Bench Talk

The edge is getting smarter as IoT devices take on more complex tasks and become less dependent on a central cloud, instead processing data locally using AI inference without compromising security or privacy.

The nature of the IoT drives the need for edge devices to support functionality beyond basic connectivity. As IoT applications evolve, edge devices will play a pivotal role in meeting more complex requirements for effective IoT solutions.

My telecoms class had an end of the year project. You know it is interesting how you do not really think about all you have learned and how fascinating and wonderful it is until the end of the semester. This telecoms project is a great example of making students think about what we learned. It involved suppressing photos and video. We had talked about bandwidth suppression all semester. It made sense. A smaller channel transmitting the same amount of information is always desirable. It was interesting to learn that since our ears, unlike our eyes, are insensitive to phase distortion it is possible to design cheaper filters that allow phase distortion to slip through.

In 1982, telecommunications in the U.S. changed forever when U.S. District Court Judge Harold Greene ruled in United States vs. AT&T that the industry was a monopoly. Like smashing an ice cube, this single action created seven regional holding companies within which were 22 Bell local operating companies along with AT&T, which retained Bell Laboratories. Judge Greene’s ruling, his first case after taking the bench was, to say the least, a monument in anti-trust litigation, but is also largely responsible for today’s booming telecommunications industry.