AEBL: the Internet of Things and Emergency Broadcast Service

Funny how, sometimes it is easy to have a thought, yet not so easy to share that same thought.

I think about how the world can be a big, scary place.  At its core, life is about survival of the species, by way of survival of collective individuals.  I think that's where hoarding, secrets, and intellectual property stems from.

But it is by stepping up and out of our comfort zones, which allows for truly valuable, disruptive innovation.

As a very good friend and mentor verily (yes, I used the word verily) impressed upon me, dream big, plan long term, and state your intentions for all to know.  This is how powerful and lasting transformations happen.

With that, I'm here to talk about the Internet of Things, Emergency Broadcast Service(s), and how these relate to AEBL and its future, among other new happenings at the fort.

First, we are pleased to announce that AEBL is now available for the adventurous to download and install.  For those that don't know, the current version of AEBL was developed specifically to run on a Raspberry Pi.  If you have one or are willing to pick one up (they're very inexpensive), you can get the AEBL image and take AEBL for a test drive.  Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated.

Go to the AEBL sourceforge project page for more information:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/aebl/

The actual instruction page for creating an AEBL is located in the wiki page of the project.  And the bonus is, if you don't like AEBL, you have a nice, cheap computer that you can use for other projects, or even use as a light weight computer system.

As of yet, AEBL is not quite released to Open Source, even though that is the plan.  RIght now, we are working on pulling out all the bits that are proprietary to the IHDN application of AEBL  That is almost done, and as it is, we will start placing the code into the repositories.

Among other things, we are very pleased to announce that AEBL is now, functionally an Internet of Things device.  While we (I) don't really like that meme, the reality is AEBL is now packed with enough tech "stuff" that the label fits.  It is social media aware, it is autonomous, it can communicate and interact with other devices, and it is now configured so that it is generally globally accessible, even under some of the most stringent firewalls.  This is rather exciting, because...

While the core function of AEBL was originally established for a purpose, even before it became AEBL, the development of AEBL has been very purpose driven, outside the scope of its original development.  This autonomy and portability and connectedness leads to a lot of potential value to the user, and to others.

What this means is, we are now able to move further ahead with the development of a global, Emergency Broadcast System.

We firmly believe that not just nationally, but globally, we have fallen away from having a reliable, easily available, essential services such as an Emergency Broadcast System.

While there are examples of functional systems for distributing emergency information, how effective is it, when natural disasters are potentially known well in advance of threatening life, yet still, thousands of people die each year from earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, hurricanes, etc., that could otherwise have been prevented?  And then there are the non-natural disasters.

Due to the nature of how AEBL works and the minimal barriers to having an AEBL and its potential distribution and redundancy, it is a perfect system for carrying and announcing Emergency information, globally.  Not only can it carry and announce emergencies, it places and distributes the capacity to know of and pass on such emergency information to every AEBL installation.  Meaning that, if a sensor goes off and an AEBL hears it, that warning can be broadcast to all who need to know.  If a person becomes aware of a life threatening situation, they can announce it or report to those who need to know.

This type of a system is very essential and we felt it important to have it be part of AEBL, so we now announce the open source sub project called noo-ebs:
http://krattai.github.io/noo-ebs/

The goal is not just to handle Emergency Broadcast messages, but also 611 and 911 functions, as well.

So with that, we dream big, plan long, and announce our intentions.  As AEBL further develops into a system that is not only a great mobile media device, but also part of an essential, valuable, and global resource for everyone.