The Internet of Things is coming. Some might say it is already here.

Soon, everything from your thermostat to your household appliances and anything else you can imagine will be connected. These "smart" devices will communicate information to you, order their own repairs, and provide data that was previously unimaginable.

Picture an oven you can preheat remotely, a washing machine that orders its own replacement part (before the existing one fails), or a thermostat that can learn your behavior, maximizing efficiency. The IoT will turn nearly everything into a device with some level of computer-like functionality.

In some cases, it will be robust, and in others, it will be very narrowly defined. But, however you look at it, the amount of connected devices is set to explode, and one of the key ways to profit off that growth is to invest in the companies whose operating systems -- or at least some version of them -- will be at the heart of this rapidly expanding new field.

In some ways, the IoT turns billions of devices into limited-function computers. One of the best ways to invest in this opportunity is to own stock in the companies that make the operating systems that will power these tiny computeresque brains.

That makes the potential winners in the new, IoT-dominated world three companies that lead the current generation of computers tablets, and phones: Apple , Microsoft , and Google

How big is the opportunity? The IoT is going to be big this year, and it is going to get exponentially bigger in years ahead, according to research firm Gartner . The researcher forecasts that 4.9 billion connected things will be in use in 2015, up 30% from 2014 with the total number reaching 25 billion by 2020.

"The digital shift instigated by the Nexus of Forces (cloud, mobile, social, and information), and boosted by IoT, threatens many existing businesses. They have no choice but to pursue IoT, like they've done with the consumerization of IT," said Jim Tully, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner.

Those billions of devices will not come cheaply. Gartner estimates that IoT will support total services spending of $69.5 billion in 2015 and $263 billion by 2020.

Internet of Things Units Installed Base by Category (millions)

Originally posted here:
How to Invest Your Money in the Internet of Things

With corporations and developers scampering to produce items which can talk to each other, Globe Labs has partnered with JumpSparc and Microsoft to teach interested parties from students, professionals, hardware enthusiasts, and entrepreneurs - the easiest way to join the Internet of Things (IoT) bandwagon.

IoT promises to transform customer experience by allowing physical objects with embedded technology to transfer data over a network. For instance, car sensors can inform the driver if something is wrong with the vehicle; a smartphone can be used to activate a coffee maker; a washing machine can be monitored via wifi, among other things.

The Jumpsparc IOT Bootcamp which will occupy the six weekends of March and April focuses not just on the technical aspects of product development but delves into the business and human-centered design side.

Microsoft, on the other hand, wants to help organizations set up and run IoT-styled distributed systems by providing a set of integrated Microsofts Azure cloud services designed to cut deployment times and management hassles.

The bootcamp aims to provide opportunities for anyone to become a maker of things and earn from their projects while improving the peoples way of life. It will culminate in a hackathon for IoT to showcase what the participants have learned from the sessions.

The sessions include product conceptualization and design; code and hardware walkthrough, home application, and presentation pitch practice; basic electronics and intro to sensors, motors and hardware interfacing; power supplies and interfacing isolated systems; physical and aesthetic design and projecting potential income; and Maker/IoT hackathon.

The bootcamp will run from March 13 to April 19 at the Globe Telepark, Valero St. in Makati City.

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Globe Labs, JumpSparc, Microsoft lead PH bootcamp on Internet of Things (IoT)

A dignified response to Cyclone Pam for women

Date: 30/03/2015

UNFPA Pacific, Port Vila, Vanuatu (March 28, 2015) - Asked how she felt about receiving a basic dignity kit at her Cyclone Pam-ravaged township within the Vanuatu capital of Port Vila, Gertrude Venabelt said without hesitation: I feel loved.

The language barrier means one seldom gets perfect English phrases on the outskirts or from ni-Vanuatu who speaks the provincial dialect or the common Bislama language. Ms Venabelt follows up with: "Me glad me get this one carton".

Ms Venabelt was referring to the dignity kit she had just received from the visiting integrated team of health and gender and protection workers, led by the Vanuatu Ministry of Health and supported by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

Betty Iman, 34, is pregnant with her third child and came to take advantage of the ante-natal care that was part of the services from the team that day at Fresh Wind Ohlem, where 46 of the 400 prepositioned dignity kit were being distributed.

The outreach team was expecting 40 pregnant women and lactating mothers but more than 100 women and their children came to the aid post.

"This area has not received power since the cyclone and so the torch in the dignity kits will be very useful for us; the other materials inside the kits can save us money too, thank you," Ms Iman said.

Dignity kits distributed in Vanuatu include sanitary pads, underwear, a tee-shirt, comb, washing powder, toothpaste, tooth brush, bath soap, a towel, comb and a zip-lock bag.

Dignity kits with hygiene supplies are prepared for women in humanitarian situations, the impact of which is experienced differently by women and girls though their needs are not usually prioritized in national responses.

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A dignified response to Cyclone Pam for women

By Rev Chris Sparks

MILLIONS of books. Millions of sermons. That's how comprehensively the message of Easter has been dealt with over the centuries.

It's enough to make this scribe break out into a cold sweat as a glance at the calendar confirms this week's reflection should focus on Easter.

Anxiety sets in. What can I say that hasn't already been said? How can I convey the incredible, life-changing story of Easter in a way that will connect with people where they're at in their contemporary lives? How can I present something that will be fresh and relevant through the relatively few words I'm privileged to share here?

A PowerPoint slide-show erupts inside my head. My mind begins to focus on memories of Easters celebrated in earlier years. Scenes flash by of poignant moments of solemn reflection as I participate with others in re-enactments of Jesus washing the disciples' feet on the night of his arrest. Then there are the slides of Good Friday services - of deeply loved hymns sung passionately in remembrance of Jesus' death on the cross. Hard on the heels of these come the brightest slides yet, showing incredible scenes of celebration as the tomb in which Jesus' body was interred stands empty and desolate, testifying to the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Joyful singing and eyes shiny with laughter and hope characterise these happy occasions.

Most of the slides are set in conventional, churchy places. But not all. Many show how we've celebrated Easter with simple, outdoor, sunrise services at places like Pilot Hill in Yamba and local lookouts at Orange and Broken Hill. Then there are the very special Easter celebrations on sheep and cattle properties embedded within outback areas where there are few ecclesiastical trimmings - just good, honest, hard-working families who suspend their daily routines just long enough to acknowledge the power of difference the life of that one man, Jesus, has made to the world.

This colourful and joyful PowerPoint presentation within my head eases my anxiety somewhat. But I'm still grappling with the challenge of how I convey the deep, deep significance of Easter through this column.

I know what it means to me. But its significance is truly mind-boggling and difficult to summarise without resorting to well-worn clichs and churchy language.

And then it happens. I realise I don't really need to spell out the significance of the events of that first Easter. Many more eloquent than I have done that over the years. Instead, I'll simply announce the glorious, pivotal Easter message - "Christ is Risen" - and invite everyone to run their own PowerPoint presentation of bygone Easters. And even if, for many people in more recent times, Easter has been largely about having a break from work, eating Easter eggs and travelling to enjoy some special event, there will probably be some slides, somewhere, that bring to mind aspects of the Easter story we have learned in the past - truths that have touched our spirits and caused us to respond. And when that happens, I pray that God will use that recollection to bless and challenge us so that we are once more re-energised by the hope that springs from Easter-biased faith.

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OPINION: Re-energised by Easter Faith

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TEHRAN, Iran (AP) Iran's historic bathhouses, where patrons are rinsed and massaged beneath graceful archways and tiled walls, may soon disappear as interest in them wanes.

Some of the bathhouses, known as "hammams" in Persian, are centuries old. But business has declined as modern conveniences now allow showers and baths in most homes across the Islamic Republic. The few that remain, mostly in old neighborhoods, largely draw day laborers and travelers.

"Nowadays, there are only three or four public bathhouses in Tehran," says Mahdi Sajjadi, head of the Tehran bathhouse owners' association.

In the old days, the bathhouses were more than just a place to clean up, shave or get a massage from a "dallak," who uses a mitt to scrub and exfoliate a client's back. Then, people gathered in the humid air to discuss current events and debate ideas.

Now, bathhouse owners like Gholam Ali Amirian, 70, who has spent four decades working in a hammam that is some 850 years old, fear the institution will dissipate like the steam from its heated pool.

"Some 35 years ago, before the revolution, we had lots of customers," Amirian says. "At 4 a.m., when I wanted to open the hammam, there were people already in a queue. Five people worked here and we had over 50 customers a day. But now we have three customers a day on average."

Sajjadi suggests the government could turn the bathhouses into tourist attractions by offering low-interest loans to owners to renovate their aging interiors. But so far, there's been no move to do that as the economic pressure grows.

Here are a series of images by Associated Press photographer Ebrahim Noroozi from inside some of Iran's remaining bathhouses.

___

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AP PHOTOS: Time slowly washing away Iran's public bathhouses

After a steady two-year drizzle of Chromebook releases, Google and its partners are preparing a flood of new hardware to sway consumers away from cheap Windows laptops. Chromebooks from HiSense and Haier go on sale today at $149 each, followed by the Asus Chromebook Flip, a 360-degree convertible, in the coming months.

And if a Chromebook itself is too big and bulky, then you might consider the Asus Chromebit, a Chromebook-on-a-stick that will cost less than $100. In all, 10 Chrome products will launch over the next two months, Google executives said. Besides the HiSense and Haier laptops highlighted here, youll see models from Acer, AOPEN, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo and LG ranging from $149 to $499.

Were very happy in that weve played a part in moving computing a little bit further, said Caesar Sengupta, the vice president of product management for Google.

The Asus Chromebook Flip will be available later this spring, executives said.

The secret behind these low-cost Chromebooks is the RK3288, a very inexpensive ARM processor from Rockchip, a Chinese chip maker thats little known outside of industry circles.

The Rockchip RK3288 is one of the first chips based on the quad-core ARM Cortex-A17architecture, which was launched in mid-2014. Because the chip can draw as little as 3 watts of power, the Chromebooks based on it are designed without fans, and can last all day on a single chargeup to 13 hours in the Asus Chromebook Flip, according to Gayathri Rajan, director of product management at Google.

The story behind the story: The essential Chromebook concept relies on the premise that a huge cross-section of users will be happy with good enough computing, especially at rock-bottom prices. The systems arent powerful enough to play hardcore games and Windows applications, but theyre good enough to browse the web and tap into Googles extensive suite of cloud servicesGmail, Drive, Maps, and so on.

However, you could argue that with fewer than25 million Chromebook sales last year (opposed to more than 302 million PC sales), Google still has work to do. And thus todays announcement. Google and its partners are lowering prices further while chasing the one commodity laptop users value most: battery life.

The basic hardware specs of the Asus Chromebook Flip, the two Chromebooks from Haier and HiSense, and the Chromebit Chromebook-on-a-stick are all nearly identical. You get the aforementioned Rockchip chip, 2GB of storage, and a 16GB SSD.

Our general belief is that you cant get to lower-priced devices by just dropping specs, Sengupta said. Users see through that. But if you keep the performance bar the same, but bring the price down, thats really how you need to go through it.

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New Chromebooks and Chromebit stick start at $100 thanks to lower-power chips

With Easter just a few days away, Christian churches all over the south side are winding down their Lenten activities and preparing for the holiest day on the Christian calendar, Easter and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Holy Week began last Sunday with the celebration of Palm Sunday, remembering Jesuss triumphant entry into Jerusalem. As the week wears on, events get more somber, leading to Good Friday and the Crucifixion, and eventually the glory and joyous celebration of the Resurrection on Easter Sunday.

The following churches in the Fayette-Coweta area have announced their Holy Week and Easter activities:

All Saints Anglican Church will continue Holy Week with Stations of the Cross Wednesday, April 1, at 6 p.m.

Tomorrow evening, the Maundy Thursday service at 7 p.m. will feature foot washing and Holy Communion. Following the service, a 12-hour prayer vigil will be held from 8:30 p.m. Thursday until 8:30 a.m. Friday morning.

The Good Friday service will be held at 7 p.m. that evening.

Holy Saturday, April 4, will begin with morning prayer at 9 a.m., followed by an Easter egg hunt and family picnic from 11 a.m. until 1 p.m.

Easter Sunday will begin with a sunrise service at 6:30 a.m. and conclude with the Easter Sunday worship service at 10:30 a.m.

All Saints is at 149 Ebenezer Rd., Fayetteville, just east of Peachtree City. For More Information call 770-486-5374 or http://www.ptcanglican.org

Brooks Methodist Church Women will present The Seven Stations of the Cross, a time of prayer and meditation, on Saturday, April 4, from 10 a.m. - 4 p.m., in the church sanctuary.

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Fayette gets ready to celebrate Easter

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GRAND BLANC, MI -- March 27, 2015: . Looking over your car in the spring is a lot like facing the mirror after a night of insomnia. Thank the winter of 2014-15, when few parts of the country were spared the snow, ice, frigid temps and, now potholes that sap strength from batteries and chew up suspensions.

April, which is spring car care month, is a good time to give your car a thorough vehicle checkup before the summer driving season, said Greg St. Aubin, who leads technician training for ACDelco, General Motors original equipment and independent aftermarket parts brand.

Many services are best left to the pros, while customers can do others themselves, he said.

Before you do anything, give your car a good spring bath.

Regular car washes and waxes protect your car from corrosive debris. In parts of the country where salt is used on the roads, regular washing of the undercarriage is especially important, said Rich White, executive director of the nonprofit Car Care Council in Bethesda, Md.

Along with routine services like an oil and filter change, brake check and fresh wiper blades, ACDelco experts recommend the following:

Go with the pros:

Do it yourself:

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April Can be the Cruelest Month For Cars