Published By: Stanford News, 11/16/2016

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Summary

HitchHike, a proposed low-energy wireless radio from a research team at Stanford, seeks to provide a power-efficient method of communication between Internet of Things devices and a wireless network. The device could be driven by a small battery for a decade or more, and even has the potential to harvest energy from radio waves. This kind of innovation would make IoT development much more feasible — meaning many more of the devices around us could soon be communicating and collecting data about their surroundings and about human activities.

Extended Discussion Questions

• How could HitchHike’s low power consumption or ability to work without extra equipment make it viable in locations that are less developed from a computing or energy standpoint?
• A common criticism of the idea of the Internet of Things is that the devices that comprise it are not sufficiently secure. How do you think this has affected the development of hardware like HitchHike, if at all? How should it?

Relating This Story to the CSP Curriculum Framework

Global Impact Learning Objectives:

• LO 7.1.1 Explain how computing innovations affect communication, interaction, and cognition.
• LO 7.2.1 Explain how computing has impacted innovations in other fields.

Global Impact Essential Knowledge:

• EK 7.1.1J Sensor networks facilitate new ways of interacting with the environment and with physical systems.
• EK 7.4.1B Mobile, wireless, and networked computing have an impact on innovation throughout the world.

Other CSP Big Ideas:

• Idea 6 The Internet

Banner Image: “Network Visualization – Violet – Offset Crop”, derivative work by ICSI. New license: CC BY-SA 4.0. Based on “Social Network Analysis Visualization” by Martin Grandjean. Original license: CC BY-SA 3.0