IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine - July 2015 - 3

Notes from the Editor

I Am Game of Thrones
By Peter Corcoran

s I write this editorial, the first
four episodes of the latest season
of Games of Thrones appeared
online-before the HBO premier of the first episode! It is not yet
clear how they became available, but
they did; so, if you want to find out what
happens after the season premier, well,
the pirated copies are already three episodes ahead and seeding fast.
Just a few days before, Netflix had
released the latest "new" Marvel
series. This is Daredevil, the first blind
superhero-a very dark, gritty, and violent
series. The difference is that Netflix put all
the episodes online all at once, so you can
decide how much you want to go on a
"content binge"; and with the series available in 4K video quality, it does not really
make sense to look for a pirated copy,
does it?
There is a contrast here-one TV
series followed the old model of a
sequential release. The content is
released slowly over a period of time,
and people have to wait patiently for the
next episode. This enforced wait drives
anticipation and grows the audience
numbers, creating an attractive proposition for advertisers and corresponding
revenue for the TV stations that commission and air the TV series. But with digital piracy now an established global
phenomenon embraced by millions, it is
simply proving impossible to put the
piracy genie back into the bottle. And so,
the traditional model employed by Game
of Thrones is catastrophically broken.

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MCE.2015.2421534
Date of publication: 15 July 2015

Netflix, on the other hand, has
embraced the Internet distribution model
and built the first reliable 4K content distribution on top of it. It is not too difficult
to spot the winners and the losers here.

BROADBAND FOR ALL
But this editorial is not about piracy.
Not really.
Piracy is a good way to introduce
what I want to talk about because it relies
on the growth of networks and the
increasing economic importance of
broadband connectivity. It is increasingly
essential for citizens to have access to
high-speed networks and computing services. This is not just about fast Web
pages or online content distribution. It is
seen as enabling new products and services and empowering new, disruptive
entrepreneurial companies-Netflix
being just one such example.
The "Internet of Things" is another
example. The term has grown beyond its
original concept of smart sensors to
embrace a wider spectrum of products,
services, concepts, and technologies.
From the smart grid and smart meters to
RFID authentication; from smart thermostats like NEST to TV sets that take voice
commands and light bulbs that can
change color and are controlled from
your smartphone; from wearable exercise
monitors and personal health profiles that
live in "the cloud," these new services
and products are emerging all around us.
Conservative estimates suggest that we
will have more than 26 billion "things" on
the Internet by 2020, while others say that
this is a gross underestimation. Checking
recently in my own household, it is not

unusual to have as many as 20 devices
connected to the local router, and I have
not even reached the point of integrating
light bulbs, door locks, and RFID tags
into my home network.
With so many devices, the demand
for bandwidth and connectivity is only
going one way. Before long, broadband
Internet access may become as much a
right for a citizen as it is to practice
religion or bear arms.

THE CHALLENGE
OF CONNECTIVITY
Connectivity is key here. Consumers
are lazy and expect things to just work.
Today, we are still, more or less,
where we were 20 years ago. When a
device connects to your local Wi-Fi
access point, it basically obtains an IP
number from the local home network;
the router is almost invariably at the
LAN address 192.168.1.1, and this acts
as a gateway for all the local devices to
the external Internet. Magically, your
device is connected to the wide-area
network beyond your house. But can it
talk to local devices?
Well, this is still not really solved in a
simple, universal manner. We do have
standards like DLNA and UPnP, but
these tend not to work consistently. Windows computers still prefer to integrate
with other Windows computers, Macs
can talk to other Macs, and the same
interoperability applies with tablets and
smartphones. But these are computer
technologies and operating systems with
their origins going back 30+ years-what
hope can there be for newer home control
and device management middleware?
july 2015

IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine - July 2015