According to Intel IoT is expected to be a multi-trillion-dollar market, with 50 billion devices creating 44 zettabytes (or 44 trillion gigabytes) of data annually by 2020. But that widely cited 50 billion IoT devices in 2020 number is clearly not correct! Forecast of 50 Billion Devices by 2020 Is Outdated. In 2017 we should be talking about about some sensible numbers. The current count is somewhere between Gartner’s estimate of 6.4 billion (which doesn’t include smartphones, tablets, and computers), International Data Corporation’s estimate of 9 billion (which also excludes those devices), and IHS’s estimate of 17.6 billion (with all such devices included). Both Ericsson and Evans have lowered their expectations from 50 billion for 2020: Evans, who is now CTO of Stringify, says he expects to see 30 billion connected devices by then, while Ericsson figures on 28 billion by 2021.
Connectivity and security will be key features for Internet of Things processors in 2017. Microcontroller (MCU) makers will continue to target their products at the Internet of Things (IoT) in 2017 by giving more focus on battery life, more connectivity of various types, and greater security. The new architectures are almost sure to spawn a multitude of IoT MCUs in 2017 from manufacturers who adopt ARM’s core designs.
ARM will be big. Last year, ARM’s partners shipped 15 billion chips based on its architectures. The trend toward IoT processors will go well beyond ARM licensees. Intel rolled out the Intel Atom E3900 Series for IoT applications. And do not forget MIPS an RISC-V.
FPGA manufacturers are pushing their products to IoT market. They promise that FPGAs solve challenges at the core of IoT implementation: making IoT devices power efficient, handling incompatible interfaces, and providing a processing growth path to handle the inevitable increase in device performance requirement.
Energy harvesting field will become interesting in 2017 as it is more broadly adopted. Energy harvesting is becoming the way forward to help supplement battery power or lose the need for it altogether. Generally researchers are eyeing energy-harvesting to power ultra-low-power devices, wearable technology, and other things that don’t need a lot of power or don’t come in a battery-friendly form factor.
Low power wide area networks (LPWA) networks (also known as NarrowBand IoT) will be hot in 2017. There is hope that f LPWA nets will act as a catalyst, changing the nature of the embedded and machine-to-machine markets as NB-IoT focuses specifically on indoor coverage, low cost, long battery life, and enabling a large number of connected devices. The markets will become a kind of do-it-yourselfers paradise of modules and services, blurring the lines between vendors, users and partners. At the same time for years to come, the market for low power wide area networks (LPWA) will be as fragmented and is already in a race to the bottom (Sigfox, said to be promising costs approaching $1 per node per year). Competing technologies include Sigfox, LoRa Alliance, LTE Cat 1, LTE Cat M1 (eMTC), LTE Cat NB1 (NB-IoT) and other sub-gigahertz options almost too numerous to enumerate.
We are starting to see a battle between different IoT technologies, and in few years to come we will see which are winners and which technologies will be lost in the fight. Sigfox and Lora are currently starting well, but telecom operators with mobile networks NB-IoT will try hit the race heavily in 2017. Vendors prep Cat M1, NB1 for 2017: The Cat M1 standard delivers up to 380 Kbits/second over a 1.4 MHz channel. NB-1 handles up to 40 Kbits/s over 200 kHz channels. Vendors hope the 7-billion-unit installed base of cellular M2M modules expands. It’s too early to tell which technologies will be mainstream and which niche. It could be that cellular NB-IOT was too late, it will fail in the short term, it can win in the long term, and the industry will struggle to make any money from it. At $2 a year, 20 billion devices will contribute around 4% of current global mobile subscription revenues.
New versions of communication standards will be taken into use in 2017. For example Bluetooth 5 that adds more speed and IoT functionality. In 2017, we will see an increase in the number of devices with the new Bluetooth 5 standard.
Industrial IoT to gain traction in 2017. Industrial applications ultimately have the greater transformative potential than consumer products, offering users real returns on investment (ROI) rather than just enhanced convenience or “cool factor”. But the industrial sector is conservative and has been slow to embrace an industrial IoT (IIoT), but is seems that they are getting interested now. During the past year there has been considerable progress in removing many of the barriers to IIoT adoption. A global wide implementation of an IIoT is many years away, of course. The issues of standards and interoperability will most likely remain unresolved for several years to come, but progress is being made. The Industrial Internet Consortium released a framework to support development of standards and best practices for IIoT security.
The IIoT market is certainly poised to grow. A Genpact research study, for instance, indicates that more than 80% of large companies believe that the IIoT will be essential to their future success. In a recent market analysis by Industry ARC, for instance, the projected value of the IIoT market will reach more than $120 billion by 2021. Research firm Markets and Markets is even more optimistic, pegging IIoT growth at a CAGR of 8% to more than $150 billion by 2020. And the benefits will follow. By GE’s estimate, the IIoT will stimulate an increase in the global GDP of $10 to $15 trillion over the next 20 years.
Systems integrators are seeking a quick way to enter the industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) market. So expect to see many plug and play IoT sensor systems unveiled. There were many releses in 2016, and expect to see more in 2017. Expect to see device, connectivity and cloud service to be marketed as one packet.
IoT analytics will be talked a lot in 2017. Many companies will promise to turn Big Data insights into bigger solutions. For industrial customers Big Data analytics is promised to drive operational efficiencies, cut costs, boosting production, and improving worker productivity. There are many IIoT analytic solution and platform suppliers already on the market and a growing number of companies are now addressing industrial analytics use.
In 2016 it was all bout getting the IoT devices connected to cloud. In 2017 we will see increased talk about fog computing. Fog computing is new IoT trend pushed by Cisco and many other companies. As the Internet of Things (IoT) evolves, decentralized, distributed-intelligence concepts such as “fog computing” are taking hold to address the need for lower latencies, improved security, lower power consumption, and higher reliability. The basic premise of fog computing is classic decentralization whereby some processing and storage functions are better performed locally instead of sending data all the way from the sensor, to the cloud, and back again to an actuator. This demands smarter sensors and new wireless sensor network architectures. Groups such as the Open Fog Consortium have formed to define how it should best be done. You might start to want to be able to run the same code in cloud and your IoT device.
The situation in IoT security in 2016 was already Hacking the IoT: As Bad As I Feared It’d Be and there is nothing that would indicate that the situation will not get any better in 2017. A veritable army of Internet-connected equipment has been circumvented of late, due to vulnerabilities in its hardware, software or both … “smart” TVs, set-top boxes and PVRs, along with IP cameras, routers, DSL, fiber and cable modems, printers and standalone print servers, NASs, cellular hot spots, and probably plenty of other gear. IoT world at the moment is full of vulnerable devices, and it will take years to get then replaces with more secure devices. Those vulnerable devices can be used to make huge DDoS attacks against Internet services. The 2016 October 21 cyberattacks on Dyn brought to light how easily many IoT devices can be compromised. I expect that kind of incidents will happen more in 2017 as DDoS botnets are pretty easy to build with tools available on-line. There’s no question that everyone in the chain – manufacturers, retailers and consumers – have to do a better job securing connected devices.When it comes to IoT, more security is needed.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Finland to investigate the autonomous activity – from factory to ships
Finland will start to explore the car’s own factories and new transport techniques, where the goods are to move from the factory self-directed customers. Behind is a mechanical and digital research community Dimecc. There are also autonomous ships in the Baltic Sea.
Dimecc has launched the Design for Value (D4V) program in cooperation with companies and research institutes. the key objectives of the program is to create an autonomous transport chains from factory to consumer, to bring the autonomous ships in the Baltic Sea by 2025 and to ensure cyber security self-directed systems.
Security Expert, F-Secure is one of the D4V the participant. The company’s goal is to develop new business models for autonomous systems and incorporate the comprehensive cyber security. It is important for the future of IoT in the world.
” The role of F-Secure D4V Union is to define and adapt to network security processes and technologies within the ” says F-Secure’s Jari Still.
The program is designed for three-year and its scope is EUR 19 million.
Source: http://www.uusiteknologia.fi/2017/03/03/suomi-tutkimaan-autonomista-toimintaa-tehtaasta-laivoihin/
Tomi Engdahl says:
New wearable Bluetooth connection
On Semiconductor RSL10 Soc-solution target applications include wearable as condition monitoring and smart watches and locks as well as other electronics.
It is based around a dual-core Armin Cortex-M3 processor.
There’s also a low-power 32-bit Dual-Harvard Digital Signal Processing (DSP) system, which allows for signal processing applications such as wireless audio codecs.
The solution is a multi-protocol Bluetooth 5-certified Radio System-on-Chip (SoC) circuit. NEW Bluetooth offers increased data speeds, while optimizing power consumption.
Source: http://www.uusiteknologia.fi/2017/03/06/alykelloihin-uusi-bluetooth-yhteys/
More:
RSL10: Ultra-Low-Power Multi-protocol Bluetooth® 5 Certified System-on-Chip (SoC)
http://www.onsemi.com/PowerSolutions/product.do?id=RSL10
RSL10 is a multi-protocol Bluetooth 5 certified System on Chip (SoC) which brings ultra-low-power wireless connectivity to IoT and “connected” health and wellness devices.
Offering the industry’s lowest power consumption, RSL10 helps provide devices like heart rate monitors with advanced wireless features while maximizing system size and battery life.
Unlike most other multi-protocol SoCs, RSL10 is specifically designed for applications using 1.2 and 1.5 V batteries, and supports a voltage supply range between 1.1 and 3.6 V without a required DC/DC converter. The highly-integrated SoC features a dual-core architecture and a 2.4 GHz transceiver, providing the flexibility to support Bluetooth low energy technology and 2.4 GHz proprietary or custom protocols.
Tomi Engdahl says:
See the Weather at a Glance with this WiFi Wall Mounted Display
http://hackaday.com/2017/03/04/see-the-weather-at-a-glance-with-this-wifi-wall-mounted-display/
Whether you’re lodged in an apartment with a poor view of the sky like [Becky Stern] or are looking for an at-a-glance report of the current weather, you might consider this minimalist weather display instead of checking your computer or your phone every time you’re headed out the door.
The first order of business was to set up her Feather Huzzah ESP8266 module.
All it took to create the sleek display effect was a few pieces of cardboard inside a shadow box frame, a sheet of paper as a diffuser, and twelve Neopixel RGB LEDs hidden inside.
WiFi Weather Display With ESP8266
http://www.instructables.com/id/WiFi-Weather-Display-With-ESP8266/
Tomi Engdahl says:
WiFi Power Bar!
http://hackaday.com/2017/03/04/wifi-power-bar/
Inside the junction box, an eight-channel relay is connected to an ESP8266 module. The module uses MQTT to communicate with Home Assistant and is powered by a partially dismembered USB AC adapter
The entire bar is wired through a 10A fuse, while also using a fire resistant 4-gang electrical box. O
Custom Wi-Fi controlled 8 port power strip
http://imgur.com/gallery/wfeyf
Fully competed power strip under my desk. Total cost was about $25 for the whole thing. Each of the 8 channels are individually controlled, with a 10A fuse for the whole thing. Inside there is a 8 Channel Relay controlled by an ESP8266. The ESP8266 is running some code to interface over MQTT to my HomeAssistant server for full integration.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Low cost Smart Switch
https://hackaday.io/project/19893-low-cost-smart-switch
Control and monitor any lighting setup : a low cost 1-Wire module.
There are plenty of ways to remote control a light for home automation, but most of them are rather expensive and do modify the way you use your switches. Indeed, they replace existing switches or are in series with them like smart bulbs.
A smart switch needs to be powered (often with main), but neutral is not always available in switch box, and on the lamp side, you depend on the existing switch state.
This project proposes to add a relay in your existing switch cases that act as an additional switch. Turning a single switch into 3way; and a 3way into a 4…
This solution has the advantage to be compatible with every setup I can think of, at the conditions that you have some space in your switch boxes, and that you can add small wires for communication and low DC power.
In most cases, you have some space in existing tubes to put those wires.
Then those wires are meshed from all remote switches to a central master controller like a PI, an ESP8266, an arduino, an USB to OneWire converter…
Tomi Engdahl says:
Using Backscatter Radio for a Soil Sensor Network
http://hackaday.com/2017/03/03/using-backscatter-radio-for-a-soil-sensor-network/
With almost 8 billion souls to feed and a changing climate to deal with, there’s never been a better time to field a meaningful “Internet of Agriculture.” But the expansive fields that make industrial-scale agriculture feasible work against the deployment of sensors and actuators because of a lack of infrastructure to power and connect everything. So a low-power radio network for soil moisture sensors is certainly a welcome development.
We can think of a lot of ways that sensors could be powered in the field. Solar comes to mind, since good exposure to the sun is usually a prerequisite for any cropland. But in practice, solar has issues, the prime one being that the plants need the sun more, and will quickly shade out low-profile soil-based sensors.
That’s why [Spyros Daskalakis] eschewed PV for his capacitive soil moisture sensors in favor of a backscatter technique very similar to that used in both the Great Seal Bug and mundane RFID tags alike. The soil sensor switches half of an etched PCB bowtie antenna in and out of a circuit at a frequency proportional to soil moisture. A carrier signal from a separate transmitter is reflected off the alternately loaded and unloaded antenna, picking up subcarriers with a frequency proportional to soil moisture.
Backscatter Wireless Sensor Network
http://daskalakispiros.com/projects.html
The scatter communication board consisted of a Silabs C8051F930 MCU, a RF Transistor, and a oscillating crystal, was designed and implemented by Konstantinos Tountas.
My contribution was on the design and the fabrication of the voltage source selection circuit, choosing between a solar panel and a coin battery. Also i was working on sensing part, a board containing multiple sensors (plant signal, illuminance, temperature, plant electrical potential, soil moisture and air humidity) was constructed. The sensed data are encoded with a linear block code and are transmitted by means of reflection to a USRP SDR receiver. The topology of the system is the bistatic, the emitter and reader are not co-located and the tag is in the middle.
The idea is to develop a web-based application for producers and a smartphone application for visitors (designed for Android/iOS based devices), which will be interconnected through a central data exchange system.
Tomi Engdahl says:
From 1950s Multimeter to Internet Connected Clock
http://hackaday.com/2017/03/04/from-1950s-multimeter-to-internet-connected-clock/
Strictly speaking, [Giulio Pons]’s clock project isn’t new at all. He’s taken a broken multimeter from the 1950s, and with the help of an Arduino Nano and an ESP8266 module, converted it into a clock that indicates the time on the multimeter’s moving-coil meter.
Retrofitting of an old tester from 1955
https://hackaday.io/project/20116-retrofitting-of-an-old-tester-from-1955
I transformed an old italian “Analizzatore Lael” tester in a clock, night light, and alarm, with Arduino Nano and ESP8266-01
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hidden Backdoor Discovered In Chinese IoT Devices
https://tech.slashdot.org/story/17/03/05/1828202/hidden-backdoor-discovered-in-chinese-iot-devices
“A backdoor has been found in devices made by a Chinese tech firm specializing in VoIP products,” reports TechRadar.
Dangerous backdoor exploit found on popular IoT devices
Yet more Internet of Things security woes…
http://www.techradar.com/news/dangerous-backdoor-exploit-found-on-popular-iot-devices
Security outfit Trustwave made the discovery of a hidden backdoor in DblTek’s devices which was apparently put there to allow the manufacturer access to said hardware – but of course, it’s also open to being exploited by other malicious parties.
The backdoor is in the Telnet admin interface of DblTek-branded devices, and potentially allows an attacker to remotely open a shell with root privileges on the target device.
What’s perhaps even more worrying is that when Trustwave contacted DblTek regarding the backdoor last autumn – multiple times – patched firmware was eventually released at the end of December.
However, rather than removing the flaw, the vendor simply made it more difficult to access and exploit. And further correspondence with the Chinese company has apparently fallen on deaf ears.
Other brands
Trustwave notes that the firmware with the hole in it is present on almost every GSM-to-VoIP device which DblTek makes (hardware which is mainly used by SMBs). Trustwave has apparently found hundreds of these devices on the net, and many other brands which use the same firmware, so are equally open to exploit.
The security company also said that it has been able to successfully exploit both the old backdoor, and the new (better hidden) modified version which was patched in at the end of last year.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The internet of things can be hacked – and the risks are growing every day
Mo’ tech, mo’ problems
http://www.techradar.com/news/the-internet-of-things-can-be-hacked-and-that-puts-your-life-at-risk
We’re rapidly entering a new phase of technological evolution, in which pretty much everything around us is connected to the internet. The term used to describe this increasingly connected ecosystem is the internet of things (IoT), and it’s attracting the biggest names in tech, from Apple to Samsung and everyone in between.
If the tech pundits are right, everything from toasters to light bulbs will soon have internet functionalities.
around half the British population is unaware that connected devices can be hacked.
Yet the dangers are all-too real. From taking control of connected cars to using everyday appliances such as fridges as to launch catastrophic cyber attacks, hackers are taking advantage of the IoT big time.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hull Pixel Bot, A Mobile Pixel
http://hackaday.com/2017/03/06/hull-pixel-bot-a-mobile-pixel/
[Rob Miles]. He’s created HullPixelBot, a platform for a mobile pixel as well as for simple robotic experimentation.
So what makes HullPixelBot more than just Yet Another Arduino Powered Robot? For a start, it’s extremely well designed, and has a budget of less than £10 ($12.50). But the real reason to take notice lies in the comprehensive software, which packs in a language interpreter and MQTT endpoint for talking to an Azure IoT hub. This is much more than a simple Arduino bot on which you must craft your own sketches, instead, it is a platform for which the Arduino bot is merely the carrier.
https://github.com/HullPixelbot
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jim Finkle / Reuters:
Consumer Reports will begin assessing cyber security and privacy safeguards when scoring products, publishes first draft of standards for the new testing
Consumer Reports to consider cyber security in product reviews
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-cyber-consumerreports-idUSKBN16D0DN
Consumer Reports, an influential U.S. non-profit group that conducts extensive reviews of cars, kitchen appliances and other goods, is gearing up to start considering cyber security and privacy safeguards when scoring products.
Consumer Reports will gradually implement the new methodologies
“This is a complicated area. There is going to be a lot of refinement to get this right,” Rerecich said.
The effort follows a surge in cyber attacks leveraging easy-to-exploit vulnerabilities in webcams, routers, digital video recorders and other connected devices, which are sometimes collectively referred to as the internet of things.
“Personal cyber security and privacy is a big deal for everyone. This is urgently needed,”
The first draft of the standards are available online
The
Digital
Standard
https://thedigitalstandard.org/
The Digital Standard is an ambitious, open, and collaborative effort to create a digital privacy and security standard to help guide the future design of consumer software, digital platforms and services, and Internet-connected products.
The standard defines and reflects important consumer values that must be addressed in product development: electronics and software-based products should be secure, consumer information should be kept private, ownership rights of consumers should be maintained, and products should be designed to combat harassment and help protect freedom of expression.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ian Allison / International Business Times:
Maersk and IBM pilot using blockchain tech to track global supply of shipping containers, aims to add 10M to this blockchain by end of year
Maersk and IBM aim to get 10 million shipping containers onto global supply blockchain by year-end
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/maersk-ibm-aim-get-10-million-shipping-containers-onto-global-supply-blockchain-by-year-end-1609778
A pilot involved the shipping of Schneider Electric goods from the Port of Rotterdam to the Port of Newark.
IBM and Maersk, the largest container ship operator on the planet, have completed an end-to-end digitised supply chain pilot using distributed ledger technology. The blockchain, deployed using Hyperledger Fabric, will begin scaling a network of shippers, freight forwarders, ocean carriers, ports and customs authorities later this year.
There are some compelling metrics. Of the 70 million containers shipped each year, the goal is get 10 million of them on this blockchain by year-end, said IBM. Container shipping equals about half the value of all maritime trade – a large chunk of global GDP. IBM reckons that going entirely digital could save shipping carriers about $38bn per year.
In carrying out a test case using avocados from Mombasa to Rotterdam, IBM calculated the cost of the movement of the shipping container itself was about $2000. The cost of the paperwork associated with it comes to $300, so an estimated 15% – 20% of costs can be put done to this and similar inefficiencies around timing and visibility.
The blockchain shadowed the entire process from raising a purchase order to the goods being delivered, which can take as long as 60 days.
Ramesh Gopinath, a vice president at IBM said: “Every relevant document and approval was captured on the blockchain. It had to be a shadow by definition; customs are going to use whatever they are going to use as the standard process, but our system took it through the entire process.
“We are announcing this so we can now start to scale and get others to participate. This is a solution for industry, not just Maersk.”
In the pilot customs signed off with just an iPad and I can imagine a farmer using a mobile phone to sign off on transactions.
“In my view there are two classes of solutions you can have that transform the global trade world,” said Gopinath. “One has got to do with everything around the flow of goods; the other is the flow of the money associated with it, the financing and all that. Both will eventually come together”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Testing For Security
http://semiengineering.com/testing-for-security/
So far, the best solution appears to be a team of white-hat hackers. That’s not good enough.
Ever since the IoT became a household name, people have been strategizing about ways to utilize non-secure devices to mount an attack.
The first instances of using electricity to overload a device’s circuits, thereby neutralizing existing security features, came to light in some of the earliest car hacking incidents. These are basically side-channel attacks using what amounts to an electronic stun grenade.
The distributed denial of service attack on Dyn last October took this concept to a new level.
So what can be done about this? The answer is plenty. Some steps already are being taken. Security clearly needs to be built into every aspect of a device, from design through to manufacturing and beyond. On the design side, authentication keys need to be hidden away, and most of the advanced hardware developed today already does this. In some cases that security is active, which requires power and adds to the overall cost. In others it is passive, which may include tamper-resistance that renders hardware useless if someone tries to grind away the package and insert a probe.
Software remains vulnerable, in part because that portion of a device is never completely finished. Even if over-the-air updates are safe, there are other weaknesses that can be compromised. It’s impossible to find all of them. Sometimes they are discovered by teams of white-hat hackers. The worst-case scenario is they don’t get reported for years because they are actively in use by criminals or teams of hackers with the deep resources of organized crime or nation states.
The third piece of the puzzle involves the supply chain. Counterfeit parts and IP are rampant.
There are several steps required to address these problems.
First, devices need to be tested to ensure they match the final spec.
Second, data needs to be reviewed after every breach to identify what went wrong.
This is basically a big data problem caused by a triumvirate of complexity of hardware and software, an extended supply chain, and myriad use cases and connections. All of that data needs to be mined to identify anomalies so that simpler tests can be developed to avoid future problems.
And finally, hackers will always be the first one in the door, which puts security companies in a reactive position. That won’t change completely.
At present, the best solution is a combination of anti-virus software, extra code and circuitry developed to prevent hardware attacks, and a team of white-hat hackers to continually look for weaknesses. The pieces that are missing are the up-front verification of what is being developed and manufactured, and the after-the-fact deep analysis of what goes wrong at a systemic level.
Tomi Engdahl says:
A mooving tail of cows, calves and the Internet of Things
Small firm claims calf birth safety boost with M2M monitor
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/07/mooving_tail_of_m2m_cows/
nternet of Things devices mounted on cows’ tails are responsible for 150,000 safe births of calves, if the developer and Vodafone are to be believed.
Moocall, developers of a calving sensor which is linked to Vodafone’s M2M Internet of Things network, says that “more than 110,000 calves and around 50,000 cows die every year due to birth complications” which could be avoided if farmers were aware of them, and in a position to call a vet for help when needed.
We are told that around 150,000 calves were born quite literally underneath the monitoring of Moocall’s tail-mounted IoT sensor, which incorporates a SIM card.
The system works by telling the farmer how active each cow is at a given time.
As far as the wider IoT goes, it is interesting to see Vodafone resolutely sticking with age-old (and proven) SIM-based tech in the UK rather than going with, say, NB-IoT.
https://gb.moocall.com/pages/user-guide
Tomi Engdahl says:
Watt the f… Dim smart meters caught simply making up readings
Current-measuring circuits flawed, potentially over-charge homes, study finds
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/06/smart_meters_prove_dim/
Some smart meters might more accurately be described as fake meters because they present false readings about energy consumption.
A recent study from researchers at University of Twente (UT) and Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (AUAS) has found that three-phase static (electronic) energy meters, which are replacing traditional electromechanical meters, can exaggerate energy consumption by as much as 582 per cent.
Estimates of the number of households in the Netherlands with smart meters range from 750,000 to 1.5 million. In the US, smart meter penetration at the end of 2016 has been estimated at 70 million, according to the Edison Foundation [PDF].
The government of the Netherlands aims to replace at least 80 per cent of the energy meters in the country with smart meters by 2020, in keeping with EU goals. EU authorities suggest that smart meters, on average, result in energy savings of 3 per cent.
Among the 10 models tested, the issue appears to be a component known as the Rogowski Coil, one of the four-types of current sensors used in static meters. The three others are: the shunt resistor, the current transformer, and the Hall effect-based current sensor.
“The reason for faulty readings appears to be the current sensor, and the associated circuitry,” the researcher paper states. “As a Rogowski coil results in a time-derivative of the measured current, the measured voltage has to be integrated. Probably active integration is used instead of passive integration, and the input electronics are pushed in saturation caused by the high rise-time of the current.”
Static energy meter errors caused by conducted electromagnetic interference
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7866234/?reload=true
Static, or electronic, energy meters are replacing the conventional electromechanical meters. Consumers are sometimes complaining about higher energy readings and billing after the change to a static meter, but there is not a clear common or root cause at present. Electromagnetic interference has been observed between active infeed converters as used in photo-voltaic systems and static meters. Reducing the interference levels eliminated inaccurate reading in static meters. Several field investigations failed to identify a clear root cause of inaccurate readings of static energy meters.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sonos’ Quest to Unite the Smart Home With Sweet, Sweet Music
https://www.wired.com/2017/03/sonos-playbase-smart-home/
In August, Sonos announced it was working on Alexa integration. It would let millions of Sonos owners control their music with their voice and do all of the pizza-ordering, game-playing, life-improving things Amazon’s voice assistant can do. The move provided a clear indication of where, after 15 years, Sonos sees its future. And yet seven months later, Alexa has 10,000 skills, and Sonos ain’t one of them.
Such an integration could easily exist by now
“Alexa, let me talk to Sonos,”
But you couldn’t choose the song you want to hear, or play it in three rooms simultaneously. And the way you talk to it, especially the part where you must request permission to speak to Sonos, doesn’t feel right to Leblond.
Today, Sonos supports dozens of streaming services, and streaming accounts, and nearly everyone with a Sonos uses it for streaming.
But now the company finds itself in a position familiar to many startups. It has, by any measure, accomplished what it set out to do. People love their Sonos, and its products sell well. But streaming music is easy now; you can do it with a $15 Google dongle. Meanwhile, gadgets like Amazon’s Echo are taking over people’s living rooms.
No, they don’t look or sound as nice as anything from Sonos, but they do the job, they’re a snap to use, and people love using them to play music.
When Spence talks about voice assistants like Alexa and Siri, he’s still talking about music. “We all approach these in different ways,” he says. “Amazon is approaching it like, ‘We want to make Alexa easy so people will order more things.’ Google looks at it and says, ‘We want to make sure people can search the internet.’ We look at it and say, ‘Hey, this is a great way to get your music playing.’” Spence repeatedly mentions “time to music” as a key benchmark for Sonos: How long does it take to go from deciding you want to listen to something and having those silky jams filling the room? Voice assistants shrink the gap.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Another Day, Another “IoT” Backdoor
http://hackaday.com/2017/03/06/another-day-another-iot-backdoor/
As if you needed any reason other than “just for the heck of it” to hack into a gadget that you own, it looks like nearly all of the GSM-to-IP bridge devices make by DBLTek have a remotely accessible “secret” backdoor account built in. We got sent the link via Slashdot which in turn linked to this story on Techradar. Both include the scare-words “Chinese” and “IoT”, although the devices seem to be aimed at small businesses, but everything’s “IoT” these days, right?
What is scary, however, is that the backdoor isn’t just a sloppy debug account left in, but rather only accessible through an elaborate and custom login protocol.
Undocumented Backdoor Account in DBLTek GoIP
https://www.trustwave.com/Resources/SpiderLabs-Blog/Undocumented-Backdoor-Account-in-DBLTek-GoIP/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Poachers are trying to hack animal tracking systems
https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2017/03/06/hack-animal-tracking-systems/
Animal tracking through electronic tagging has helped researchers gain insight into the lives of many wild animal species, but can also be misused by wildlife poachers, hunters, animal-persecution groups and people interested in seeing and interacting with the animals – all to the detriment of our animal brethren.
A recent paper by a group of researchers from several Canadian and US universities has pointed to several instances of misuse or attempted misuse of the tracking technology
Troubling issues at the frontier of animal tracking for conservation and management
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cobi.12895/full
Tomi Engdahl says:
EM9304
Optimized Bluetooth® Low Energy V5.0 Companion or SoC
http://www.emmicroelectronic.com/products/wireless-rf/standard-protocols/em9304
The EM9304 is a tiny, low-power, integrated circuit (IC) optimized for Bluetooth® v5.0 low energy enabled products. The flexible architecture of the EM9304 allows it to act as a companion IC to any ASIC or MCU-based product, or as a complete System-on-Chip (SoC). Custom applications can execute from one-time-programmable (OTP) memory, and digital peripherals (SPI or I2C) can be used to interface with external devices such as sensors, memory, display, or touch drivers. A floating point unit can be exploited to implement advanced algorithms such as sensor fusion.
Included in ROM is a Bluetooth v5.0 link layer with a Host Controller Interface (HCI), a Bluetooth stack with proprietary Application Controller Interface (ACI), several profiles, and over-the-air firmware (FOTA) updating routines. The Bluetooth low energy controller and host can be configured to support up to eight simultaneous connections. Secure connections and extended packet length are also supported per the Bluetooth v5.0 standard.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Digital Standard
https://github.com/TheDigitalStandard/TheDigitalStandard
About the Standard
The Digital Standard is an ambitious, community-led effort to build a framework to test and rate products and services on the basis of privacy, security, and data practices.
Consumers care about digital privacy and security but often have no way to understand how a product or service treats and protects their data. While there are established criteria and tests to measure fuel efficiency in cars, the crash performance of car seats, and the energy efficiency of home appliances, consumer organizations currently lack standards for testing and rating how well products and services manage consumers’ privacy, security, and data. These issues are big, pressing, and not fully understood, but will define product and service quality and accountability in the 21st century and standard tests and ratings must now be developed.
Led by Consumer Reports, Cyber Independent Testing Lab, Disconnect, and Ranking Digital Rights of the Open Technology Institute, the Digital Standard seeks to rally consumer organizations, security researchers, academics, and hobbyists in a shared undertaking to develop a product testing framework for privacy, security, and data practices.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nvidia Announces Jetson TX2 High Performance Embedded Module
http://hackaday.com/2017/03/07/nvidia-announces-jetson-tx2-high-performance-embedded-module/
The last year has been great for Nvidia hardware. Nvidia released a graphics card using the Pascal architecture, 1080s are heating up server rooms the world over, and now Nvidia is making yet another move at high-performance, low-power computing. Today, Nvidia announced the Jetson TX2, a credit-card sized module that brings deep learning to the embedded world.
Embedded Deep Learning
The marketing pitch for the Jetson TX2 is, “deep learning at the edge”. While this absolutely sounds like an alphabet soup of dorknobabble, it does parse rather well.
The new hotness every new CS grad wants to get into is deep learning. It’s easy to see why — deep learning is found in everything from drones to self-driving cars. These ‘cool’ applications of deep learning have a problem: they all need a lot of processing power, but these are applications that are on a power budget. Building a selfie drone that follows you around wouldn’t be a problem if you could plug it into the wall, but that’s not what selfie drones are for.
Like the Nvidia TX1 before it, the Jetson TX2 is a credit card-sized module bolted onto a big heatsink. The specs are a significant upgrade from the TX1:
Graphics: Nvidia Pascal GPU, 256 CUDA cores
CPU: Dual-core Denver + quad-core ARM A57
RAM: 8GB 128-bit LPDDR4
Storage: 32GB EMMC, SDIO, SATA
Video: 4k x 2x 60Hz Encode and Decode
Display: HDMI 2.0, eDP 1.4, 2x DSI, 2x DP 1.2
Ports and IO: USB 3.0, USB 2.0 (host mode), HDMI, M.2 Key E, PCI-E x4, Gigabit Ethernet, SATA data and power, GPIOs, I2C, I2S, SPI, CAN
The Jetson development kit is the TX2 module and a breakout board that is effectively a MiniITX motherboard.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Led Stairway with motion detection and Blynk
https://hackaday.io/project/20223-led-stairway-with-motion-detection-and-blynk
15 stairs, each with a high output led strip connected to a Wemos D1 ESP8266 using a Ledsee 16 channel PWM FET shield. PIR and Blynk trigger
This project uses 15 meter of 1A/m 12Vdc LED strip connected to a 16 channel PCA9685 PWM FET shield plugged into a Wemos D1, ESP8266 board. Various patterns like fading, waves, random are triggered by PIR sensors located up and down of the stairs. Everything can also be triggered using smartphone using Blynk.
Tomi Engdahl says:
IoT ESP OLED…LOL
https://hackaday.io/project/20221-iot-esp-oledlol
Objective: Connect common SSD1306 OLED screen to the frugal ESP8266 in a effort to develop a personal IoT common hardware core. Cost ~ $16.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How Smart Homes Can Deliver Sustainability as a Service
Smart-home services have the potential to impact households in a profound way.
http://mwrf.com/systems/how-smart-homes-can-deliver-sustainability-service?NL=MWRF-001&Issue=MWRF-001_20170307_MWRF-001_384&sfvc4enews=42&cl=article_1_b&utm_rid=CPG05000002750211&utm_campaign=9956&utm_medium=email&elq2=fb997af92fcd47c7b648a693fa75288d
Within just three years, it’s estimated that as many as five billion people and 50 billion devices could be connected. While those numbers alone are impressive, it’s the potential of that connectivity to improve many aspects of our lives (including the health of our planet) that’s truly eye-opening.
Many discussions surrounding the smart home focus on benefits that can be realized by the people living in them. But a truly smart, connected home—one that can independently assess and respond to real-time requirements for power, water, heating, and similar resources—is able to promote sustainability. In addition, it can avoid serious damage to the home by independently identifying waste and avoiding spillage.
The introduction of highly power-efficient chips that support multiple communications protocols—e.g., IEEE 802.15.4, ZigBee 3.0, Thread, and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE)—is rapidly driving advances in smart-home networking.
But in order to realize the environmental benefits of smart-home technology, we must first understand what a smart home really is (not just a collection of connected devices) and have insight into what consumers want from a smart home (services).
What is a Smart Home?
Too often, the words “smart” and “connected” are used interchangeably when discussing the devices that power the Internet of Things (IoT). But they are not the same. Many of today’s devices are essentially internet-enabled remote controls that require human action to be turned on and off.
The term “smart” implies intelligence with decision-making capabilities. A smart device and application can analyze incoming data and make a decision to control or activate a device without human intervention.
The network senses who is in the home, where they are in the home, and what the “normal” activity is in the home at that particular day and time.
By using intelligence and information that the system has learned about the residents, it makes decisions about whether to lock doors and windows; turn on or off the heater, air conditioner, lights or entertainment systems; activate the security system
The network learns from the people who live in the home to make predictions about future behaviors. It knows the number of household members, how rooms are used and when, bedtimes, who works from home and where, who gets up early, etc. Patterns are absorbed by the system and used to enhance comfort and convenience settings. These settings are also cost-saving and have the potential to significantly reduce energy consumption.
This type of sophisticated smart-home network requires specific capabilities:
1. It must connect to and communicate with other smart or connected devices in the home.
2. It must be intelligent, recognize what goes on in the home, and learn what is normal.
3. Residents must be able to manage functions with a single integrated application on a smartphone or other web-connected device.
What is SHaaS?
Smart Home as a Service (SHaaS) is a collection of services that analyzes input from the smart home’s sensors, learns how the family lives and how the home is used, and can make intelligent decisions to make homes more comfortable, safe, and energy-efficient
Instead of a consumer having to decide which hardware and software options or which wireless technology to implement in their home, they can simply leave it up to the providers of services they already use (e.g., internet access, security, and entertainment).
This is how the four basic components of a SHaaS work together:
1. A network of sensors in the home provides a general indication of when and where movement occurs in the home and whether the home is secure, what the environmental conditions are, and whether there are any issues (a leak, for example).
2. The information derived from these sensors is wirelessly collected by a local hub (gateway, set-top box, etc.) and securely transmitted to an intelligent cloud service that collects and analyzes the data, and sends alerts to family members when it detects changes.
3. A central management app enables the consumer to manage the network via a smartphone or any web-connected device in a single user interface.
4. The service provider is able to easily handle customer support, billing, and subscriber management, as well as software and service upgrades and changes.
It’s easy to see how a SHaaS can increase efficiency, safety, and comfort within the home and help its occupants better manage and live their lives. But SHaaS benefits reach well beyond the walls of the home, helping to reduce the use of our planet’s natural resources and our carbon footprint
Water. Water conservation is one such example. Most everyone has experienced a leaking water heater. If the leak is not immediately detected, the water heater continues to run, inefficiently heating and wasting water, causing costly damage in the home, and resulting in high energy and water bills.
Power. Power use is another area where the SHaaS delivers environmental benefits. A green smart home would monitor how and when power is consumed and manage power in the home based on that data.
People. A smart home can have environmental benefits in subtle ways, as well. Families with an older parent who lives alone can use the smart-home network to maintain awareness of their daily well-being without having to drive or take the bus across town, reducing CO2 emissions.
On April 22, countries around the world will mark Earth Day. Our ideas about the role of home connectivity in environmental stewardship have been transformed since the first celebration of this event in 1970.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Five Critical Challenges Facing IIoT in 2017
https://www.designnews.com/iot/five-critical-challenges-facing-iiot-2017/146714711456396?cid=nl.x.dn14.edt.aud.dn.20170307.tst004t
FreeWave Technologies predicts major developments in IIoT, from cybersecurity advances to the adoption of HaLow as a widespread wireless protocol.
We’re likely to see big changes in IIoT during 2017 as companies deploy wireless system within plants and in the field. As steep IIoT growth continues, issues such as cybersecurity and wireless protocols will become increasingly pressing.
Prediction 1: 2017 will see strong security rollouts thanks to emerging technology
In 2017, we’ll see more Fog Computing – a decentralized network architecture that brings computing power closer to where data is generated and acted upon. This will enable analysis, control, and automation closer to the “Things” in IIoT.
Prediction 2: IIoT app development programs will begin to outgrow and outpace consumer IoT app development within the next three years.
Third party IIoT application development at the edge – Fog Computing specifically – will alter the use of big data and predictive analytics. The ability to filter specific data directly at the source means less of a need to collect all the data for broad analysis. The demand for more apps at the edge and coinciding apps on the IT side of the business, coupled with big opportunities for app developers, will drive the shift from consumer to IIoT apps.
“The consumer environment proves IoT works and brings value to people’s lives. Now, a lot of that is rolling into IIoT.”
Prediction 3: Recruitment of IoTT talent will continue to be a challenge
The biggest challenge affecting IoTT talent recruitment is the skills gap – there are not enough qualified applicants to take on new digital-centric IT roles.
The IT/OT convergence further complicates the issue.
Prediction 4: By the end of 2017, millions of smart IoT devices will be deployed into networks that use the 802.11 ah (HaLow) protocol
According to FreeWave, the rise of Smart City initiatives is helping the 802.11 ah (HaLow) wireless networking protocol overpower Bluetooth for critical infrastructure applications such as traffic management, public safety, energy efficiency, and public infrastructure design.
Prediction 5: A public utility closure will occur in 2017 due to aging infrastructure
The maturation of interoperability standards and the evolution of remote data collection technologies are forcing critical infrastructure and utility organizations to adapt at a new pace.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Social Internet of Things
http://www.social-iot.org/
When Things get smart, the Internet of Things gets Social!
The Internet of Things promises to be a source of great benefits to our lives but it definitely will be a source of difficulty for designers of telecommunication networks and applications unless appropriate new communication paradigms are identified. We strongly believe that what will definitely meet the needs of users, designers, and developers is a social approach to the Internet of Things.
The objectives being pursued by the Social Internet of Things (SIoT) paradigm are clear: to keep separate the two levels of people and things; to allow objects to have their own social networks; to allow humans to impose rules to protect their privacy and only access the result of autonomous inter-object interactions occurring on the objects’ social network.
In our vision smart objects (even though extremely intelligent) will not make a difference, but social objects will make it!
Objective of this website is to promote the circulation of ideas and concepts that focus on the SIoT paradigm. As such, it is open to scientific and nonscientific contributions (what matters is creativity) in which SIoT technical solutions and scenarios are addressed.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The AWS Outage and the Need for “Offline” IoT
https://medium.com/@TheNeura/the-aws-outage-and-the-need-for-offline-iot-4358521f7344#.3mf3c34xz
Thoughts on mobile offline machine learning in the wake of a “cloud” debacle.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Case For Narrowband-IoT
IP, software for existing LTE networks, in sub-$5 modules.
http://semiengineering.com/the-case-for-narrowband-iot/
Cellular network-based Narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) is marching closer to reality as players across the ecosystem put forth silicon IP, software protocol stacks, carrier network software upgrades and more.
The kicker came last year when the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), the global cellular industry standards body, finalized a NB-IoT standard in its ‘release 13.’ With that, device makers and carriers and all of the companies that support them had much less of a moving target in realizing IoT.
“NB-IoT is really the standard that has the greatest potential,” says Paul Williamson, general manager for ARM‘s wireless business. “With the support of the cell phone carriers, rollouts are starting this year for that technology.”
As hard as proponents of LoRa and Sigfox tried, the business case for these technologies to bring about the potential in IoT does not appear to be as strong as for NB-IoT. By utilizing the world’s existing cellular infrastructure, NB-IoT brings a more ‘guaranteed delivery’ capability. Similarly, the “personal area network” vision of IEEE 802.15.4, encompassing Zigbee and Thread, are more limited in comparison.
“We knew we needed a low-power, low-data rate standard. And Bluetooth Low Energy fits that bill from a data perspective, from a low power perspective,” said Williamson. “But it has a range limited, maybe at the very peak 100 meters. Yes, they are bringing in mesh technology to help that. But consider you have a controller on every street light in a city. To do that with Bluetooth LE you’d have to roll out access points [infrastructure equipment], even if there was meshing and connections between them. When you get a cellular WAN standard, your range is measured in kilometers.”
ARM is not the only semiconductor technology house looking to boost the NB-IoT market. Cadence is collaborating with Dresden, Germany-based CommSolid to offer the necessary device-level technologies.
The team has integrated the power amplifier and SIM, and simplified the RF and front end module. The entire module now will have an ASP below $5. This should further what is seen as the main use case for NB-IoT: transportation, logistics and supply chain.
“Providing regular updates on the position, the state of the goods, or the delivery status allows companies to massively optimize their delivery process,” says Weiss. “They see a tremendous opportunity to reduce the costs associated with tracking and moving assets.”
Weiss says release 14 of NB-IoT will come at the next quarterly 3GPP meeting, in September. That release has additional features, including location without GPS, multicasting, and, crucially, ultra low power classes in the 14 decibel-milliWatts (dBm).
The overarching power goal has long been devices with no ground power that can last in the field for 10 years
“The battery life is really determined by the duty cycle,”
“Devices in this mode should definitely be able to live in the field for 10 years,” says Weiss. “Counterintuitively, the IoT power problem is dominated really by solving the sleep mode power consumption issue.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
How To Implement A Secure IoT System On ARMv8-M
http://semiengineering.com/how-to-implement-a-secure-iot-system-on-armv8-m/
Attacks on IoT devices are guaranteed – they will happen! Therefore, system security needs to be easy and fast to implement. With ARM’s newest embedded processors – the ARM Cortex-M23 and Cortex-M33 with TrustZone for ARMv8-M – developers can take advantage of hardware-enforced security. Now, system designers have the challenge to extend security throughout the whole system.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Teardown: A Wi-Fi smart plug for home automation
http://www.edn.com/design/consumer/4458082/Teardown–A-Wi-Fi-smart-plug-for-home-automation
In November 2015, EDN published my teardown of Belkin’s WeMo Switch; I followed it up with a hands-on analysis.
The TP-Link HS100 dissected here, which I bought on sale for $19.99 from Newegg back in April, is conceptually similar to the base Belkin WeMo Switch. And like the Belkin WeMo Insight Switch, the TP-Link HS110 upgrade adds energy monitoring capabilities.
Teardown: WeMo Switch is highly integrated
http://www.edn.com/design/consumer/4440797/Teardown–WeMo-Switch-is-highly-integrated
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Nest is working on a cheaper sub-$200 thermostat with individual room control, a home security alarm system, and a digital doorbell — Nest, the pioneer of the iPhone-like digital thermostat, is readying several new products in its quest to modernize the home. — by
Alphabet’s Nest Working on Cheaper Thermostat, Home Security System
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-08/alphabet-s-nest-working-on-cheaper-thermostat-home-security-system
Nest, the pioneer of the iPhone-like digital thermostat, is readying several new products in its quest to modernize the home.
Alphabet Inc.’s Nest, seeking a bigger share of the connected home market, is developing a cheaper version of its flagship thermostat and new home security products, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The company is working on a version of its “learning thermostat,” which adjusts the temperature based on usage patterns, that would sell for under $200, the person said. The current version sells for $249. The cheaper model would include less expensive components and at least one internal prototype lacks the flagship model’s metal edges, the person said.
A home-security alarm system, a digital doorbell and an updated indoor security camera are also in the works, representing potential good news for a company that has struggled to release many new products.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The CIA Leak Exposes Tech’s Vulnerable Future
https://www.wired.com/2017/03/cia-leak-exposes-techs-vulnerable-future/
Yesterday’s Wikileaks dump reiterated something we already knew: Our devices are fundamentally unsafe. No matter what kind of encryption we use, no matter which secure messaging apps we take care to run, no matter how careful we are to sign up for two-factor authentication, the CIA—and, we have to assume, other hackers—can infiltrate our operating systems, take control of our cameras and microphones, and bend our phones to their will. The same can be said of smart TVs, which could be made to surreptitiously record our living-room conversations, and internet-connected cars, which could potentially be commandeered and even crashed.
Previous security revelations told us that our data wasn’t safe. The Vault 7 leak reminded us that our machines aren’t secure—and, because those machines lived in our homes and on our bodies, they rendered our homes and bodies insecure as well. There is a word for these flaws and holes in code that leave us open to harm, and it’s the same word for the unease that accompanies them: vulnerability.
If we feel freshly vulnerable, we are not alone. The darlings of the tech industry—which for much of the past decade have convincingly presented themselves as swaggering inevitabilities—are showing signs of vulnerability as well.
The more powerful and inevitable something appears, the more startling and devastating its weaknesses are when they are exposed. Or, to borrow a phrase, the harder they come, the harder they fall.
That’s useful to remember when you consider the transformation we are currently undergoing, one in which more and more of our devices become connected to the internet. Whether you call it the “Internet of Things” or the “Internet of Everything” or the “Third Wave” or the “Programmable World,” the long-predicted moment when connectivity becomes as ubiquitous as electricity is nearly upon us. The benefits will be staggering—a world that will know us and adjust to our needs and desires, a universe of data that will impart new wisdom. But so will the vulnerabilities, the opportunities for our worlds to be penetrated, manipulated, and even destroyed by malevolent intruders.
The Vault 7 leak is not the tech industry’s fault, exactly, but we must ask at what point we stop placing our trust in devices, systems, and people that are inherently undeserving of it? Actually, never mind, we’re past it already. The most troubling aspect of the latest revelations is that there is no way to protect yourself beyond not buying a smartphone
Tomi Engdahl says:
Embedded security with hardware
Multi-embedded device is protected by a software based solution. Often, a better way would be to implement the same hardware. For example, FPGA, such as Intel’s Ryan Kenny says in his article.
In announcing the purchase of McAfee Corporation Intel, the then President and CEO Paul Otellini said in 2010, famously, that “information security has become the third pillar of information technology”. More importantly, the data security should be part of the business would be true of technical also a political and economic issue. Ponemon Institute to measure this every year cyber attacks the cost of business and per network intrusion costs are estimated at $ 3.8 million. The global economy each year caused up to $ 450 billion in losses.
Using firewalls and test sand boxes examples of network security solutions realize that the vast majority of solutions are software based and make use of virtual machines and environments. The reasons for this are the maneuverability, portability / mobility, as well as economic issues (very little start-up capital typically required for software-based products).
One of the emerging trends is the use of reconfigurable hardware such as FPGA
When properly designed, when the FPGA bit files authenticating hardware, FPGA circuits can not be changed unnoticed.
FPGA-based network devices can not be changed over the network connection
FPGA circuits built-in security features that offer significant advantages in systems where trust is based on the iron. These include protected storage of keys, obfuscation, and anti-tamper techniques, as well as the prevention of counterfeiting and asymmetric cryptographic operations, such as PUF (Physically Unclonable Function) and separate accelerators.
Many processor manufacturers like Intel and Freescale have the TPM (Trusted Platform Module)
Ie NIST National Institute of Standards and Technology is one of the many factions that want to move the source of trust (the root of trust) software, firmware, software, start the software and hardware for mobile devices and IoT technologies. They and many others in the documentation starting in the fact that the software-based security is a problem, the firmware is better, but the built-in processor hardware protection is ideal.
The programmable logic components provide the ability to integrate a variety of device-level protections
Heterogeneous computing models, such as convolutional neutral networks or tightly connected to the FPGA microprocessors described above require that the heterogeneous programming becomes practical.
The “inventor’s dilemma” is also the opportunity for the new pelureille security industry, both large and small.
Source: http://www.etn.fi/index.php/13-news/5974-sulautettua-turvaa-raudalla
Tomi Engdahl says:
What are the Differences Between LTE-M and NB-IoT Cellular Protocols?
https://www.digi.com/videos/what-are-the-differences-between-lte-m-and-nb-iot
Chief Innovator Rob Faludi, explains two new protocols for cellular communication and how these low bandwidth protocols are different. Watch this video to determine if LTE-M or NB-IoT is ideal for your IoT application.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Point and Click to an IoT Button
http://hackaday.com/2017/03/08/point-and-click-to-an-iot-button/
The availability of cheap WiFi boards like the ESP8266 and others means you can inexpensively put projects on the network. But there is still the problem of how to connect these devices to other places reliably. An Open Source project that attempts to make that whole effort point and click is Mongoose OS. The open source system works with the ESP8266, ESP32, and several other platforms. It is well integrated with Amazon’s IoT backend, but it isn’t locked to it.
Everyone wants to be your IoT broker and we see products appear (and disappear) regularly aimed at capturing that market. One common way to send and receive messages from a tiny device to a remote server is MQTT, an ISO standard made with resource-limited devices in mind. Many IoT services speak this protocol, including Amazon’s IoT offering.
Calling Mongoose an OS might be a bit of a stretch. It is really closer to what we think of as “middleware” but it does provide many networking and filesystem services. It also simplifies remote deployment with a lot of support for doing safe over the air updates to devices.
You can code in C or JavaScript
MQTT is pretty simple, so you don’t actually need any support to use it. However, Mongoose brings a lot of other things to the table such as security and updates, plus portability.
Mongoose OS
An open source Operating System for the Internet of Things
https://mongoose-os.com/
Supported microcontrollers: ESP32, ESP8266, STM32, TI CC3200
Amazon AWS IoT integrated. Code in C or JavaScript.
Built with mature Mongoose Networking Library trusted by NASA, Bosch, Qualcomm, Broadcom, Intel, Samsung, Google and others
TCP, UDP, HTTP, Websocket, MQTT, CoAP, DNS, mDNS-SD, SNTP protocols, both client and server
RPC mechanism with UART, HTTP, Websocket, MQTT transports
Native AWS IoT integration
Built-in support for any public or private MQTT server
Code in C or JavaScript
Built on top of native platform SDK. All native SDK capabilities are transparently available. Works with existing RTOS, e.g. FreeRTOS
Filesystem with POSIX API and built-in encryption
Over-the-air (OTA) updates
Remote device management
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nvidia wants AI to Get Out of the Cloud and Into a Camera, Drone, or Other Gadget Near You
http://spectrum.ieee.org/view-from-the-valley/computing/embedded-systems/nvidia-wants-ai-to-get-out-of-the-cloud-into-a-camera-drone-or-other-gadget-near-you
Tomi Engdahl says:
Antenna Design Grows Up
http://semiengineering.com/antenna-design-grows-up/
Modern electronics relies heavily on antennas, but companies still make mistakes. That’s about to change.
Ever since antennas dropped out of sight, most consumers don’t give them a second thought.
The antennas are still there, but they’re no longer visible. And they’re even more important than before, and significantly more complicated to design.
“It’s a very complex issue becoming more complex. Automotive, unequivocally, is the most complex system for any wireless engagement from an antenna placement, selection, management perspective,” noted Richard Barrett, senior product marketing engineer, automotive wireless technology at Cypress Semiconductor. “I can’t think of any industry that would even approach the complexities of automotive, outside of something like aerospace or military. Automotive is more complex because of the many models that you have in a consumer industry.”
Engineers have to start off with understanding what their limitations are, and what they need to work with in order to find the optimal solution
Placement is key for antennas, and the best location generally is where there is the least influence from the environment on performance.
“Ideally, antennas placed in their intended operational environment should perform just as they usually do when they’re designed in isolation—without anything around them,”
The best placement for an antenna also depends upon the intended use of the antenna
Consider an antenna integrated into a mobile phone. The phone’s orientation can vary continuously, and the phone needs to have continual contact with the nearest cell tower. If the mobile phone’s antenna has weak gain in the direction of the cell tower, then the weakness in that link has to be made up by using more transmit power, or by increasing the sensitivity of the receiver, which lead in turn to reduced battery life.
Then, for omnidirectional antennas, the antenna should be placed in a location where its radiation pattern will be as undisturbed as possible, which usually means placing it as far away from other conductors as possible. This runs counter to the frequent requirement that the overall product (containing the antenna) be as small as possible.
Further complicating matters is that fact there probably will be conflict between the antenna and other devices that are transmitting or receiving.
“You’re pretty much guaranteed to have conflict,”
To address these issues, the best that chipmakers can do is provide recommendations. “If you’re in a metal box, you have to cut a slot in the box so there’s someplace for the RF to get into,” said Barrett. “It’s got to be able to see outside. If you can cable outside to an outside antenna, that’s a great idea.”
And then there is the issue of how much an antenna design will cost.
“Everyone would like to be able to use a cheap Inverted F printed circuit board antenna to do everything in the world, but that’s just from the cost side of things,” he said. “From the engineering side, you’d love to have nice dipole antennas, cabled out to the most optimal location, end cabin use, facing the consumer. And for external vehicle, you want that facing outside the car in the proper direction. Those are the two extremes. The real world is somewhere in the middle.”
Over-the-air upgrades are another area that can be impacted. For these, a vehicle may be sitting in a garage and the media server in the house is automatically downloading to the vehicle to upgrade the software, just like a smartphone.
Conclusion
Antenna design today is still part black art, but that is about to change given its role in the IoT and automotive arenas. Future design approaches will draw on knowledge about a design from many sources, not just the previous experience of a design team. That collection of data points will find its way into whatever tools are being used to design, verify and optimize antennas for each unique situation. Demand is rising along with the complexity of the antenna designs, and changes are coming quickly in this space.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Recent studies show that the security of embedded devices is not very good shape.
Maxim Integrated has introduced a complete development platform for just this problem. ARM mbed smartphones devices imported into the Deep Cover-reference design using its own IoT device is easy to bring a solution that authenticates network nodes and manages solmukokonaisuuttta.
Public key encryption importing MAXREFDES155 Arduino platform includes additional card module and the sensor terminal. The module can be found in the Deep Cover-processor, which can be implemented ECDSA / SHA-2 authentication, as well as an LCD display, control buttons. Free status LEDs and a Wi-Fi radio.
Source: http://www.etn.fi/index.php/72-ecf/5982-alustalla-helposti-salaus-iot-laitteeseen
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Connected Toy Conundrum Is Beginning to Boil
http://www.securityweek.com/connected-toy-conundrum-beginning-boil
The prediction business is a tricky thing. You can be right, but until you are proven right, you’re either early or wrong. Being early feels just like being wrong—up until the moment you are right.
When toymaker VTech announced in November 2015 that nearly five million customer records had been leaked (including pictures of and data about children), I predicted that the breach would be a tipping point for security and privacy issues with connected toys. My thesis was based on the notion that nothing stirs the emotions faster than concerns over the privacy and safety of children.
My prediction didn’t get any traction. Just as I was beginning to embrace the notion that I was wrong, a string of recent events may prove that I was just early.
Smart toy security troubles are on the rise
In mid-February, it was reported that Germany’s Federal Network Agency issued a warning to parents about the “My Friend Cayla” doll. The agency, which oversees telecommunications in Germany, advised parents to destroy the doll because it collects and transmits conversations with children.
The data in the conversations were being parsed by speech recognition software that can turn dialogue into searchable queries. While the agency based their warning on the doll being a “concealed transmitting device” that ran afoul of the law, there was also much concern over regulations protecting the privacy and security of children. Agencies from multiple countries, including the United States’ FTC, expressed concerns over these privacy and security issues.
In early March, it was reported that toymaker Spiral Toys had been hacked, exposing data from over 800,000 users. The data contained personalized voice messages, pictures, and other data collected via Internet-connected teddy bears and the associated smartphone apps.
Securing smart devices goes beyond toy manufacturers
As I have said repeatedly, the term “connected device” should immediately provoke questions such as “to what?”, “for what purpose?”, and “with what level of protection for the data?”
I do not believe that there is malicious intent on the part of the toy manufacturers. They are looking for an angle to sell toys, and IoT and connected devices are hot topics. They are also financially motivated to hold down production costs for profitability. Having a connected toy adds new cost items such as building the associated app and building the infrastructure (including data storage) to store the collected data. All their key business drivers (e.g., time to market and profitability) are diametrically opposed to notions of building security into the process.
Take note that this is not a set of issues unique to connected toys. Multiple stories came out in February on the analysis of the end user license agreements for smart televisions. Manufacturers are now warning us not to discuss sensitive subjects in front of our televisions as the conversation will be recorded and stored! This includes the voices of children in our homes.
It’s time to take IoT security and privacy seriously
Privacy is an ephemeral subject, particularly in the United States. Other countries take a much more pronounced interest in privacy, where I believe Americans have become numb to the subject after selling our privacy souls for free cell phones. However, the basic, immutable law is simple and must be recognized by consumers: If something is IoT or connected it collects data and that data goes somewhere and is stored. While seemingly benign, that data may combine sensitive information—which can be stolen.
Add children to the mix and the focus suddenly shifts. The light shed on the problems swiftly burns much brighter.
The tipping point may have just arrived. On March 6, Consumer Reports announced that they are “launching the first phase of a collaborative effort to create a new standard that safeguards consumers’ security and privacy”. Consumer Reports hopes to push a new open-source standard that addresses privacy and security concerns for connected consumer devices.
Consumer Reports to Begin Evaluating Products, Services for Privacy and Data Security
CR partners with other cyber experts, creating a new open-source industry standard to make connected devices safer
http://www.consumerreports.org/privacy/consumer-reports-to-begin-evaluating-products-services-for-privacy-and-data-security/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Did Alexa hear a murder? We may finally find out
However, novel and vexing legal questions about IoT data privacy won’t be answered.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/did-alexa-hear-a-murder-we-may-finally-find-out/
Amazon is handing prosecutors cloud-stored data from its Alexa Voice Service that the Arkansas authorities say might be used as evidence in a murder prosecution.
The Seattle-based company originally had balked at a warrant demanding the recorded voice and transcription data from an Amazon Echo near a murder scene. The company claimed that the data, and the responses from the voice assistant itself, were protected by the First Amendment. What’s more, Amazon said that the Arkansas authorities had not demonstrated a “compelling need” for the data.
But the novel and vexing questions this case poses—such as what is the legal standard for when data from an Echo or other Internet of Things devices can be used in a court of law—won’t be answered. The reason? The murder defendant, James Bates, agreed late Monday to allow Amazon to forward his Echo’s data to Arkansas prosecutors.
“Because Mr. Bates is innocent of all charges in this matter, he has agreed to the release of any recordings on his Amazon Echo device to the prosecution,” his attorneys said
The warrant for the Echo data surrounds the 2015 death of Victor Collins.
The warrant noted that the Echo “is constantly listening for the ‘wake’ command of ‘Alexa’ or ‘Amazon’ and records any command, inquiry, or verbal gesture given after that point, or possibly at all times without the ‘wake word’ being issued, which is uploaded to Amazon.com’s servers at a remote location.”
But in its argument against giving up the Echo data, Mimesis noted a case about the privacy rights of one’s purchase history.
Amazon Isn’t Fighting for You
http://mimesislaw.com/fault-lines/amazon-isnt-fighting/16747
March 3, 2017 (Fault Lines) — If you have ever bought anything from Amazon, you know the creepy follow-up. All of a sudden, anything related to the product you looked at on the Amazon site starts showing up on your Facebook page and in the margins of whatever Internet article you are reading. So what if it was evidence against you for murder?
Amazon has your back. A Bentonville, Arkansas criminal case has put Amazon in the hot seat. One of its customers is suspected of murder. The police think Alexa, Amazon’s new in-home shopping device, may have heard what happened. They obtained a search warrant for Alexa’s records. Amazon is fighting back. In an interesting argument, Amazon’s lawyers have asserted that not only do your First Amendment rights prevent government snooping, so do those of your trusty robot assistant.
The typical argument when the government starts snooping around your business comes from the Fourth Amendment, which is supposed to ban warrantless searches and seizures unless one of 19,000 exceptions is present. But Amazon’s lawyers are taking a different approach by arguing the First Amendment.
In today’s world, the majority of people’s lives are lived online. If you sit down and really think about the amount of information you disclose to computers on a daily basis, it is staggering. While most people handle all of their financial transactions online and spout off every opinion that pops into their head all over Facebook or Twitter accounts, those same people are very concerned with privacy, apparently.
If you can’t shop Amazon in peace, you might just decide no more online shopping at all.
Amazon is acting a lot less like our computer overlord and more like a stalwart defender of freedom. Amazon’s motion cites numerous examples, complete with dramatic language, of courts restricting the government’s right to learn about the public’s reading habits.
We have willingly given up a lot of our privacy. Its only logical that will come back to bite us. If you think the same company that reads your email and social media posts and uses that information to make billions of dollars has suddenly decided to guard your privacy, you are probably relying on the wrong party to protect those rights.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Control Alexa Echo from anywhere in the World
http://hackaday.com/2017/03/09/control-alexa-echo-from-anywhere-in-the-world/
If you are not within ear-shot of your Alexa Echo, Dot or Tap device and need to command it from anywhere in the world, you’d most likely use the handy mobile app or web interface to control it. For some strange reason, if you’d rather use voice commands from anywhere in the world, you can still do it using apps such as Alexa Listens or Reverb, among many others. We’d be the first ones to call these out and say “It’s not a hack”. But [pat dhens] approach is above reproach! He has posted details on how to Remote Control the Alexa Echo from Anywhere in the World. Short version of the hack — he’s using a Raspberry Pi with a speaker attached to it which commands his Alexa Tap using a text-to-speech converter program.
The long version is short as well. The user uses a VPN, such as OpenVPN, to log in to their home network where the Alexa device is located. Then, use VNC to connect to the Raspberry Pi to access its shell. Finally, the user issues a text command which is converted to speech by the ‘festival‘ program on the Raspberry Pi. The output goes to an external speaker via the Raspberry Pi’s 3.5 mm audio out jack. And that’s all there is to it. You’ve just issued a voice command to your Alexa from across the world.
Remote Control the Alexa Echo from Anywhere in the World
http://www.whiskeytangohotel.com/2017/03/remote-control-alexa-echo-from-anywhere.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
A Little IoT for Your PID Tea Kettle
http://hackaday.com/2017/03/09/a-little-iot-for-your-pid-tea-kettle/
For some folks, tea is a simple pleasure – boil water, steep tea, enjoy. There are those for whom tea is a sacred ritual, though, and the precise temperature control they demand requires only the finest in water heating technology. And then there are those who take things even further by making a PID-controlled electric tea kettle an IoT device with Amazon Echo integration.
IoTea Kettle
Adding WiFi/MQTT/SmartThings/Alexa control to my Tea Kettle
https://hackaday.io/project/20217-iotea-kettle
The Bonavita BV382510V Electric Kettle is a PID-controlled hot water kettle that is in widespread use in specialty coffee shops around the world. Unlike a normal tea kettle, this unit can be programmed to bring the water to a particular temperature and will hold it there within a degree. For folks obsessed with coffee quality, this is important. What it won’t do is respond to voice commands. For folks obsessed with hacking on pointless projects, this is also important. I set myself to fixing this oversight with the help of an Wemos D1 Mini ESP8266 and a custom shield.
Tomi Engdahl says:
WiFi-Switch
Modular ESP8266 Wi-Fi switch to the installation in switch boxes.
https://hackaday.io/project/20035-wifi-switch
The WiFi switch consists of three PCBs.
Part 1 = Switch and Display
Part 2 = WLAN and Logic Stuff
Part 3 = Power and Powerswitch
As a basis I use a switch from “JUNG”:
Frame: “AS 581″
Switch: “AS 506″
The PCBs are compatible with other switches with EU standards like GIRA, Becker up to Part 1 since the PCB is different in size, I will test this later.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bluey
Nordic nRF52832 BLE development board with Temperature/Humidity/Light/Accelerometer sensors.
https://hackaday.io/project/19962-bluey
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why TSN is so Important for Embedded This Year
http://forums.ni.com/t5/NI-Blog/Why-TSN-is-so-Important-for-Embedded-This-Year/ba-p/3585075?cid=Facebook-70131000001RoznAAC-Northern_Region-SF_TSNImp_EW
A roadblock for the IIoT: non-converged networks
The solve: time-sensitive networking (TSN)
Didier: We worked on a way to converge the two successfully, using TSN – which allowed IT and OT data flows to flow together in a converged network undisturbed.
Three primary capabilities of TSN
Precise time synchronization: accomplished via a standard of IEEE 802.1as, based on 1588, the precision time protocol that’s been around for about 10 years.
Traffic scheduling: Combining time synchronization with traffic management, to deliver latency guarantees. Each switch identifies the time-critical data and places it in a special queue. The pitch then forwards each of these packets at very specific times.
System configuration: Taking a page out of software-defined networking (SDN), this abstracts the network configuration from the end application configuration.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Can this help embedded engineers keep pace with IoT challenges?
http://www.electropages.com/2017/03/can-this-help-embedded-engineers-keep-pace-with-iot-challenges/?utm_campaign=&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=article&utm_content=Can+this+help+embedded+engineers+keep+pace+with+IoT+challenges%3F
We’re all subjected to the relentless hyperbole expounding the theory that the Internet of Things (IoT) will revolutionise connectivity and make the world a better, more intelligent and efficient place to be in.
Whether or not you believe all or some of that there is no denying that the embedded hard and software technologies that can make this apparent epidemic of connectivityitus a reality are seeing massive market growth with predictions the market size is expected to exceed US$260 billion by 2023. Prime drivers of that growth being the IoT, medical, automotive and domestic applications.
However, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows for the design engineers that have to make the technology work in those applications. The fundamental problem is that engineering organsiations are struggling to keep pace with the escalating rate of IoT design demands.
Engineers are constantly faced with questions when it comes to choosing components. Are they compatible with the same OS and how should they be configured? Will they interoperate and will combining certain embedded products meet validation and certification requirements?
Getting these answers right is essential if embedded projects involving IDE, compilers, debuggers, trace tools, test tools, debug and flash programming hardware, target operating system are going to be successfully concluded.
So can the news that a bunch of companies in the embedded tools industry have got together to form the Embedded Tools Alliance (ETA) bring much needed design solace to pressurised embedded system engineers?
Well according to new kid on the embedded block, ETA, the embedded marketplace is fragmented with a huge number of suppliers. Some large companies try to offer every component required. This approach stagnates innovation says ETA and provides limited choice and doesn’t allow customers to choose best-in-class solutions to address their project’s specific needs. Strong words.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Week In Review: IoT
NASA goes wireless in orbit; CIA spying and privacy; IoT for retail.
http://semiengineering.com/the-week-in-review-iot-43/
NASA this week deployed its latest Technology Educational Satellite, TechEdSat-5, from the International Space Station. The satellite, said to be about the size of a fire extinguisher, will provide wireless data communications for ISS payloads and other satellites. TechEdSat-5 has Digi XBee 802.15.4 modules from Digi International to use in the test program.
Kepware says Teel Plastics is using the IoT Gateway for the KEPServerEX platform, connected with Allen-Bradley and Siemens programmable logic controllers
VIMOC Technologies has introduced the neuBox IoT edge computing device with an integrated embedded platform for artificial intelligence applications. The computer uses Nvidia’s Jetson TX1 card for the AI capabilities.
CalAmp brought out the AssetOutlook telematics application for IoT in construction asset management.
Maxim Integrated Products has introduced the MAXREFDES155# DeepCover embedded security reference design
The reference design is priced at $125 and available at Maxim’s website and select franchised distributors. The company is also offering the MAX32600MBED# development platform for programming the reference design, priced at $49 and available at the same sources.
Mike Krell of Moor Insights & Strategy analyzes Mobile World Congress announcements about 5G, LTE-NB1 (aka NB-IoT), and LTE-M1 in this article. He writes, “5G, LTE-M1 and LTE-NB1 have all made great strides in the last year, but the truth is we have a long, long way to go before these technologies are fully deployed and able to produce significant IoT revenues for the companies involved.”
Consumerist, part of a not-for-profit subsidiary of Consumer Reports, is launching a project to develop an open-source privacy standard for the Internet of Things. All are welcome to participate.
Freckle IoT has more than 50 million mobile devices around the world, providing deterministic, in-store location data.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hype Vs. Reality: When Will Internet Of Things Networks Appear?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/moorinsights/2017/03/08/hype-vs-reality-when-will-internet-of-things-networks-appear/#fc2ea0eb45f2
If you attended Mobile World Congress last week, as I did, you probably expect to see 5G networks and applications take over the world next week, next month, or at a minimum next year. Under the radar, and if you looked closer, you also saw signs of the new 4G extensions focused on Internet of Things connectivity, LTE-NB1 (formerly NB-IoT) and LTE-M1, which seem to be on this “same” timeline. In the world of IoT, 5G as well as LTE-NB and LTE-M, are critical to carriers being able to offer connectivity options tailored for IoT applications at acceptable price-points, to really make the magic of every device being connected a reality.
The truth is that developing and deploying new network standards is not an easy task. It takes time to specify, develop, test and deploy new networks. It takes even more time for the hardware and software ecosystem that uses the networks to evolve. Standards development is a messy business, with many large multi-national enterprises involved putting billions of dollars on the line.
5G, LTE-M1 and LTE-NB1 have all made great strides in the last year, but the truth is we have a long, long way to go before these technologies are fully deployed and able to produce significant IoT revenues for the companies involved.
5G, though gaining the majority of the press, and probably all the marketing, is much further off than either LTE-M or LTE-NB.
5G will require a significant upgrade of the current LTE network. In addition, it’s about more than IoT / data. It’s also about upgrading the network for voice and video, and these two items have distinctly different characteristics than much of the IoT data. Given this fact, we may see 5G data deployed in pieces with 5G data available prior to 5G for handsets and voice/video connectivity.
I don’t expect to see massive 5G deployments until 2020 and later—and that may be optimistic.
LTE-M and LTE-NB, on the other hand, are built on top of the current LTE infrastructure, making them a simpler (though by no means simple) upgrade to the existing network. Though both of these technologies are targeted at IoT applications, LTE-M has higher performance, supports voice and is better suited to mobile applications, such as asset tracking. LTE-NB is lower performance and cost and is targeted more at simpler and non-moving applications, like water meters. Both technologies are in trials now, with LTE-M slightly ahead
Always remember that when it comes to 5G, LTE-NB and LTE-M, what you hear is always dependent on who you’re hearing it from. Each player has an agenda and is looking to monetize these new networks ASAP, as well as being labeled the technology leader.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Austen Hufford / Wall Street Journal:
Intel to buy Mobileye, maker of chip-based camera systems for semi-automated driving, for $15.3B at $63.54 a share, a 34% premium to its Friday closing price — Deal marks latest investment by a technology company in the future of self-driving cars — Intel Corp. on Monday said it struck …
Intel Joins Silicon Valley’s Race to Make Best ‘Server on Wheels’
Acquisition marks latest investment by a technology company in the future of autonomous cars
https://www.wsj.com/articles/intel-to-buy-mobileye-for-15-3-billion-1489404970?mod=e2tw
Acquisition marks latest investment by a technology company in the future of autonomous cars
Intel has struck deal to acquire Mobileye for about $15.3 billion, the latest technology company to invest in the expanding autonomous cars business.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Wireless Wearable Watches your Vital Signs
http://hackaday.com/2017/03/13/wireless-wearable-watches-your-vital-signs/
Is it [Dr. McCoy]’s long-awaited sickbay biobed, with wireless sensing and display of vital signs? Not quite, but this wearable patient monitor comes pretty close. And from the look of it, [Arthur]’s system might even monitor a few more parameters than [Bones]’ bleeping bed from the original series.
Starting with an automatic blood pressure cuff that [Arthur] had previously reversed engineered, he started adding sensors. Pulse, ECG, respiration rate, galvanic skin response, and body temperature are all measured from one compact, wrist-wearable device. It’s not entirely wireless – the fingertip pulse oximetry dongle and chest electrodes still need to be wired back to the central unit – but the sensors all talk to a Teensy 3.2 which then communicates to an Android app over Bluetooth
BigCorvus/Physio
https://github.com/BigCorvus/Physio
A versatile wireless monitoring device that combines ECG, impedance pneumography, photoplethysmography, SPO2 calculation, galvanic skin response, NIBP wrist measurement as well as well as body temperature measurement in one wearable.