Outsourced Engineering

I was recently invited to give a presentation on security for Internet of Things networking at infocomm 16. While I discussed the topic and scope with the organizers, I didn’t have a good catchy title prepared, so the organizers took it upon themselves to submit one for me: “Hacker-Proof IoT.” Easy, right? While I would… View Article

Discover the best wireless network for your IoT devices! Explore the pros and cons of cellular, Wi-Fi, and LPWAN options to find the perfect fit for your needs.

Continuing his guest blogging series over at the Loggly blog, Cardinal Peak Senior Software Engineer Thomson Comer talks this week about how to write effectively for Loggly. He debunks myths about remote logging and gives some great tips for debugging. Check out his most recent post and stay tuned for the third and final post… View Article

Thomson Comer, Senior Software Engineer here at Cardinal Peak, is writing a guest blog series starting this week for Loggly. His three-part series begins with this post explaining how remote logging works and how it can benefit engineers and developers in locating bugs in specific lines of code. Leave questions and comments for Thomson here… View Article

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” – Arthur C. Clark Working in the IoT industry and being a technology enthusiast, I am always playing with the latest IoT gadgets. While many of these devices have beautiful apps, I’m starting to feel like the IoT industry is not living up to Arthur C. Clark’s… View Article

I’ve got a new article up at Entrepreneur: “What Does the ‘Freelance Economy’ Mean for Engineers?” Here’s a taste: What does mean for entrepreneurs across many fields? I’m convinced that the use of freelancers can lead to greater flexibility, with fewer traditional limitations. And that in turn can be a source of great competitive advantage… View Article

“IoT-enabling” usually involves taking an everyday product — a kitchen appliance, say — and adding the necessary communication hardware, connecting it to a cloud service, and developing apps for either end-users or installers. What are the common reasons for doing this?

I sat recently through a long, multiple-day design review for a major appliance manufacturer. This company —my customer — has a competitor who recently launched an IoT version of their product. In response, my customer is planning a large IoT offering, with a complex app that will support every possible option that their product offers…. View Article

Another day, another public hack: Today we learned that a “cyber-espionage operation” has used a previously unknown flaw in Adobe Flash to gain information from NATO governments and others. And also 87% of Android devices are vulnerable to numerous known hacks because there’s no good business model to distribute patches on that platform. That’s just… View Article

One common approach to hiring an engineering services firm is to issue an RFP. The core idea is, you write up your requirements, and get several engineering design services firms to bid. Usually the assumption is that every compliant bid is equivalent on quality and features, and therefore the decision is made based on schedule and total cost. This isn\’t a good idea.

One thing that is striking amongst different engineering cultures is the range of approaches to scheduling accuracy: How tolerant is the organization of schedule slips? And therefore how aggressive are engineering planners encouraged to be?

Two friends — both evangelical acolytes of the Church of Apple — have been talking this week about the news that ApplePay and Google Wallet have been turned off by retailers who are backing a not-yet-released payment alternative called CurrentC. (And really, how dare RiteAid try to grab a few cents from each transaction? Clearly… View Article