Problem

Networking the TiVo box to provide to enable Netflix streaming and access program guide information

Possible solutions

1. Buy a TiVo Wireless G USB Network Adapter Cost: $59.99

2. Run an Ethernet cable between rooms. Cost: $0

3. Use a Powerline network. Cost: $40

The Winning Alternative

As the CTO of my house, I was not willing to get tied down to a proprietary solution highlighted in #1. As much as I love TiVO, I do not want to pay $60 for a USB adapter that is not useful for anything else. As the COO of my house, Suparna would not let me go with #2.

#3 was the best alternative. I am now running a 200Mbps secure (128 bits encryption) Ethernet over my power lines. The ZyXel HomePlug doubles as a 802.11g WiFi router and a HomePlug AV connection provider to the ZyXel HomePlug Ethernet adapter. The Ethernet adapter provides the Ethernet connection to my TiVo.

I have had this network set up for more than a month now and I am pretty happy with the results.

I am demoing Sensor.Network at the First International Workshop on the Web of Things (WoT 2010) at PerCom 2010 in Mannheim, Germany. This dynamic map trace liveplot is set up to show live data from my travels in Germany at the conference.

Visualization powered by sensor.network.com

I am out and about using an application developed by Vodafone and Sun Labs on my cell phone that pinpoints my location at anytime. My location gets updated every 30 seconds whenever I have the Android app running. You can visualize that using the LivePlots from Sensor.Network!

Visualization powered by sensor.network.com

My colleague Vipul.Gupta has putback a cool feature to visualize dynamic map traces of location tracking data. Here is a dynamic map trace of my evening walk around Sunnyvale generated using Sensor.Network

Visualization powered by sensor.network.com

Live plots up to the last minute, of temperature and active power plotted as measured by an EtherWatt device from a conference room on the Sun campus in Menlo Park, California. The first two are simple line charts for temperature and active power and the third one is a combined annotated line chart (all provided by Google javascript API).

Visualization powered by sensor.network.com

Visualization powered by sensor.network.com

Visualization powered by sensor.network.com

Here is a live plot of temperature plotted against pressure for a Nortek Aquadopp sensor. You are NOT looking at a static image file but, visualizing AN UP TO THE LAST SAMPLE data from the sensor using LivePlots from Sensor.Network

Visualization powered by sensor.network.com

I was honored to have been invited to the Software Freedom Week celebrations at BVB College of Engineering and Technology, India. Here are the proceedings of the event: http://softwarefreedomweek.org/2009/

Thanks to Reshma Desai (Sun Campus Ambassador, BVBCET) and Ganesh Hiregoudar (Sun India OSUM Coordinator) for the arrangements

My talk at the Center for Science and Technology in Malaga, Spain to the members of LLSA has been posted here: http://livinglab.iavante.es/?p=32. Thanks to Eloy Rodriquez and Francisco Morero for setting up the event.

I will be speaking on “A New Security Pipe for the WWW“, “Project SunSPOTs” and “Project Yggdrasil” at the Universidad Complutense Madrid on January 29th, 2009. Here are a few links talking about the event:

http://blogs.sun.com/upm/

http://blogs.sun.com/jorgeSanchez/entry/january_29th_sunlabs_university_day1

I will be speaking about Project SunSPOTs and Project Yggdrasil at the FIB Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña in Barcelona, Spain. Here are a few links introducing the event:

http://www.lsi.upc.edu/esdeveniments/sun-spots-an-experimental-technology-from-sun-microsystems

http://www.fib.upc.edu/fib/noticies.html?id=bc9317cf-64c9-4e92-ab5a-3dd629c2611b