How to make a non-evil IoT - Open Droplet at LOTE4

• by Dr. Kat Austen, 02 Nov 2014
• Blog
• droplet, LOTE4

Last week we had the opportunity to take Open Droplet to LOTE4: The Stewardship. Open Droplet was one of the five projects looking at physical assets, and the only one that involved Internet of Things. IoT got a pretty bad vibe going from the get-go because of the associated scary privacy and control problems. (Alberto gave me a steer to Bruce Sterling’s “The Epic Struggle for the Internet of Things” , which goes a good way to explaining the issues).

Open Droplet features on Serpentine Gallery's extinct.ly platform

• by Dr. Kat Austen, 18 Oct 2014
• Blog
• droplet, extinct.ly, serpentine gallery

“the spectre of extinction looms over the ways in which we understand our being in the world today.”

At London’s Serpentine Gallery this weekend thinkers, scientists and artists are coming together to focus on this ever present spectre at the Extinction Marathon.

Open Droplet Experiments: Silicon Casing

• by Dr. Kat Austen, 22 Sep 2014
• Blog
• droplet, enclosure, silicon, video

If you put some electronics in your bathroom, you want them to be waterproof.

We ran some tests last week on making Open Droplet shower safe, to stop water from getting in and playing havoc with the carefully constructed insides.

Partnership and proof of concept

• by Dr. Kat Austen, 12 Sep 2014
• Blog
• droplet, water consumption, water availability, infrastructure

We’re happy to reveal a couple of marvellous videos for you.

iilab is partnering on Open Droplet with Resurgence, an organisation based in London’s Open Data Institute (ODI) and focussing on creating smart, disaster resilient cities. We are hoping to work together to leverage the Internet of Things to make water measurement more open, collaborative and affordable.

Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink

• by Dr. Kat Austen, 10 Sep 2014
• Blog
• droplet, water consumption, water availability, infrastructure

Our water demands are growing. We are reaching a point where many major cities will be suffering water stress within years. London, the world’s 15th most water-stressed city, will have a deficit of over 59 million litres next year and a projected 359 million litres by 2035.

Open Droplet Update

• by Dr. Kat Austen, 28 Aug 2014
• Blog
• droplet, sensors, open energy monitor, charging, battery

Open Droplet is coming along nicely after a short summer break. Alex Shure has joined in working on Open Droplet and the project has taken the direction of joining the Open Energy Monitor ecosystem.

The lay of the Ocean

• by Dr. Kat Austen, 09 Jun 2014
• Blog
• droplet, sensors, open energy monitor, sprav

Open Droplet is by no means the first gizmo out there to measure water usage, and like anyone who is designing anything, we’ve had a good look at what’s out there. We’d like to share what we’ve found and open up the discussion to interrogate our own design decisions. We have stuck to non-invasive flow metres, as we would rather plumbing wasn’t required for fitting Open Droplet.

Tribulations in Open Collaboration, Part 1

• by Jun Matsushita, 03 Jun 2014
• Blog
• open collaboration, collaborative writing, open source, tools

This is the first part of a series on tools for open collaboration. This first part will focus on managing content in an open way with collaborative editing platforms. In the next posts we’ll look at file sharing and document management, task management and communication tools.

Getting started on Droplet - An Open Hardware Water Flow Metre

• by Dr. Kat Austen, 23 May 2014
• Blog
• water, bluetooth low energy, open hardware, open design

Water is one of the world’s most stressed resources. Usage has shot up by more than double the rate of population increase, meaning we are guzzling more water per head than ever before.

The impending crisis - which has already created a “water war” in southern states of the US and been immortalised in award winning musical theatre production Urine Town - has prompted varied reactions, from cries over the privatisation of this most vital resource in reaction to the Water Sustainability Act in North America, to grass roots and stakeholder initiatives to improve water infrastructures, such as Clean Water Action and the UN’s Water Action Hub.