My distant relative - Flight Lieutenant KJP Granger (Royal Air Force) and his DH82A Gipsy Moth - did the forerunner of RFID save him from being shot down?

Some of the best technological advances are made during times of conflict. Sad that it should be so, but the silver lining is that many of the advances are focused on defending, protecting and shielding people. Active RFID, the kind of solution provided by Cisco and AeroScout, in many ways started out that way.

Looking back decades to WWII, radar was already being developed in ernest by the British in the run-up to the second world war. Many countries were developing radar at that time, but most folks agree that Robert Watson Watt, later Sir Robert, was the prime mover-and-shaker.  It took US marketing (in the form of the US Navy) to coin the term RADAR, for radio detection and ranging.

So where does Context Aware Location RFID come in? Well, whilst radar itself was useful, the  British needed to know whether those planes coming over the English Channel were returning Spitfires and allied bombers, or attacking Luftwaffe aircraft. It was the same Watson-Watt that helped produce the ‘Identification friend or foe’ (IFF) system that  used a transponder on the allied aircraft that was ‘excited’ by the radar system and actively sent back a signal to the base saying friend. My own cousin, Flight Lieutenant KJP Granger, Officer Trainer RAF, was grateful for that!

Now fast forward decades to today. The technology for today’s RFID is a little different, but the concept is the same. So let’s keep the aeronautical theme going and talk about Boeing and its use of RFID.      Read More »

Tags: aeroscout, aircraft, automation, Boeing, Borderless Networks, cdn, Cisco, context-aware, dreamliner, Enterprise, Factory, industrial, location, Manufacturing, mobility, mobility partner, operational excellence, operations, operations excellence, partner, productivity, rfid, shop floor, supply chain, supply chain agility, unified communications, wireless

If you’re familiar with Cisco’s collaboration products, you’ve probably heard us discuss how they will change the nature of the workplace; from who we work with, to where and when we work, to how business processes are interleaved with the collaboration experience. But what about how they change the way we learn? Higher education represents an enormous opportunity for collaboration products to engage and educate the next generation of global leaders.

Last week, we demonstrated collaboration’s impact on education by announcing that Duke University is using Cisco Quad in their Fuqua School of Business, MBA -- Cross Continent program. The reason? To ensure that students throughout the world can fully participate in the program at any Duke campus -- not as passive listeners, but as active participants in the learning experience. Cisco Quad collaboration software enables global students to create virtual working groups, find fellow students with common interests, share content, files or videos and instantly start video or audio conferences and chat sessions.

Using Cisco Quad in education is quite appropriate because the product was named after a university campus quad. It’s a place for social networking, where students meet and hang out, share experiences and create, in some cases, lifelong connections. As you go from one class to another, you probably always traverse the quad -- it’s a place for constant action and change. This image of the quad seemed like a nice moniker for the product. With Duke, it’s particularly appropriate because we’ve expanded the physical campus to a virtual place that encompasses much more real estate, creating a hub for sharing information and changing the way education happens today. Read More »

Tags: collaboration, education, Enterprise, quad, social media, Social Software

This question was posed by the Manufacturing IT Director for a major Pharma producer, as part of an annual customer advisory board hosted jointly by Cisco and Rockwell Automation. One answer:  Good luck! …And why would you want to?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diHUhLh5VH4

Chet Namboodri talks about how consumer products are entering production and maintenance workflows and how “Rockwell and Cisco are in the forefront of enabling those solutions” during a recent customer innovation council session.

The migration of technology and applications from Consumer to Business to Industrial has become a well worn path, and the use of Smart Phones, Tablets, Mobile Video and other Operator Interfaces powering work flows and industrial intelligence has become a mainstay for Manufacturers.  Read More »

Tags: ACR, active collaboration room, Apple, automation, Borderless Networks, Cisco cloud, Cius, collaboration, customer intimacy, data center, Enterprise, Ethernet to the factory, ETTF, Factory, industrial, Industrial Automation, Industry, innovation, ip, iPad, Manufacturing, mobility, networking, operational excellence, operations, operations excellence, partner, plant, Production, R&D, Research and Development, security, shop floor, social media, TelePresence, TP, UC Voice Picking, UCS, video, virtualization, Voice Picking, wireless

Next week during my keynote at the Enterprise 2.0 conference – the industry’s leading collaboration software event – Cisco will have more than a few in the audience scratching their heads.  Why?  Because of our extremely strong presence at the show.  The same company that so many associate with networking, will transform the way people work through a newly integrated collaboration offering.

Cisco will empower customers to choose the right (and best) combination of content, media and devices that will make them most productive through the announcement of three new enterprise collaboration offerings – Cisco Quad, the Cisco Prosumer Video solution and Cisco WebEx Connect IM version 6.5 – all of which work together to create a strong and integrated user experience.

Read More »

Tags: collaboration Solftware, Enterprise