Highlights from the IET NorCal seminars on September 12th.

John Manville gave a very insightful talk into how IoT is really becoming the IoE, the Internet of Everything. Covering the estimates of future growth of connected devices and the problems that an ultra-connected world presents, such as bandwidth, connectivity, security, and privacy issues.  Everyone knows the story of the online fridge that knows when to order milk but John showed that towns and cities are using ubiquitous connectivity to make a positive change for their inhabitants. The city of Barcelona has made multi-million dollar savings in power and water user – yeah! – and made much more from its parking meters by knowing who is there and for how long L. The talk triggered a very lively Q&A session and featured a 3D printer and a drone!









Allan Casey talked about the plans for the NIF facility @ LLNL to utilize the cloud in order to make experiment planning easier for the experimental user. He described the process they went through to determine why a cloud service was selected and which provider was eventually chosen. Allan also explained that the talk was a dry run for his presentation at ICALEPCS 2015 in Melbourne, Australia. The NorCal chapter of IET would like to encourage all members to use the group in this way should they feel the desire to do so. Presenting is not easy, and if members want to practice, let the committee know and they will be happy to host your presentation.









Dr Ronjon Nag, recipient of the 2014 IET Mountbatten medal, was in the audience and gave a preview of what he would be talking about at the next IET meeting on October 10^th; specifically the future of cell phones and how they will become smarter. You read about the event in this recent blog post.



Finally, Ben Venktash the Chairman of IET NorCal encouraged everyone to get involved at the local level and requested that if people have ideas on tours or presentations that they should let the committee know. He also reminded people of the upcoming SGM and reminded the audience that if you can vote, you should!