Smaller and More Flexible Tracking Motes

RFID, AIDC, and IoT News: Intel Demonstrates New Mote that Can Track Parcel Handling History

Idea Not New, but Approach Is, with Tiny Mote Powered by Wi-Fi Networks

It's been a long time since SCDigest has written anything about motes, the small wireless chips that can easily network with each other and be connected to a range of sensors to monitor factory machinery, bridges and lots more. These motes are sometimes connected to the concept of “Smart Dust.” (See Technologies to Watch: Motes.) .... Supply Chain Digest Says...  In fact, why would parcel carriers even bother to deliver a package that is known to have been mishandled.

Well just recently, the smart folks at Intel demonstrated a new potential use for motes: tracking how small packages are handled in their journey from shipper to business or consumer.  ... " 

More Smart Dust

More on Neural Dust.  More IOT nodes in more places?   Heard this called 'motes' before, but this takes it smaller yet.    The passive use of power generation is very interesting.  Applications, especially in medical applications, at the link.

Is smart dust the IoT vector of the future? by Cate Lawrence
The notion of smart dust sounds like a work of science fiction but scientists at University of California Berkeley have developed a “neural dust” that can be implanted into the body, to monitor internal nerves, muscles or organs in real time.

The sensors are about the size of a large grain of sand contain a piezoelectric crystal that converts ultrasound vibrations from outside the body into electricity to power a tiny, on-board transistor that is in contact with a nerve or muscle fiber. A voltage spike in the fiber alters the circuit and the vibration of the crystal, which changes the echo detected by the ultrasound receiver, typically the same device that generates the vibrations. The slight change, called backscatter, allows them to determine the voltage. .... " 

Very Small Computers

In the CACM:  Smaller than a grain of rice.  Possibilities for injection into many places in the internet of things.   " ... Computers used to consume whole rooms, but now one computer can fit on the edge of a nickel. At just one millimeter cubed, the Michigan Micro Mote (M^3) is believed to be the smallest autonomous computer in the world. .... For over a decade, the faculty and students at the University of Michigan's computer science department have been working on the M^3. As the Internet of Things (IoT) gets bigger, the Michigan team is pushing to make computers ever smaller. ... " 

Wireless Sensors: Motes

New on networks of wireless sensors. Notably IBM's Mote runner. More on motes. The idea has been around for some time. It has been suggested that artificial intelligence applications should be leveraged by large networks of sensors, as our own intelligent neural systems rely on many sensory inputs and convert these into decisions to be delivered by muscle activators. The concept continues to develop and slowly move forward.