Peggy Smedley Show

Are Millennials the key to advancing smart cities? John Pletz, senior reporter, Crain's Chicago Business, joins Peggy to talk about how this generation is shifting what is happening in city centers. He explains that smart cities need to incorporate data to account for the shift that is current happening—and they need the data to help make better decisions.

Peggy and Chuck Byers, principal engineer and platform architect, Cisco, discuss interoperability and he questions how we are going to achieve interoperability if there are 900 different platforms. Interoperability—and security—are big challenges that face the industry. He believes quantum computing is a threat to IoT (Internet of Things) security, but the arms race is going to be won by the good...

The sensor market is growing rapidly in part because sensor technology has advanced to the point where sensors consume less power and battery life is significantly longer. For these reasons and others, sensors are playing an important role in advancing smart cities. Peggy discusses how sensors that are built in to all kinds of devices and structures have the ability to improve lives and businesses...

Technology and business consultant Craig Brown chats with Peggy about inter-operability and the need for data to be shared in the places where it is authorized to be shared. He says there are a lot of buzzwords around the technology, but there are no standards. It is coming, but it is not here yet. Eventually, all of these capabilities will come together and ultimately they will work, as all of ou...

Harald Haas, professor, chair of mobile communications, University of Edinburgh, joins Peggy to talk about Li-Fi. His says we are moving into the fourth industrial revolution, and we will see environments that are enriched with hundreds of thousands of sensors, and we need a transmission system to send the data to a central processor and into a brain, which would be the cloud that would get all th...

Peggy introduces Li-Fi to listeners, explaining the technology. She says PureLiFi has already come to market with a couple of products that leverage Li-Fi technology and can be installed alongside existing lighting infrastructures. With the market expected to reach $75.5 billion by 2023, there are a number of opportunities from industrial settings to public places in smart cities. She continues th...

Robin Raskin, founder and president, Living In Digital Times, joins Peggy Smedley to talk about the smart home. She says door locks, cameras, and thermostats work well, but what doesn't work well is the inter-operability. She continues that if technology companies make it too difficult no one is going to buy it. What we are missing is the infrastructure to make all of this easier, she explains.

Science is the foundation for inter-operability and smart communities. Peggy Smedley chats with Ken Calvert, division director for the computer and information science division of the computer and network systems, and Erwin Gianchandani, deputy assistant director for computer and information science and engineering, National Science Foundation, about smart communities. Calvert says it provides 83%...

Peggy Smedley identifies hurdles and milestones for EU's GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), explaining we still have a ways to go in what compliance really means—and the May deadline is just around the corner. She says uncertainty can be very costly and too many businesses remain unprepared and they will pay big time for it.

Joshua Peschel, assistant professor of agriculture and biosystems engineering, Iowa State University, says interoperability has been a problem for a while, and we have started addressing with standards, but as systems grow complex, it is still going to be a persistent, lingering issue. He says we all have a better job to do with interoperability. More specifically, there is a smart-cities paradox...

Peggy Smedley continues the interoperability and smart cities discussion and welcomes guest Mahesh Veerina, president and CEO, Cloudleaf. They discuss how bad guys are trying to hack the infrastructure and how interoperability is critical to help this. Veerina says by the time you collect data and process data, there is already historical data—and interoperability is important to help with this. T...

Peggy Smedley says the vulnerability in security in IoT (Internet of Things) devices is leading to new regulations. She talks about the EU GDPR (general data protection regulation), explaining that it will replace the previous directive. The new one aims to protect citizens by directing how organizations should store personal data. She says the new is the law of the land, which means there are con...

Gary Morton, author, Commanding Excellence, says optimizing the selection process from an employer standpoint is understanding the type of people you want and how they will fit inside your organization. It may not come out of the resume or school coursework, but if you have a way to measure and validate that, then it can help optimize the selection process. The more complex the role, the more tale...

David Drake, chairman, LDJ Capital, talks about getting the whole world—and the U.S.—behind cryptocurrency. He talks about the knowledge that is needed to raise capital in the U.S. and the many challenges that currently exist with global cryptocurrencies. Today, people are spending money across the globe, and taking those funds and running away. He says there is no protection and some form of regu...

Peggy Smedley says enterprise needs IoT (Internet of Things) technologies to stay competitive. In particular, robotics are making a mark on industries like manufacturing with benefits including quality and safety. She wagers that during the next five years we are going to see a huge boon in robot adoption in warehouse and logistics.

Donald Lee Sheppard CEO of Sheppard Properties and author of The Dividends of Decency says ethics is what you do when no one is looking, and the same thing with integrity. He explains that there isn't any shortcut to it and you will always get caught because you can't fake honesty and integrity. Having values is a powerful business tool, because it focuses on achieving success, and it is not somet...

Has blockchain become a trusted approach for IoT companies? Scott Schober, president and CEO, Berkeley Varitronics Systems Inc., says the whole concept of blockchain emerged in 2008 or 2009, and it is a buzzword. He says while people say it is not hackable, it is, but it is harder to hack. Hackers are looking for the lowest hanging fruit to compromise. Schober explains the fundamentals of a blockc...

Peggy Smedley asks the question: Should IoT (Internet of Things) companies invest in blockchain? She says blockchain will change the game for businesses, explaining that if you are an IoT company, you need blockchain. However, there is a growing surface of attacks and the prize is getting bigger for the bad guys, while the burden is growing for the good guys to keep their systems and data secure.

Joshua Peschel, assistant professor, agriculture and Biosystems engineering, Iowa State University, says everyone wants a robot now. A robot is a physically embodied agent and can interact with people, roads, or water, and relies on computation. He explains that a robot can go places that your computer can't, but the biggest concern is related to surveillance and being able to capture information...

Louis Parks, president and CEO, SecureRF, says in the mid-1970s public key or asymmetric cryptography came to be. This technology allows two devices to meet another element such as a server and authenticate each other. He explains that one of the struggles or issues is that a product or solution is focused on what it does, and then afterwards people think about securing it too. Parks says the diff...

Peggy Smedley helps listeners understand blockchain. She says blockchain technology makes crypto-currency different from regular currency because it provides an open, distributed, and public ledger for bitcoin transactions. Also, she addresses how blockchain is poised for tremendous growth as the technology matures, and as industries find new ways to leverage it.

In the final segment, Peggy details her vision of the cars of the future. These vehicles will be packed with conversational AI, V2I (vehicle-to-infrastructure) capabilities, immersive in-cabin experiences, and, of course, will be fully autonomous. But what hurdles and consumer concerns will manufacturers need to overcome before these vehicles hit the road? Peggy delves into the need to beef up sec...

Steve Koenig, senior director, market research, Consumer Technology Assn., admits that consumers are beginning to embrace digital assistants and people using them to shop is increasing. He discusses what autonomous shopping can mean for the retail market. Koenig also provides his insights into what we can expect at CES this year beyond connected cars and new startups. He believes AI (artificial in...

Peggy Smedley helps us get over our "post-holiday" blues by previewing CES 2018. Peggy expects autonomous cars and AI (artificial intelligence) to dominate the show floor this year with an increased focus on digital security and more. Technology is poised to affect advertising and entertainment in the coming year and Peggy delves into the how and why. Peggy Smedley helps us get over our "post-holi...

Andrew Scheuermann, founder and CEO, Arch Systems, has always been passionate about bringing technology into the physical world and has since dedicated his career to bridging the gap between the IoT (Internet of Things) and the real world. Scheuermann explains how he and his partner are using sensor technology to bring clean drinking water to remote parts of Africa and how modular sensor design co...