IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine

This article is a single-source introduction to the emerging concept of smart cities. It can be used for familiarizing researchers with the vast scope of research possible in this application domain. The smart city is primarily a concept, and there is still not a clear and consistent definition among practitioners and academia. As a simplistic explanation, a smart city is a place where traditional... View full abstract»

Current activities in the Internet of Things (IoT) are focused on architectures, protocols, and networking for the efficient interconnection of heterogeneous things, infrastructure deployment, and creation of value-added services. The majority of the IoT products, services, and platforms are supported by cloud-computing platforms. With the IoT being a multidisciplinary ecosystem, it is now being u... View full abstract»

In this article, we provided a tutorial on MEC technology and an overview of the MEC framework and architecture recently defined by the ETSI MEC ISG standardization group. We described some examples of MEC deployment, with special reference to IoT uses since the IoT is recognized as a main driver for 5G. After having also discussed benefits and challenges for MEC toward 5G, we can say that MEC has... View full abstract»

In the last few years, we have witnessed an exponential growth in research activity into the advanced training of convolutional neural networks (CNNs), a field that has become known as deep learning. This has been triggered by a combination of the availability of significantly larger data sets, thanks in part to a corresponding growth in big data, and the arrival of new graphics-processing-unit (G... View full abstract»

In 2008, the emergence of the blockchain as the foundation of the first-ever decentralized cryptocurrency not only revolutionized the financial industry but proved a boon for peer-to-peer (P2P) information exchange in the most secure, efficient, and transparent manner. The blockchain is a public ledger that works like a log by keeping a record of all transactions in chronological order, secured by... View full abstract»

The Internet of Things (IoT) is one of the most promising technologies of the fifth-generation (5G) mobile broadband system. Data-driven wireless services of 5G systems require unprecedented capacity and availability. In this article, we introduce the potential issues of consumer devices under a unifying 5G framework. We provide a state-of-theart overview with an emphasis on the technical challeng... View full abstract»

In 2016, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued new guidelines regarding the use and prescription of opioids for the treatment of chronic pain [1]. Today, "the CDC recommends that opioids should not be the first line or only treatment for patients who present with chronic noncancer pain" [2]. Additionally, the National Institute on Drug Abuse suggests that cognitive-behav... View full abstract»

We live in the age of After Google (AG), where information is just one click away and talking just one touch away. The near future of the AG age is the Internet of Things (IoT), where physical things connected over a network will take part in Internet activities to exchange information about themselves and their surroundings. In other words, the IoT is nothing but a computing concept in which ever... View full abstract»

Blockchains and sensors installed on a vehicle could be combined to semiautomatically activate/deactivate car insurance coverage in an envisaged on-demand insurance scenario. We present a prototype that includes a mobile application (app) and a portable electronic device to be installed onboard. The mobile app lets the driver dynamically change the status of specific insurance coverage (in some ca... View full abstract»

The blockchain is emerging as one of the most propitious and ingenious technologies of cybersecurity. In its germinal state, the technology has successfully replaced economic transaction systems in various organizations and has the potential to revamp heterogeneous business models in different industries. Although it promises a secure distributed framework to facilitate sharing, exchanging, and th... View full abstract»

Advanced driver assistance systems (ADASs) are accelerating the growth of infrared (IR) devices used in automotive applications. Some of these are well-known applications, such as ambient light sensing, steering wheel sensors, and rain sensors. However, many new technologies for ADASs, such as LIDAR, driver monitoring, adaptive beam, and matrix lighting, are still in the early evolution phase of t... View full abstract»

High-quality water-related data are fundamental to water-resource planning, water and sanitation infrastructure design, and scientific research. However, high-resolution smart water-monitoring equipment can be extremely costly and vulnerable to vandalism and theft. Consequently, developing countries struggle to acquire and maintain high-quality monitoring instruments. Thus, water data in those cou... View full abstract»

Bitcoin, the first cryptocurrency, has the ability to transmit and verify digital assets on the Internet without specific management entities. There are currently more than 1,500 cryptocurrencies with a market capitalization of more than US$480 billion. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies were built on blockchain technologies to prevent forgery and falsification while distributing transaction data ... View full abstract»

The rapid development of smart devices, such as smartphones and tablets, leads to new challenges and ushers in a new stage of human-computer interaction. In this context, it becomes essential to develop methods and techniques for a better and more natural interaction with these devices. In this article, we address the problem of gesture segmentation and recognition, taking into account the limited... View full abstract»

Today's proliferation of smart systems, devices, and things causes some severe side effects. The use cases of "smart" anything, although numerous, are often made very complex due to the abundance of devices required to enable those use cases. This causes a variety of human-machine interfaces (HMIs), which are by no means standardized, making the public adoption of consumer technology much harder t... View full abstract»

A dvanced technological innovations and the Internet appear to be available everywhere. However, a large section of society is still on the wrong side of the digital divide, unable to fully enjoy the benefits of the revolutionary changes taking place. This article explores the scientific basis for secure easy-to-use Internet and web access for the elderly, the digitally illiterate, and others left... View full abstract»

Smart tourism is an important component of smart cities. However, in many cities, insecurity, safety, fraud, and the lack of availability of proper information about resources are the biggest hurdles toward independent mobility. These issues can be overcome via proactive participation of local citizens to help tourists as well as by cooperation between citizens, city administration, and tourists. ... View full abstract»

The Internet-of-Things (IoT) has taken over the business spectrum, and its applications vary widely from agriculture and health care to transportation. A hospital environment can be very stressful, especially for senior citizens and children. With the ever-increasing world population, the conventional patient-doctor appointment has lost its effectiveness. Hence, smart health care becomes very impo... View full abstract»

Illness caused by adulterated and counterfeit foods is a very common health issue for consumers. Food fraud also affects manufacturers by damaging their reputation, resulting in a decrease in market share and consumer trust. Thus, food safety has emerged as a critical issue for consumers and manufacturers alike. Fraudulent food products are often the result of opportunities taken by willful offend... View full abstract»

The advancements in consumer electronics (CE) in a variety of domains offer consumers new systems aimed at providing assistance, efficiency, comfort, connectivity, entertainment, and safety. Although CE provides new capabilities, services, and conveniences to consumers, it also brings new challenges. In particular, security and privacy issues emerging from these systems-including collecting sensit... View full abstract»

The first wearables DevCon for developers of wearables was held in San Francisco 5-7 March 2014 and was greeted with great enthusiasm, with more than 1,000 people attending the three-day event. With the introduction of Google Glass, Epson Moverio, Pebble, and Fitbit, wearables have certainly captured the attention of many consumers and enterprises. While some of these wearables mainly provide a si... View full abstract»

This article discusses the design and implementation of a scalable system architecture that integrates wireless sensor networks (WSNs) into the Internet of Things (IoT) and exploits cloud services to autonomously configure wireless sensor nodes to measure and transmit sensed data only at periods when the environment changes more often. The implementation relies on software-defined networking (SDN)... View full abstract»

As we become more aware of the connection between emotional states and physical health, affective computing continues to rise as a field of interest. Affective computing uses both hardware and software technology to detect the affective state of a person. It is an active research area that has seen much growth in technology geared toward affective state analysis. Its origin is credited to Dr. Rosa... View full abstract»

The recent trend of edge computing extends cloud computing and the Internet of Things (IoT) to the edge of the network. Similar to most systems, an intrusion-detection system (IDS) is commonly used to mitigate cybersecurity threats in edge computing. Due to the limitations in edge nodes (e.g., in terms of computational and storage capabilities), efficient and fair resource allocation within an IDS... View full abstract»

The winds of change are blowing toward the multibillion dollar global consumer electronics (CE) industry, which includes companies that are engaged in the manufacturing of smart devices to enable smartconnected vehicles, transportation, health-care systems, home automation, and smart industry in the smart-city network. The rapid increase in the number and diversity of smart devices connected to th... View full abstract»