"Ubuntu make wonderful things possible, for example, Linux appliance, with Ubuntu preinstalled, we call this -- the fridge!"
Nine years later, that tongue-in-cheek parody is no longer a joke. It's a "cold" hard reality!
GE Appliances, FirstBuild, and Ubuntuannounced a collaboration around a smart refrigerator, available today for $749, running Snappy Ubuntu Core on a Raspberry Pi 2, with multiple USB ports and available in-fridge accessories. We had one in our booth at IoT World in San Francisco this week!
While the fridge prediction is indeed pretty amazing, the line that strikes me most is actually "Ubuntu make(s) wonderful things possible!"
With emphasis on "things". As in, "Internet of Things." The possibilities are absolutely endless in this brave new world of Snappy Ubuntu. And that is indeed wonderful.
A prototype is worth a thousand meetings -- Words to live by!
A couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure of attending the 1stBuild Hackathon -- Hack the Home -- sponsored by GE, Canonical, and a host of other smart companies in the IoT space.
Over 250 makers -- hardware and software geeks much like myself -- competed for cash prizes in teams all night long in a 36 hour event at the amazing hackerspace hosted by 1stBuild and the University of Louisville in Kentucky.
Mark Shuttleworth recorded this message, played in the kickoff keynote, to start the hackathon:
Several entries did in fact use Snappy Ubuntu as the base operating system, including the 3rd Place entry, a Smart Crockpot!
I'll quote Jason Chodynieki, on the team that built that device, since I couldn't write it any better:
"I wanted to highlight that this project makes use of Snappy Ubuntu Core! Using Snappy, we were able to create a very modular application that could easily be updated across multiple devices if this project ever made it to production. Snappy provided us with the ability to use popular frameworks very easily and to package our application up as a Snap to make it accessible to the world. With Snappy and the associated CrockWatch snap, we are capable of dropping CrockWatch onto any device that is receiving sensor data from a Crockpot. Because of this, the CrockWatch application can not only run on the webserver (on a Raspberry Pi 2) we used for this project, but it can also be used on other devices. Imagine if your set top box on your TV could help show you what's cooking in the Crock Pot or if the screen on your fridge was capable of displaying this information! With Ubuntu Snappy, these thoughts could soon become reality!"
My wife absolutely loves this idea! She often starts cooking dinner in the morning, in our slow cooker, and then spends the rest of the day running around town, dropping our kids off and picking them up from two different schools. She would love the ability to remotely "check in" on the food, look at it from a camera, and adjust the temperature and pressure while out and about around town!
GE had a whole array of appliance available at the event, any of which could be controlled through a special interface, and a Raspberry Pi 2 running Snappy, including this fridge.
All in all, it was a fantastic event. A big thanks to our hosts at 1stBuild and our colleagues at GE that introduced us to the event. And an even bigger thanks to all the participants that worked with Ubuntu on their devices and to my colleague Massimo who helped them out!
Dustin Kirkland (Twitter, LinkedIn) is an engineer at heart, with a penchant for reducing complexity and solving problems at the cross-sections of technology, business, and people.
With a degree in computer engineering from Texas A&M University (2001), his full-time career began as a software engineer at IBM in the Linux Technology Center working on the Linux kernel and security certifications, including a one-year stint as an dedicated engineer-in-residence at Red Hat in Boston (2005). Dustin was awarded the title Master Inventor at IBM, in recognition of his prolific patent work as an inventor and reviewer with IBM's intellectual property attorneys.
Dustin then first joined Canonical (2008) as an engineer (eventually, engineering manager), helping create the Ubuntu Server distribution and establishing Ubuntu as the overwhelming favorite Linux distribution in Amazon, Google, and Microsoft's cloud platforms, as well as authoring and maintaining dozens of new open source packages.
Dustin joined Gazzang (2011), a venture-backed start-up built around an open source project that he co-authored (eCryptFS), as Chief Technology Officer, and helped dozens of enterprise customers encrypt their data at rest and securely manage their keys. Gazzang was acquired by Cloudera (2014).
Having effectively monetized eCryptFS as an open source project at Gazzang, Dustin returned to Canonical (2013) as the VP of Product for Ubuntu and spent the next several years launching a portfolio of products and services (Ubuntu Advantage, Extended Security Maintenance, Canonical Livepatch, MAAS, OpenStack, Kubernetes) that continues to deliver considerable annual recurring revenue. With Canonical based in London, an 800+ work-from-home employee roster and customers spread across 40+ countries, Dustin traveled the world over, connecting with clients and colleagues steeped in rich cultural experiences.
Google Cloud (2018) recruited Dustin from Canonical to product manage Google's entrance into on-premises data centers with its GKE On-Prem (now, Anthos) offering, with a specific focus on the underlying operating system, hypervisor, and container security. This work afforded Dustin a view deep into the back end data center of many financial services companies, where he still sees tremendous opportunities for improvements in security, efficiencies, cost-reduction, and disruptive new technology adoption.
Seeking a growth-mode opportunity in the fintech sector, Dustin joined Apex Clearing (now, Apex Fintech Solutions) as the Chief Product Officer (2019), where he led several organizations including product management, field engineering, data science, and business partnerships. He drastically revamped Apex's product portfolio and product management processes, retooling away from a legacy "clearing house and custodian", and into a "software-as-a-service fintech" offering instant brokerage account opening, real-time fractional stock trading, a secure closed-network crypto solution, and led the acquisition and integration of Silver's tax and cost basis solution.
Drawn back into a large cap, Dustin joined Goldman Sachs (2021) as a Managing Director and Head of Platform Product Management, within the Consumer banking division, which included Marcus, and the Apple and GM credit cards. He built a cross-functional product management community and established numerous documented product management best practices, processes, and anti-patterns.
Dustin lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife Kim and their wonderful two daughters.
