the firm’s founder and CEO, is normally fairly up-beat, but yesterday he was wearing black. Given the state of the world economy he sees the market for semiconductor sales as essentially flat in dollars. Given that unit shipments are maintaining their 29 years of 10% annual growth, the average selling price (ASP) is falling, again another long term trend. The result is that chip companies are going … Read More → "We are doomed"

Bashing Bugs on SoCs

by Jim Turley

September 23, 2015

UltraSoC, the SOC debug company I wrote about a few weeks ago www.eejournal.com/archives/articles/20150728-ultrasoc/ is being pretty imaginative in their marketing. Today, they have launched a new whitepaper, Performance Monitoring Using UltraSoC by drawing attention to Apple’s delay in launching watchOS 2. All that is generally known is that the delay was caused “by a bug” which most news channels have assumed was purely a software issue. UltraSoc is speculating that it might have been something within the SoC … Read More → "Bashing Bugs on SoCs"

The Internet of Lightbulbs

by Jim Turley

September 10, 2015

Based on a solution just announced by CSR (now part of Qualcomm), you can outfit your new building with lights – and your network will be in place.

OK, they’re not positioning it to replace your Ethernet plant, perhaps, but it could become part of the network. They do this by making each LED lightbulb fixture also a Bluetooth mesh node. In case you missed the Read More → "The Internet of Lightbulbs"

Nanoimprint for Photonics

by Jim Turley

September 8, 2015

EVG_SmartNIL_Full_Area_UV_Nanoimprint_Lithography_Wafer_red.jpg We’ve talked about photonics before and we’ve talked about nanoimprint lithography (NIL) before. Creating silicon photonics features requires masking, which requires lithography, and so it might not be … Read More → "Nanoimprint for Photonics"

Goodbye Robert Dewar, Gary Smith

by Jim Turley

July 6, 2015

In the last few days we have heard of the death of two major players.

The first is Robert Dewar, one of the towering figures of software in every sense of the word. As well as being an outstanding computer scientist, being involved in language design, and compiler design – particularly the GNAT compiler for ADA, he was also a businessman, founding ADACore, and an expert on the way copyright and patents affected software. He was a great evangelist for FLOSS – freely licensed open source software. I wrote about his views five years … Read More → "Goodbye Robert Dewar, Gary Smith"