Subscribe! is back after a long mid-year (summer-) break and with a new series. Starting with this episode, I'm going to explore a range of embedded systems prototyping platforms and, ultimately, how to connect tiny devices into the cloud for fun, scale, and security. We'll explore how to establish basic connectivity, discuss security options, talk about how to flow and handle telemetry data and how to do remote switching like turning a motor or switching a light from the cloud and do that in a way that it would scale to very, very many devices and poor connectivity conditions. Prototyping platforms allow hobbyists, researchers, and industrial design engineers to explore designs, and wire up and easily program special-purpose devices without soldering or even having to make a printed circuit. Once the design is stable, the prototype can then be turned into an actual device that can be produced at scale. In today's episode I'm going to give an overview of the prototyping platforms I'm going to explore in the upcoming few weeks. I'm initially going to focus on platforms that are cheap to buy and have existing communities, so that you can play along if you like: Arduino, Gadgeteer, Netduino, Android ADK, Seeedstudio Grove, and Raspberry Pi. Later this year, we'll also take a look at prototyping/evaluation platforms for industrial microcontrollers. Today and in the next few episodes, I'll be starting with the Arduino Ethernet board, which I bought as part of a Fritzing Starter Kit. Fritzing.org is an open-source hardware design initiative by the Interaction Design Lab at the University of Applied Sciences in Potsdam, Germany. [Go to Part 2 or Part 3 or Part 4 or Part 5]

"Internet of Things" ist dieser Tage eines der vieldiskutierten Schlagworte in der Softwareindustrie. Bei "IoT" oder auch Maschine-zu-Maschine Kommunikation (M2M) dreht es sich allgemein um die direkte und indirekte Verbindung von zweckgebundenen Geräten wie Waschautomaten, Geschirrspülern, Toastern, oder auch Lokomotiven, LKWs und Werkzeugmaschinen an das Internet. Wir, Microsoft, sind in den vergangenen Monaten von einer steigenden Anzahl von Kunden in diesem Bereich zu Rate gezogen worden. Diese Kunden aus der fertigenden Industrie kommen zu uns mit einem oft langjährigen Erfahrungsschatz in der Automation und Sammlung von Telemetriedaten zu ihren Produkten, sehen sich allerdings vor beträchtlichen Problemen, mehrere zehntausend oder auch Millionen von Geräten gleichzeitig an einem föderierten System zu betreiben, bidirektionale Kommunikation herzustellen, und die Informationsflut zu beherrschen.. Diese Episode hier auf "Subscribe!" ist die deutschsprachige Version der ersten Episode zu diesem Themenbereich, und dreht sich um IoT/M2M im Allgemeinen, die Kommunikationspatterns, und um die Verbindungsoptionen und -problem wobei ich spezifisch auch auf VPN und die damit verbundenen, aber leider nicht offensichtlichen Probleme eingehe. Mehr zum Thema [Englisch]: June 2012 MSDN Magazine "Using Service Bus for Things" (must read) July 2012 MSDN Magazine "A Smart Thermostat on the Service Bus" Internet of Things: Is VPN a False Friend? AMQP Support in Windows Azure Service Bus

"Internet of Things" is one of the hot catchphrases of the industry these days. It's about connecting special-purpose devices (laundry machines, dishwashers, toasters, locomotives, trucks, factory robots, etc.) directly or indirectly to the Internet. As things go, several commercial customers have nudged us in the direction of taking a good, long look at this space and we're already actively helping several of them to deal with the particular scale challenges of needing to connect tens of thousands or more devices concurrently and with bi-directional information exchange. This is the first in a series of episodes I'll do on the IoT/M2M subject area here on "Subscribe!" and in this first one, I'm introducing the problem space, talk about patterns, and am talking about the connectivity options and challenges around devices, specifically also discussing VPN. More on the subject: June 2012 MSDN Magazine "Using Service Bus for Things" (must read) July 2012 MSDN Magazine "A Smart Thermostat on the Service Bus" Internet of Things: Is VPN a False Friend?

Glenn Block and crew have been working on making Node.js' real-time eventing Socket.io library scale across nodes (machines) with the help of Service Bus. Talking to and hearing Glenn talk is always fun, so I hope you'll enjoy this.

In this episode, our identity wizard Vittorio Bertocci (you can identify true wizards by the long hair, even though most other wizards carry that hair under the chin) explains Windows Azure Active Directory and its role in the Windows Azure platform.