Headworx

Continuing our work on wireless IoT standards, security - related items contribute to about 70% - 80% of the total effort. It is difficult and complicated, especially when dealing with very resource - constrained devices. We very often deal with contradicting requirements. "It has to be secure" (of course). "It should cost less than $1". "It should last on batteries for ages". Etc. Meeting all the requirements is a challenge, but certainly possible, to some extent. One interesting problem that is coming up in discussions is mal - things, or devices that are legitimately introduced in a network, but start misbehaving. In the end, nobody can be sure a lightbulb does not contain malicious code that once given access to a network, will start playing dirty tricks, such as broadcasting "all off" messages repeatedly to the whole network. It is the same problem corporate administrators have with their LANs. And the only good solution seems to be isol...

Bluetooth 5 has just been announced. The specification will be published within a few months, so still we can only talk about it to some level of details. But what we do know officially there will be a "double speed" option which essentially means the raw data rate will double from the current 1Mbps to 2Mbps. Bluetooth has also announced quadrupling the range. Doubling the data rate and increasing the range are usually contradictory to each other. Normally you increase the range by slowing the data rate and you are able to increase the rate when your link budget can accommodate it. So reading into the Bluetooth's announcement one feature becomes apparent: adaptive data rate. Bluetooth 5 is the first low power radio that can go faster or slower depending on the application requirements. Which is absolutely phenomenal and brings incredible flexibility to product designers and system architects. The double data rate will play a very important role in the increasingly d...

There is this huge inconsequence at Apple: USB Type-C vs Lightning. Add the plans to get rid of the 3.5 mm audio jack and you end up with a total mess. Imagine I'm a pure Apple guy. The latest Macbook and the latest iPhone. Two different chargers, two different cables. Also after the 3.5mm audio jack is dropped, that means plus two sets of headphones: one Lighting (for the phone) and the other one USB Type-C (for the Macbook). The only way for Apple to make a sensible transition away from the 3.5mm audio port is to fully adopt USB Type-C by replacing the 3.5mm port with the Type-C port. Releasing a dual - port (USB Type-C + Lightning) iPhone and start phasing out the Lightning port. Lightning is the new FireWire would be a really smart move. Lightning is just another FireWire. No future for it - USB will win again. You can't change the wind direction by blowing at it. It is a tough decision but Apple was making such before: FireWire to USB and PowerPC to Intel. And by t...

I've had some fun tuning the iPad Pro. First, I wanted a nice (but not too bulky) leather case for it and after shopping around I selected the Oxford . The interesting part of it is the iPad is stuck to it, not framed by it. But is still does not provide a way to kick the Pad up in a portrait orientation (none of the cases I found do). I decided to rip apart my (broken) Kindle Voyage Leather Origami Case and use it as an integrated kickstand. With a help of a leather adhesive it works perfectly. Then the Pencil. Dbrand offers the Pencil skin that makes it look... well... like a pencil. It is a nice set now. Much more classic than the boring Johnny Ive aluminum / snowy white style. Finally the Dbrand Pencil Kit included extra spots for the pen cap, and I used it to cover the front camera. BTW: Apple should offer iPads without the front camera. I think people would be willing to pay some extra for this un-feature.