Technology & Trend Monitoring 

Technology & Trend Monitoring 

Introduction.

Technology is defined as a body of knowledge applied in different areas such as making of objects, processing of different products, and the extraction. Technology is a broad term as it has been defined differently by different people.  Nowadays, technology is widely used in accomplishing various operations in daily activities. Technology is essential as it is used to simplify work, for efficiency, improve the quality and quantity, and reduce the costs involved in performing the activities. The technology uses scientific skill to solve the problems involved. Although both technology and science work together in solving different issues, they are two different subjects.

Over years, technology has been improving rapidly on the operations in the daily activities. In the ancient days the production process to a very long time to be accomplished, production cost was too high, the products were of poor quality, consumed too much time, insufficient quantity and generally inefficiency in the whole production process. The introduction of the technology then started shedding some light to the improved way of performing daily activities in a more efficient way than before.

Technology is being applied in different field such as communication, learning, transport sector, manufacturing sector, security sector, in business and many other sectors operating all over the world. In transport, technology has been applied in improving the roads, manufacturing of vehicles which are cheaper, safer from accidents, consuming less fuel, and one of the latest modes which uses solar power hence does not consume any fuel. This helps to conserve the environment as there is zero environmental pollution. In the water transport, there has been a great improvement in the vessels moving in water such as ferries and ships. Use of technology has enhanced development of ships with a very large carrying capacity as well as faster in movement. In the air transport the aircrafts and rockets have been greatly improved. Aero planes have been improved to have a large carrying capacity and are been enabled to move at a very high speed and there have been modeled to reduce accident occurrence cases and the severity in case of the occurrence of the accident.

In the learning sector, the technology has been an important tool as many learning institutions all over the world has been using it in its operations. Use of computers has been a great step in the education sector as they use it in research aided by the use of internet. Distant learning has been enabled though the use of technology and students are able to attend classes online without physically meeting the teacher or the lecturer. This is has helped much especially to the students who has been employed and don’t have that time to go to the lecture room due to the job demand. They can read and take the exams online at the same time attending their jobs. This has been commonly applied in the developed countries and has led to a significant growth in the economy.

In the communication sector, communication has been simplified nowadays as compared to those times when the technology was not common in the world. People have been enabled to communicate to their families and friends all over irrespective of the distance and time. Also, many communication companies have emerged providing communication services to the public. This has led to the growth of the economy since many people have been employed in these companies, acting as source of employment. These companies also pay taxes to the government increasing the countries resources for investments and expenditure.

Part 1 Mobile, Edge computing.

In some cases, there is that complain that people experience some incidences of latency during the times of communication. Therefore, in such cases, is the function of the edge computing to ensure such incidences of latency are minimal. other major function of edge computing is solving the challenged of experienced by the devices which have limited capabilities or processing as well as the devices with limited storage and other things related to the same. There are also other challenges and limitations by the devices which affect them in their operations. Such challenges and limitations include network bandwidth limitations, the battery life of the devices, privacy requirements and also security concerns and issues. Therefore, it is the function of mobile and edge computing to ensure that it addresses such problems, which is a show of advancement in technology (Mao pp.2322-2358).

It is also the function of the edge computing to ensure provision means as well as the ability to the internet of things, IoT, appliances and services have function in generating tasks. The tasks are usually time constrained. It is important also to focus of the management of the costs incurred during the process of edge computing. End-user, it the one which has the mandate of managing the connectivity capabilities of the edge computing. There are some of the platforms and architectures which one can use in the estimation of the costs incurred. The best and recommended architecture is that of grid based, as it helps in the provision of feasible estimation of the cost. There are some of the key areas which one should focus concerning the edge computing. Some of the most significant areas is that of focusing on the problem areas of cost, optimization as well as the delay impact (Abbas pg. 450-452).

From is area and way of application, edge computing as well as edge communication is vital especially concerning its outcome and the impact to the areas where it is applied. The utilization of Edge computing and edge communication is a key driver for the specific application of the technology which focus on the detailed requirements of a typical edge computing infrastructure deployed in a medical services environment where the requirement will be to manage the delay-sensitive patient monitoring systems. In the clinical application, there are incidences where the patient is in a critical situation of illness and there is a need of keen focus on the patient to ensure recovery. In such an incidence, the edge computing will be the best in the management of the diagnostic data such patients in the critical stages and situations of their illness. In some cases, the patients may generate diagnostic data which is not in any way predictable and therefore making it for the doctors to act upon such information (Mach pg. 1628-1635).

In such incidence, the edge competence is useful in that it is flexible enough and the healthcare providers can undertake to use it in analysis of the data. There are two main technologies and whose application greatly complements one another in their application. The two technologies include that of edge computing and cloud computing. the application of the two technologies, that it, the edge computing and cloud computing ensures a capability, which helps in providing the service of being able to analyze the diagnostic data of patients in real-time or non-real-time which provides the capability to physicians to provide medical diagnosis more efficiently and accurately, which helps in the treatment of the patients (Mao pp.2322-2358).

There are different capabilities which different applications need and which are provided by the edge computing technology. Such capabilities include that of the upgradability of communication or computing, which incorporates the provision of the services on demand. There is need for the protection of data which is under processing and which enables the individual to maintain privacy. Therefore, in such an incidence, it is the function of edge computing to provide such quality of service as well as provisioning for different application and also ensure security as well as privacy of the data which is in being processed and stored (Abbas pg. 450-452).

Edge computing utilizing models are also important and which include mist, fog and also dew computing. the resources which come as a result of edge computing are mainly in line with the computations resources, control resources as well as the communication resources which are also known as networking resources. Such resources need close and critical management in their application to ensure that there is quality of the service constrains of those applications which they provide the capability to. What drives the edge computing is the focus of the cost minimization (Mach pg. 1628-1658).

In every operation or transaction, it is the aspiration and focus of any individual to ensure that the cost of the operation is as minimal as possible. Minimizing the cost will definitely result on a benefit to the organization. To enhance, cost minimization in the process of edge computing, there following factor are important to consider; location, type and also the cost of server which is in consideration. Together using small cell optimization which is done through the allocation of channels dynamically to ensure that the demands of IoT devices with future scalability requirements. There are also others known as the Femto-cells and which are installed by the end user but in terms of management, they are managed by few users. The main function of the small sells is to make it possible for the usage of frequency and can be used in a number of times which in turn helps the cellular networks by being capable of managing numerous IoT devices on the edge (Mao pp.2322-2358).

Focusing on the major benefits or the advantages of using edge computing, the major advantage of all is to minimize or even eliminate the incidences of latency, which may occur in different cases where edge computing is not involved. The maximization mobile edge computing capabilities of the service of an API is made available to developers which include standardized application programming interface functionality, which is capable of being integrated across the entire mobile edge computing environment of global telecom providers which provide this the service which they offer to their clients on daily basis. to enhance efficiency, they use a capability known as open edge services which is delivered in uniform structure with no dependence on the communication bearer as well as network provider, underlying technology and provider of the technology.it is also the function of the open edge services to enhance the provision of adoption of all the application categories as well as the technologies which are capable of supporting the business applications, which many organizations and more so the large organization require to enhance efficiency in their operations. Therefore, organizations are also dependent on the entire concept of edge computing in their operations (Abbas pg. 450-452).

Among the many trends in technology, the other major emerging technology is that of the utilization of cloudlet technology which basically refers to the data center in a box and whose main focus or objective is to bring cloud capabilities closer to the consumer. It is important to note that cloudlets technology is different of the cloud technology although they sound to be the same. There major difference between the two technologies and which I would like to critically outline below show the difference between the two technologies. Considering the major differences, there some considerable aspects which are evident in the case of cloudlet technology.  The first one is that cloudlet has the capability of rapid provisioning of speed. Data centers which focuses on the provision of cloud services and capabilities are already optimized for launching virtual machine images which are available in their storage tier (Mao pp.2322-2358).

Concerning the activation of the cloudlets, there is need for the m be more agile also ensure that they service the bootstrapping. there major reason for ensuring that all these are in consideration is because their usage by the mobile devices is usually fluctuating and continuously with a continuous refreshing of services as well as decommission of the service by the user. The handoff of virtual machines across cloudlets needs to be seamless when moving from one cloudlet environment to the next one by the user. those are some of the major trends in technology concerning the mobile and edge computing, which from the discussion are of greater advantage in their application and especially in the field of communication as well as that of data privacy and processing both in healthcare institutions and other organizations (Abbas pg. 450-452).

Part 2: Big Data

in this era everything is managed through technology and this has led to the world becoming a global village. a lot of inventions have been made concerning the information technology in all the continents leading to a better information technology among all the candidates affected by it. the information technology is a large sector in the economy in which data in large amounts is transmitted in the form of electronic information from one person to another. the information technology therefore has led to both positive and negative effects on the part of as many individuals as possible. the fact mentioned above on the effects therefore has turned this sector that is the industry of information transition into a crossroad. it is therefore advised to the various countries that have installed this new technology in their respective continents to take some precaution measures as analyzed below (Wolfert pg. 69).

mainly a country should spell out the reason behind the installation of these technology and stick un to the stated objectives. if a country deviates from the stated and intended objective then it should decide on how to go back and maximize on it so as to avoid the negative effects arising from the new technology. According to studies done in this sector is that companies that know their objectives and work on them are most likely to succeed in attaining their goals. Some of the goals that determine the economic prosperity of a company may include the maximization of profit goal, attainment of a large market share and also provision of quality goods and services to the customers. Another added advantage is the competitive advantage imposed on other businesses by an organized and a well-managed enterprise (Wolfert pg. 70-71).

Another key area that should be analyzed before the start of any company is the past business activities that may have affected either an older business or other existing business enterprises. The analysis of past data about the past business activities highly assists the new business enterprise to cope with these activities in case they also affect it in the future. In most cases you find that the factors affecting the success of any company are similar from one period to another and therefore similar of advanced solutions can be used to address them. A company can use data analytics who are competent in this sector in analyzing the past data and who can also assist in the prediction of factors that can hinder the success of the business in the future. Through this therefore the business is prepared to face any of these factors as they arise in the future times. All these guarantees the enterprise the growth and stability in provision of goods and services that it deals with and also increased revenue made from its activities. The more stable a business is the more confident are the customers about the success of the enterprise and the newer customers come in and therefore the profits made per financial year become huge and desirable (Oussous pg. 431-448).

These companies are also advised to study and analyze on the success of pother companies that highly depend on the internet to such for new locations or even locate new customers. Currently, most of the sales and marketing are done online and therefore people even in the very remote areas are reached through the new technology (Zhou pg. 215-225).

There are two areas addressed in analytical platforms and they range from discovery to the operational platforms as its main features. Analytical platforms are concerned with the data analytics who analyze the big data and derive value from them and set the priorities of the new company based on the data analyzed. the discovery as a part of analytical platforms majorly focuses on deriving some insight on the big data. the analytics and the big data work hand in hand and this is shown by the fact that if analytics would not be there then the big data would be of no use. on the other hand, is another amazing case that the analytics would not have any use in the business sector because they would not have any data to use in their studies and research on the past and underlying business activities. the e4xistence of the big data therefore counts much more on the reason behind the existence and work of the business analytics. it is therefore evident that the data analytics would not exist as a result of the absence of the big data (Wolfert pg. 72-74).

it is also based on the big data that also the predictions on the future factors that may affect the companies started during a certain period of time can be made. forecasts that is the prediction of what might happen during the future therefore cannot be made with the absence of the big data. the big data therefore has been proved to be the base of all the analysis of any data and any predictions made in each case. this proves the certainty of all studies that approve the big data to be so key in the existence of all business enterprise in the whole continent. an analysis without the emphasis and the use of the big data is termed as noise based on various comments made by many of the researches on this.

it is also evident that the ability of the company to incorporate the various data items into a meaning so as to derive value from it. an example of an institution that has done well due to the use of data analytics basing the arguments on the big data is the United Nations. the united nations incorporate the past information in the analysis of the spread of diseases to different patients and also predict on the future outcomes to other patients. for example, the united nations can use the past data of the infected persons in predicting for the spread of the infection to other patients in terms of the number of people who might be affected in the future by the same infection. some of the solutions that can be set in this case may include the advancement and also availing of public health facilities (Oussous pg. 433-437).

Levels of unemployment can also be analyzed by the United Nations in all the member states and also make predictions based on the past figures. The predictions on the numbers of people who might be unemployed in the future will therefore help the organization to come up with solutions on high levels of unemployment mainly in the developing countries. These predetermined solutions made at earlier stage highly help to curb off the unemployment levels. For example, the united nations might make a decision to give grants to its member states to assist them in developments which would absorb the increased population hence curbing the high levels of unemployment in the various countries.

Kryder’s law forms the key influence which involves the trend of storage capacity to enhance outstripping the processing capability improvements. Concerning the ability to store data or information, there are greater improvements in that as time elapses, people are innovating new and more improved method or mechanisms f data storage. Also concerning the processing of the information, there is a great improvement in that it is becoming more efficient as well as faster than before, which is a positive movement as far as technology is concerned (Wolfert pg. 75-77).

As a result, companies and other business entities have the capacity and are producing more than before, since they are in a position to store a large volume of data and also has the ability to effectively and securely process the data. Concerning the obtaining and the storage of data, all the companies were focusing on the process of capturing all the relevant pieces and elements of information in that case, which included personal information, financial information and bailing information among others, including information concerning the transactions in the curse of business. In that regard, there was a need to ensure that there is a system which was in a position to handle or manage all that information in a safer way than before. In the current world, as a result of the increase and improvement in technology, there are companies which are acquiring and processing large volumes of data, which is processed daily. It is the improvement of technology which has contributed to all that in its application. A good example of such companies is those operating in the industry of air transport such as Boeing, which as per the statistics, it has the capacity of acquiring and processing more than half a terabyte daily, which is actually a very large amount of data (Wolfert pg. 75-77).

Part 3 NFC & Zigbee applications in the Smart home.

From a brad point of view, the technology which is playing part in the process of enabling smart homes is considered to be a bit diverse in nature. The thing which was pushing the people to use or adopt alternatives which are different in communication protocol in the smart home application environment as because some of the technologies used such as that of Bluetooth as well as WLAN are limited in some sense. The thing limiting such technologies is that they are not in a position to support energy saving capabilities such as sleep mode. That means it is a limitation and therefore there was an urgent need to solve such a need. The above technologies tend to operate in a band which is mainly focused on multimedia application. On the other hand of the application which are used in the smart homes as well as the intelligent building, they don nor require such broad bandwidth as those of Bluetooth and WLAN. They are capable of using lower frequencies in their operations which ranges a about eight hundred and sixty-eight MHz in the and thereby using a lower transmission energy as compared to the case of Bluetooth and the other technology in the same category. Focusing on the case of The IEEE 802.15.4 and ZigBee standards, they tend to provide the required network interface to sensor networks (Jun pg. 1577-1578).

Concerning the application of the two standards, they tend be in the form of ZigBee configuration on the application as well as the network layer. On the part of the IEEE 802.15.4, it mainly focuses on the process of configuration for the medium access control layer. The first Zigbee configuration was discovered and come into application in the year 2004. Afterwards, the current Zigbee came into existence in 2007. In that regard, the Zigbee ecosystem has several categories which are in different devices Santo (Andrade pg. 21-22).

In the Zigbee network, there is a coordinator which is cables Zigbee coordinator. The function of this Zigbee coordinator is mainly to partake the routing, to monitor the operation and also the management of the entire system as well as packet routing. Therefore, in this case, Zigbee coordinator is a very important device in its application and without it, the operations could not occur efficiently due to the role which it plays (Zong pg. 353-357).

On the other hand, there is also another device to consider and which is know as Zigbee router, in this case, the Zigbee router has the capability or it undertakes to route the packets between the devices as well as the control coordinator. The incorporation of all there is to ensure that there is expansion of the network for a bit longer distance that before. Therefore, all these aspects are important considering the service they undertake to deliver in the advancement of network, which Is a show of technological advancement (Jun pg. 1577-1578).

There is also another device which is also important in this case, and which is the Zigbee end device. The capability of this device is only to allow the communication with the router. It also allows other communications with the central coordinator and therefore enhancing effectives in the network. The important point to take note in this case is that the Zigbee end device does not and cannot in any way undertake to operate as a bridge in transferring the data of the other devices. Regarding the low consumption of computing processing cycles of the ZigBee end device, as well as its low operational memory, then it is required to undertake its operations in the incidences of battery energy (Andrade pg. 22-23).

There is a number of the security which the ZigBee standard provides in its operations and which makes it advantageous to those who undertake to apply it in their operations. The securities include the protection against spoofing, the validation of devices and data as well as encryption of data. The enhancement of all the security measure by the ZigBee standard undertakes to ensure that the data is more secure. Each of the securities provided by the Zigbee standard has its own impact on the information and therefore it shows how the ZigBee standard is more important in the enhancement of security of information comparing with the past case, where it was not easy to operate with all that security guaranteed (Zong pg. 353-357).

Concerning the advantages of implementing the Zigbee technology is smart houses, the Zigbee technology is advantageous in that it ensures flexibility of the network environment, where one is in a position to meet the specific requirements in the smart houses. Also, the Zigbee technology is also important in that is ensures that the smart house efficiency by providing energy efficient communication with a wide or huge configuration as well as the information security features incorporated in the platform. Considering all those advantages of Zigbee technology, it is efficient since there is no need to too much energy which might be expensive to acquire, then it is perfect and enhances quality of the smart houses. Also concerning the other point of security of the information, every individual will go for that platform which will assure for security of the information. Therefore, that acts as the other advantage of the same as it enhances security of the information in the smart houses (Jun pg. 1577-1578).

Diverting the focus on the challenges of Zigbee technology in smart houses, the main challenge is that of machine to machine communications. In such a case, the is usually lack of compatibility due devices supporting different protocols. Therefore, the lack of such compatibility due devices challenges the operation of the Zigbee technology, which could be better in the incidence where such devices were available. A good example concerning that challenges is that of a smart home device which applies Z -wave protocol. In such a case, the device will not be in a position to communicate with the devices which support the Zigbee protocol. That forms the main challenge affecting Zigbee technology and in which there is a need to address it to ensure that the technology continues to be the best (Andrade pg. 24-25).

Part 4 Cyber Security Threats

There is a possibility that the application as well as the industrial value of IoT will overtake that of the internet due to the rate of growth as well as the acceptance rate in the current world. The reason for such a fat growth is because of the impact of IoT to the lives of the people. Although the growing of IoT is of a great advantage, there are also some of the security threats which are cyber based, and whose application will pose a challenge and therefore there is need to address such an issue. The statistics show that there is likely to be more than twenty billion devices which will be connected to the internet. That represents a large number, and which requires proper management to ensure that the cyber security threats are handles in the best way possible to curb the possible impact of the security threats. One of the major challenges will be with the integration of smart devices, IoT and Wireless Sensor Networks in one network with the focus area of traditional network capabilities which is not usable in IoT as well as the management approaches of Wireless Sensor Network applications in the Internet of things (Essa pg. 62-64).

According to the prevailing conditions, it is true to claim hat there is not specific or set guidance on the implementation of security in the internet of things, WoT and also IoT as a one ecosystem where all those systems are incorporated and undertake to work together in their operations. In that regard, it is the mandate and obligation of the people who are specialize in the area of cyber security to understand and implement the measures which hey ill apply in the process of ensuring that there is a secure existence to all the devices operating in that platform.

In the attempt to outline the threats, the following illustration will be of a greater use and I will apply it in elastration the threats.

From the above diagrammatical representation, I will critically look into some of the threats and in which there is need to address the threats for a better operation as well as the treatment of those threats.

The first threat shows the information disclosure as well as tampering of operational technology data. In such a case, the threat actor collects data and also modifies the data which will be flowing between the Operational Technology center and the end-point device which results in the exposure of proprietary data. Focusing on the treatment, the devices are supposed to use confidentiality protection between the device and the operational technology, information technology centers at a minimum a data integrity protection. Having that in place would play a major role in solving the threat and hence making it safer than before (Hemilä pg.12-14).

The second threat incorporates Denial of service including application-level data tampering. The attacker will use the attack vector by spoofing metadata or by replaying SQL injection attacks including using resource attacks to trick a device in performing unauthorized activity and create a temporary denial of service attack on the device under the application. On The attempt to solve the problem, the implementation of authentication throughout the whole application life cycle which include the complete command flow as well as whitelisting of network endpoints are key to prevent attacks of this nature. Having such a measure in place would ensure that the threat is solved once and for all, hence making the operations effectives (Essa pg. 64-65).

The third threat is that of Permanent denial of service attacks, where the threat attacker introduces an unauthorized firmware update or a critical operating system update which damages the actual hardware components of the device or causes the device to go in offline mode which causes no service at all. Concerning the solution to the threat, Agents responsible for device management with privilege capability cannot also have direct network capability this will reduce the risk of network attacks which also provide the attacker with elevated privileges within the device environment which can lead to the modification of the base firmware and other deployed software on the device. That stand to be the best solution and whose implementation would ensure that there is minimal threat of this kind (Hemilä pg.14-17).

The last threat I would like to focus on is that of device hijacking.  A threat attacker uses vulnerabilities active in the device software to add their own code or firmware into the device to cause the execution of processes to be disrupted, spoofing health or data reporting of the device. This led to total disruption of the industrial operations flow. Therefore, is shows a danger in the operations. On the part of the solution or the treatment, introducing virtualization, containers and trusted execution environment, which are advanced containment techniques to segregate software. The execution of workloads as microservices leads to a limited attack surface including the time frame of which the attack can be active. The implementation of such a strategy will offer the best solution to the threat(Essa pg. 66-67).

References.

Abbas, N., Zhang, Y., Taherkordi, A. and Skeie, T., 2017. Mobile edge computing: A survey. IEEE Internet of Things Journal, 5(1), pp.450-465.

Essa, A., Al-Shoura, T., Al Nabulsi, A., Al-Ali, A.R. and Aloul, F., 2018, August. Cyber Physical Sensors System Security: Threats, Vulnerabilities, and Solutions. In 2018 2nd International Conference on Smart Grid and Smart Cities (ICSGSC) (pp. 62-67). IEEE.

Hemilä, J., Mikkola, M. and Salonen, J., 2019, December. Management of Cyber Security Threats in the Factories of the Future Supply Chains. In 9th International Conference on Operations and Supply Chain Management, OSCM 2019. Pp. 12-23

Jun, Q., Chao, H., Yunhan, Y. and Jizui, Q., 2018, August. Application of Modern Communication Technology in Smart Home System. In 2018 IEEE International Conference on Information and Automation (ICIA) (pp. 1577-1581). IEEE.

Mach, P. and Becvar, Z., 2017. Mobile edge computing: A survey on architecture and computation offloading. IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, 19(3), pp.1628-1656.

Mao, Y., You, C., Zhang, J., Huang, K. and Letaief, K.B., 2017. A survey on mobile edge computing: The communication perspective. IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, 19(4), pp.2322-2358.

Oussous, A., Benjelloun, F.Z., Lahcen, A.A. and Belfkih, S., 2018. Big Data technologies: A survey. Journal of King Saud University-Computer and Information Sciences, 30(4), pp.431-448.

Santo Andrade, S.H.M., Alves, J.M., Barbosa, J.S. and Souza, R.R., 2020. Smart Outlet: Smart Electrical Outlet With Device Identification Using NFC. Journal of Autonomous Intelligence, 2(4), pp.21-27.

Wolfert, S., Ge, L., Verdouw, C. and Bogaardt, M.J., 2017. Big data in smart farming–a review. Agricultural Systems, 153, pp.69-80.

Xiao, Z., Rong, T., Cheng, G., Qiang, X. and Liu, Y., 2016, May. Design and Implementation of Smart Gateway Based on Wireless Communication Technique. In 2016 International Conference on Education, Management and Computer Science. Atlantis Press.

Zhou, K., Fu, C., & Yang, S. (2016). Big data driven smart energy management: From big data to big insights. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 56, 215-225.

Zong, S., Ritter, A., Mueller, G. and Wright, E., 2019. Analyzing the perceived severity of cybersecurity threats reported on social media. arXiv preprint arXiv:1902.10680. pp. 353-365.