Connected Devices Weekly Update/2016-10-20

• PIB Checkin this Fri, Oct 21 to provide follow up action items from Oct 4 Gate1 review:
  • Provide details project plan on 4 main components: Cloud/API, Updates, Device and Hardware.
  • Provide updated Architecture diagrams
  • Provide next level budget forecast to 2017
  • Provide detail AWS data hosting costs
• SensorWeb Branding
  • Checkin meeting with Branding team Oct 26th to review proposed branding framework
• Kicked off User study #1 for user interviews in Taipei to start Oct 25 to 28.
  • This study will cover UI/ID and installation, unboxing experience, user interaction of setup process and value proposition.
• Continuation of weekly 3rd party vendor meetings to support creation of early Sensor hardware development boards by end of Dec 2016.
  • Upcoming Milestone: Confirmed key components list and detail Hardware Development Schedule with task and ownership for Dec 2016

• UR 8 : Findings from SurveyGizmo panel support survey here

• UR 9 with prototypes is wrapped. Prototypes in return shipping
  • UR 9 surveys completed. Being synthesized into a report, will be available next week
  • UR 9 usage data report here
  • Working on finalizing features and functionality

Platform planning begins

• Last week we reviewed Q4-2016 & 2017 goals for the platform team. Now we are detailing the Q4 goals into action plans.
  • Market (Differentiation Avenues): Open (no overlording), Security (e.g. IoT news is full of DDoS attacks), Data ownerships, Lack of Standardization
  • Technology: The Design white paper outline kicked off and in review this week (Platform Architecture & integration patterns). Ekr participated for platform/security inputs.
  • Use Cases: Target to finish the draft list of platform “use cases domains” (devices, services) by end of this week. These will serve as an input to verify completeness of the platform based on the technology / architecture

Early thoughts on Platform GTM plans

• • Developers:
    • Onboarding plans for developers, areas of focus
    • Evangelism, events, training, certification programs
    • Marketing / outreach
  • Partners:
    • Onboarding plans, forums
    • Support, training
    • Marketing / outreach
  • Tie these plans with viable business model options

Weekly Notes:

• https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yo1AtuozukgfkZwzO745LdEsB1fdZrEWoIYr8F9eydo/edit#heading=h.qgtmzupjdx35

• Integration of Fisher+Switchboard Corpus in Deep Speech
• Creating English Language Model
  • Created English corpus from Wikipedia
  • Starting on creation of a RNN (how the machine learns) language model
• Create demo milestones for Hawaii
  • Demo Ideas:
    • Talking santa
    • WER chart
    • Browser add-on that has basic control of browser
    • Robot - grammar
    • Live transcription demo
    • Integrate decoder with web speech API on firefox browser--gecko
    • webvr and aframe demos with speech
• Hosting of WER chart http://doyouunderstand.me/

Prototype Development and Testing

• Continued work to test value propositions.
  • Finalizing a questionnaire and visual designs to use in a study next week with targeted market segment to test value props. Targeting Oct. 24th to launch this study.
  • Developing ad copy for a campaign to drive traffic to a landing page
  • Finalizing copy for landing page that will feature a video.
  • Writing script for the video that will describe the overall purpose and functionality of Abigail to get consumer feedback. Feedback from the study will be incorporated into the video.
• Reviewed first drafts of industrial design proposals. Feedback is being incorporated into the second drafts which will be reviewed today (Oct. 20).

Work Week Update

• On track to be done with prototype development by Oct. 31
• Further work breakdown was completed on the first day.
• Good progress is being made and work is on track for on time completion.
• Tap to wake device is working.
• Multi-user functionality is nearly complete.
• SMS notifications is nearly complete.
• First time user setup script is nearly complete

Schedule

• Value proposition validation - Oct. 24 - early November
• Prototype development: month of October
• Assembly of devices: week of October 31
• Testing in homes: November 7 - 18
• Data synthesis from pilot and video/landing page studies: November 21 - 29
• Gate 1 pitch: November 30

• Finishing our first Sprint (Sprint 6) after passing Gate 0 (more details of the sprint in our Waffle and our wiki). Main Goal for this sprint is implementing our current service/client to work for GPS/Virtual beacons
  • Architecture

• Main Tasks:
  • Investigate and implement GPS solutions in React Native (iOS and Android)
    • Implement GPS content discovery on client
    • Geo Backend: Implement Magnet Service
  • Upgrade to latest react-native version as there were errors when compiling magnet for iOS10 and bugfixing
  • Metrics: Modify the metrics to identify Beacons URL and GPS or Virtual Beacons
  • Provide content for the London Pilot that fit our target audience and our technical requirements
  • Design of several options for the final UX of our client (High level)
• Working in the presentation for the PIB (Oct 21st) to nail down the target audience and stories for our Pilot/MVP

• Team assigned (mostly)
• Order placed for hardware evaluation kits, waiting for delivery (Engineers ramping up on research while we wait)
• Several team members meeting with hardware vendor at IoT Expo on Friday
• Setting up landing page & survey tools
• Started mocking up landing page & survey, will engage UR/UX/Marketing for input

Gate 0 Pitch

• A draft of the Game ON! Gate 0 pitch will be circulated for review by EOB today (Oct. 20).

Focus is on product differentiation and tech enhancements that will bring something totally new with this concept

• Gate 1 pitch: October 27

Engineering

• Development of the game board with an LED base and the use of Halls sensors and magnets is far along.
• Spinner work is also progressing well, and team will continue work with connected dice.

• Game play work is progressing well, too.
• Prototype components have been identified and priced for producing prototype boards.
• Have produced an architecture diagram

Prototype testing

• Planning to test the game prototype with Mozilla kids who will be at the Hawaii work week.

Engineering

• Completed testing the alternatives for mic/speaker, including sound card and USB options. We are planning to test it out with a hands-free and hand held form factors once the hardware components are all integrated next week.
• Building a prototype with raspberry pi running Open CV ORB algorithm for image matching with voice labeling using PyAlsa audio library. Next focus is to put it all together -- integrating image acquisition, image matching and voice labeling and button press interaction (using Rpi Squid button) and testing end to end.

User Studies

Wizard of Oz Study

• Conducted this study with our team consultant who is blind. Gained valuable insight into how a blind person will interact with the device.
• Also planning to test out various form factors with off the shelf cameras that can be clipped on or Velcro or strapped or hand-held as a wizard of oz style lean experiments with blind users.

User Study with Prototype

• Working on the logistics for testing the prototypes with study participants who are blind. The current plan is for team members to bring items typically purchased by the participants to the SCVBC.
• Photos will be taken of these items with the prototype devices, and the devices will record the participants' descriptions of them.
• Image matching accuracy will be tested when participants later try to identify these objects with the camera device. If there's a successful image match, the camera device will playback the participant's recorded description of the item to identify it.

Schedule

• Complete development of prototype: October
• Assemble prototypes: Oct 31 - Nov 4
• Prototype pilot: Nov 7 - 18
• Data synthesis from pilot and video/landing page studies: November 21 - 29
• Gate 1 pitch: November 30

• Hard dates for project Magnet and project Sensor Web, so the team cannot continue working on PocketID after December

• Alexa:
  • BMW announced it will offer voice connectivity on new vehicles using Amazon's Alexa service. The new feature will be available though the upgraded BMW Connected smartphone app later this month. A BMW owner will be able to perform checks, such as vehicle battery charge and fuel levels, and use commands, like "lock doors," through the Amazon Echo device to control their vehicles. The Alexa integration will also send navigation directions to the car and alert drivers when it's time to leave for a planned trip. While this is big news for BMW, Hyundai'snew Genesis luxury division was the first to offer access to car functions using Alexa voice commands.

• Smart Cities:
  • Business Insider identified the main drivers behind Smart Cities projects in the US. The top reason is cost reduction and operational efficiency, followed by environments sustainability, improved city management and infrastructure resilience.

• IoT Platforms:
  • Deutsche Telekom has identified fragmentation of IoT platforms as a problem to tackle in the space. The telecom provider has launched a so-called "multi-IoT platform", which brings together IoT platforms from different providers to enable device-independent use of IoT solutions. DT says its platform aims to play the role of interpreter and distributor, collecting data from connected evices and routing it through gateways to the customer's preferred platform for processing. It will support several different IoT services including Microsoft’s Azure platform, Cisco’s Fog Computing service, and Huawei’s cloud platform.
  • Cisco has teamed with Salesforce to jointly develop and market cloud and IoT products. For cloud, the two will integrate Cisco Spark and WebEx into Salesforce's Sales Cloud and Service Cloud. With the integration, joint customers will be able to communicxate using Cisco's chat, video and voice applications without leaving Salesforce. The companies will also integrate Cisco Jasper and the Salesforce IoT Cloud to provide businesses with a more comprehensive view of their IoT services.
  • Arrayent, which provides a consumer IoT platform, announced that it has received EU-US Privacy Shield certification with the US Department of Commerce. The certification verifies that Arrayent's IoT platform manages data in a way that is compliant with the new Privacy Shield EU data transfer privacy framework. The company claims it is the first consumer IoT platform to do so.