Here is a list f IoT predictions for year 2018. With the number of connected devices set to top 11 billion – and that’s not including computers and phones – in 2018, Internet of Things will clearly continue to be a hot topic. Here is my prediction list:
1. Artifical Intelligence – it will be talked a lot
2. Blockchain – blockchain will be hyped to be a solution for many IoT problems, and it will turn out that it is not the best solution for most of problems it is hyped for – and maybe it will find few sensible uses for it in IoT. Blockchain can add immutability and integrity to some IoT transactions.
3. 4G mobile for IoT: NB-IoT and LTE-M are ready to be tested or used in many markets
4. 5G will be hyped a lot for IoT applications but it is nowhere near for any real big IoT use cases
6. Security issues will be talked a lot. IoT security is far from solved issue.
7. Privacy issues of IoT will be talked a lot when our homes and pockets are starting to be filled with ever listening digital assistants.
8. Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) will be massive
9. More CPU power will be added or used in the edge. Pushing processing power to the “edge” brings a number of benefits and opportunities.
10. Hardware based security: Hardware based security on microprocessors will be talked a lot after “Meltdown” and “Spectre” disaster
Links to more predictions:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielnewman/2017/12/19/the-top-8-iot-trends-for-2018/#17a9943267f7
https://www.ibm.com/blogs/internet-of-things/top-5-iot-trends-in-2018/
https://www.inc.com/james-paine/3-internet-of-things-trends-to-watch-in-2018.html
https://www.i-scoop.eu/iot-2018-1/
https://dzone.com/articles/iot-trends-for-2018
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Report Quantifies Financial Benefits of 5G
https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1333083
The momentum for 5G is rolling on in the UK, with the release of a report this week from mobile network operator O2 estimating that 5G will generate £6 billion (about $8.35 billion) in productivity savings for the UK economy.
“The value of 5G for cities and communities” report outlines how 5G will update the operating systems of cities, making them smarter and creating tangible benefits for citizens and local councils. The report attempts to quantify the financial benefits in healthcare, transport, energy, retail and commerce.
In transportation for example, the O2 report suggests that 5G sensors on railway lines will drive improvements in predictive maintenance, reclaiming an estimated $613 million in lost productivity for the UK economy and regaining the average rail commuter 2.6 hours a year. Meanwhile, 5G-enabled road management systems, able to respond seamlessly to traffic volumes, will reduce the time spent stuck in traffic by 10% for the UK’s 5.6 million vehicle commuters, according to the report.
The value of 5G for cities and communities
https://d10wc7q7re41fz.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Smart-Cities-Report.pdf
Tomi Engdahl says:
Startup Runs Spiking Neural Network on Arm
https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1333080
Eta Compute, a startup that demonstrated last summer at Hot Chips a very low power microcontroller using asynchronous technology, has come up with a new spin that it calls “the industry’s first neuromorphic platform.”
In announcing the availability of its latest SoC platform IC based on TSMC’s 55nm ULP process, Paul Washkewicz, vice president of marketing and a co-founder of Eta Compute, Wednesday (March 15) pitched it as an ideal platform for “delivering neuromorphic computing based machine intelligence to mobile and edge devices.”
But wait. When did Eta Compute’s 0.25V IoT chip, from Hot Chips last year, become a “neuromorphic computing” engine? Did the startup pivot slightly in strategy? Washkewicz explained that Eta ventured down the path of “machine intelligence,” when “customers started telling us that they want a little bit more intelligence on the edge.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mitigate Stress and Angst Over IoT Embedded Software Development
http://www.electronicdesign.com/embedded-revolution/mitigate-stress-and-angst-over-iot-embedded-software-development?code=NN6TI108&utm_rid=CPG05000002750211&utm_campaign=15904&utm_medium=email&elq2=1277cda1e00c441a9015102d751b0287
Sponsored by Texas Instruments: Software tools like those available with the SimpleLink Platform and SDK offer an easier way to develop more code sooner.
Virtually every electronic product contains at least one embedded controller. For that reason, it’s safe to say that at some point every design ultimately becomes a software development project. That makes software design and coding the critical chore of the project. The result is a massive amount of stress and responsibility on the engineer or team creating the software. The hardware is dead in the water until the code comes along.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://blog.hackster.io/announcing-the-winners-of-the-alexa-and-arduino-smart-home-challenge-6d7cd56bf5b2
Tomi Engdahl says:
Introducing the IoT Without Limits Challenge!
https://blog.hackster.io/introducing-the-iot-without-limits-challenge-ed7dcbb5e62b
Helium, SparkFun and Google Cloud IoT are coming together to give away $16,000 in cold, hard cash in the name of IoT and distributed sensing applications
Tomi Engdahl says:
How the Industrial Internet of Things Is Changing the Face of Manufacturing
http://theinstitute.ieee.org/technology-topics/smart-technology/how-the-industrial-internet-of-things-is-changing-the-face-of-manufacturing
New networks could reduce maintenance costs and make workplaces safer
Manufacturing is undergoing a digital revolution. All types of machinery—old and new—is being embedded with sensors, switches, and intelligent controls to generate data and send it over the Internet, all in the service of making factories smarter. It’s the industrial Internet of Things (IIoT).
A huge amount of useful data is trapped in factory-floor machines. If captured, the data could be applied to improve operations, reduce costs, and make for a safer workplace. The ability to predict when a machine needs servicing instead of waiting until it breaks down, for example, could reduce overall maintenance costs by about 30 percent, and also could lead to nearly 70 percent fewer breakdowns, according to an IIoT report from Accenture, a global management consulting company.
“The idea behind IIoT is to connect independent things—machines, robots, and humans—and use that intelligence to get much more value from them together than you can individually,”
TRADITIONAL SYSTEMS
Attempts to make factories more intelligent are nothing new. Supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems have been on factory floors for years. Through networked data communications and graphical user interfaces, they gather data on the processes, send it to computers, and issue commands to connected devices. But SCADA systems don’t “talk” to other systems, like logistics or production, nor is the data that SCADAs generate analyzed in any meaningful way.
“Most people think the IIoT is the sensors and data on the SCADA dashboard, but that’s just scratching the surface,” Garg says. “The value of IIoT comes from what you do with that data.”
“Companies have always had access to the data, but they had to develop the software to give the data value. That took a lot of time and testing,”
WORTH THE PRICE?
The cost to have a large service provider such as General Electric or Siemens install an IIoT system can run into hundreds of thousands if not millions of U.S. dollars. But a startup like Dattus handles smaller installations and charges much less. Manufacturers can also retrofit their equipment themselves with smart sensors and components, or they can buy machines with such features built in.
Eaton, for example, offers on-line partial-discharge sensors that continuously monitor the insulation integrity of medium-voltage equipment so as to identify low-level capacitive discharge activity prior to insulation failure.Similarly, new protective relays on large machines use algorithms to measure high-frequency motor-current signatures to detect cracked or broken rotor bars, firing off an alert before there’s a mechanical failure. What’s more, industrial motor control centers now come equipped with intelligent motor management relays and human-machine interface dashboards. The idea is to optimize productivity by communicating data about system health for plant-wide process control and maintenance.
The return on investment in the smart devices comes from operational efficiencies and workplace safety.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Inside Amazon’s quest to make a different kind of Echo
Giving the Spot personality required a fresh approach.
https://www.engadget.com/2018/03/08/amazon-echo-spot-making-of/
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Week in Review: IoT
UK policy report; IoT ‘missiles’; Qualcomm saga.
https://semiengineering.com/the-week-in-review-iot-89/
The United Kingdom government issued a policy report, Secure by Design, calling on Internet of Things device manufacturers to eliminate default passwords, to provide greater transparency in vulnerability disclosure, and to secure credential storage. The report urges shifting cybersecurity responsibility to IoT device vendors, rather than end-users, and protecting the privacy rights of consumers.
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/686089/Secure_by_Design_Report_.pdf
The Internet of Things poses an “Internet of Trouble” threat to national security with its devices so easily susceptible to cyberattacks, Morgan Wright of the Center for Digital Government notes in this analysis. “The point is that poorly secured technology – a vast majority of it from overseas – is being cobbled together to form a massively destructive cyber weapon being aimed at the United States. IoT is taking slingshots and turning them into missiles,”
Broadcom won’t be acquiring Qualcomm after the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States recommended that the proposed transaction be blocked on national-security grounds
Meanwhile, Qualcomm still must deal with completing its acquisition of NXP Semiconductors and resolving its legal disputes with Apple and the Federal Trade Commission over its business practices.
Gartner forecasts that more than 65% of enterprises will adopt IoT products by 2020, with smart city and IIoT applications leading the field. This blog post looks at the combination of IoT with machine learning technology.
Juniper Research predicts worldwide spending on cybersecurity solutions will reach $134 billion by 2022, with small businesses accounting for most of those expenditures.
Samsung Electronics is bringing together two of its acquisitions, having Samsung SmartThings’ R&D team and HARMAN Connected Services collaborate on an IoT platform
Silicon Labs introduced two Power over Ethernet Powered Device lines for IoT applications.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Gartner forecasts that more than 65% of enterprises will adopt IoT products by 2020, with smart city and IIoT applications leading the field. This blog post looks at the combination of IoT with machine learning technology. The pairing can be useful in anomaly monitoring, predictive maintenance, and vehicle telemetry.
Machine learning and the Internet of Things
http://www.zdnet.com/article/machine-learning-and-the-internet-of-things/
Gartner predicts that more than 65 percent of enterprises will adopt IoT products by the year 2020.
The growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) market in recent years is hard to ignore. According to Forbes, the global IoT market will grow from $157 billion to $457 billion between the year 2016 and 2020. The major contributors to the investment include leading industries like manufacturing, logistics, and transportation.
When it comes to sectors that dominate this investment, smart city initiatives and industrial IoT top the chart by owning more than 50 percent of the market. Gartner predicts that more than 65 percent of enterprises will adopt IoT products by the year 2020.
The heart of this process and what drives the real business value is encapsulated in the third stage of this activity chain, which is ‘Transformation and Analytics’. This is the stage where the data is inspected and decisions are made. These decisions will directly influence the actions that will optimise business flows.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Everything is too complicated
What are you assuming people already know?
https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/7/16861056/ces-2018-bad-assumptions-smart-assistants-tech-confusion
The tech industry is starting to make assumptions faster than anyone can keep up
Why doesn’t all this stuff work better together?
Tomi Engdahl says:
Report Quantifies Financial Benefits of 5G
https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1333083
The momentum for 5G is rolling on in the UK, with the release of a report this week from mobile network operator O2 estimating that 5G will generate £6 billion (about $8.35 billion) in productivity savings for the UK economy.
“The value of 5G for cities and communities” report outlines how 5G will update the operating systems of cities, making them smarter and creating tangible benefits for citizens and local councils. The report attempts to quantify the financial benefits in healthcare, transport, energy, retail and commerce.
In transportation for example, the O2 report suggests that 5G sensors on railway lines will drive improvements in predictive maintenance, reclaiming an estimated $613 million in lost productivity for the UK economy and regaining the average rail commuter 2.6 hours a year. Meanwhile, 5G-enabled road management systems, able to respond seamlessly to traffic volumes, will reduce the time spent stuck in traffic by 10% for the UK’s 5.6 million vehicle commuters, according to the report.
Commuters will also be better connected to street-level data via mobile journey planning apps linked to connected street furniture such as lamp posts and bus stops, helping them better plan journeys and avoid congested routes, according to the report.
https://d10wc7q7re41fz.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Smart-Cities-Report.pdf
Tomi Engdahl says:
Linux Foundation backs new ‘ACRN’ hypervisor for embedded and IoT
Intel tosses in code because data centre hypervisors are too bloated for embedded use
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/03/19/acrn_hypervizor_prject/
The Linux Foundation has announced a new hypervisor for use in embedded and internet of things scenarios.
Project ACRN (pronounced “acorn”) will offer a “hypervisor, and its device model complete with rich I/O mediators.”
There’ll also be “a Linux-based Service OS” and the ability to “run guest operating systems (another Linux instance, an RTOS, Android, or other operating systems) simultaneously”.
The Linux Foundation already hosts the Xen Project, which has an effort under way to adapt that hypervisor for embedded and automotive applications. Xen has made that effort a priority after Amazon Web Services signalled its hypervisor will not be its long-term choice, as The Reg revealed last year.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why do the Vast Majority of Applications Still Not Undergo Security Testing?
https://www.securityweek.com/why-do-vast-majority-applications-still-not-undergo-security-testing
Did you know that 84% of all cyber attacks target applications, not networks? What’s even more curious is that 80% of Internet of Things (IoT) applications aren’t even tested for security vulnerabilities.
It is 2018, and despite all the evidence around us, we haven’t fully accepted the problem at hand when it comes to software security. Because we haven’t accepted the problem, we are not making progress in addressing the associated vulnerabilities. Which is why after an active 2017, we are already seeing numerous new attacks before we leave the first quarter of the year.
So why the lack of progress?
The evidence that software is a primary attack point is everywhere, yet many choose to ignore security testing—at least for four out of every five IoT applications running today. Since IoT has proven to be an attractive attack vector, one would think that securing them would be of the utmost importance. Apparently not.
Effectively evaluating secure code
The RSA Conference will be upon us in April, and a trip through the exhibit hall will find numerous application security testing (AST) vendors of all shapes, sizes, and approaches, each breathlessly promising you they are the one silver bullet you need to test your software security. At best they are telling you a partial truth, as the nature of today’s software demands multiple tests to comprehensively evaluate the security of any application. That is because applications contain three specific components where vulnerabilities can be found, and each must be tested in a different way for security testing to be complete.
1. The code you write. In spite of the adoption of open source and the move to agile methodologies, one thing remains constant: Your coders still write code. Source code analysis (static analysis) is designed to find security vulnerabilities and quality issues in your code as it’s being developed.
2. The code you get from open source. With the growing use of open source, the amount of code from external sources in any application is rising exponentially. This open source code may contain profound vulnerabilities that immediately become part of your software. Software composition analysis (SCA) detects open source and third-party component risks in development and production. It also identifies potential licensing issues in open source code used in your applications.
3. The running application. When code is deployed on the web, the runtime environment must be tested for vulnerabilities through dynamic testing. Testing the application in its running state will reveal problems simply not detectable by static analysis. For high-risk applications, many organizations step up their game by including the human element in the dynamic testing process in the form of ethical hacking.
Getting a sense of the problem here? Taking IoT as a widespread example, 80% of these applications are not tested at all. For the one-fifth that does receive some form of testing, the testing is likely incomplete. And we already established that many organizations find but do not fix problems.
No wonder the news in 2018 sounds all too familiar.
So how do you move your organization forward? While I do not have a silver bullet for you, I do have practical advice:
● Rebalance your IT security priorities and budgets to shift the emphasis where the problem exists—software security.
● Build a software security group that can then construct and manage a rational and comprehensive software testing program.
● Employ tools and programs that empower developers to write secure, quality software from the start. Building security in is a far better approach than trying to test yourself clean.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Digital Disruption: Shaping the Future of the Auto Industry
http://www.electronicdesign.com/automotive/digital-disruption-shaping-future-auto-industry?NL=ED-004&Issue=ED-004_20180320_ED-004_897&sfvc4enews=42&cl=article_2_b&utm_rid=CPG05000002750211&utm_campaign=16024&utm_medium=email&elq2=d1a3a71755c04804b573b3ddf3d5c10f
Automakers have been keeping a steady pace of technology innovation and manufacturing excellence for over a century. Since the breakthrough of the highly efficient assembly line, auto manufacturers were in the forefront of engineering innovation, designing and building cars that were successively better, safer and cleaner. For many decades, the industry has been at the center of the US economic development, and, to many, an industrial and social icon.
But over the past decade or so, the iconic and seemingly stable industry has been in turmoil. It has been undergoing massive changes caused by the cumulative effect of rapid technology innovation, disruptive business models, aggressive new competitors, and an emerging supply chain ecosystem whose full impact is not fully comprehended yet.
One of the most profound changes the auto industry is grappling with is the emergence of connected and autonomous cars. Most industry visionaries and practitioners portray a bold vision of a future in which cars, occupants, and cloud-based information and control systems communicate and exchange information in the omnipresent Internet of Things cloud. Cars are becoming part of the Internet, or, in today’s parlance, they are yet additional, if unconventional, “things” in the Internet of Things (IoT).
Connected to your mobile device, a digital infrastructure, and a wealth of streamed cloud-based content and services, your car isn’t a just car anymore. It is an information center; it’s your wallet; it’s your office on wheels.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The world’s first cloud-connected air heat pump
Domestic heating equipment manufacturer Gebwell has supplied an Aries geothermal heat pump, which can be remotely controlled by a mobile application. The new pump is constantly in the cloud control center.
Gebwell, a heating equipment manufacturer, has been launching a completely new type of geothermal heat pump that uses the internet, remote controlled by a mobile application. The Aries device is the first of its kind in the world.
The Aries geothermal heat pump is always wirelessly connected to the Gebwell Smart Cloud Control, which monitors the operation of the device. The user can manually control the device via an easy-to-use mobile application and wireless network created by the heat pump.
Aries has been pre-connected to the Gebwell Smart board at the factory so the pump is always in Gebwell remote control. Remote control gives the user a casual user experience and factory technical support for the device. The Gebwell Smart Pilot Booth monitors the status of each unit in real time, which is completely new in the field of technical support for heat pumps.
By analyzing the collected data, it is possible to create predictive models for future geothermal heat pump control to optimize heating and anticipate system maintenance needs.
Source:
https://www.uusiteknologia.fi/2018/03/20/iot-ohjaus-lampopumppuun-alya-termostaatteihin/
http://www.etn.fi/index.php/13-news/7728-maailman-ensimmainen-pilveen-kytketty-ilmalampopumppu
Tomi Engdahl says:
Danish Danfoss will offer a Bluetooth-based room thermostat.
One of the newest is Danish Danfoss mobile-controlled Eco thermostat with Bluetooth connectivity. The thermostat settings of the new thermostat can be adjusted either by turning the controller or using the smartphone application and via Bluetooth.
For a mobile application, the thermostat also has the time to automatically switch to a lower temperature, for example at times when no one is in the apartment.
The app is available on Android and Apple iPhone iOS operating systems.
Source: https://www.uusiteknologia.fi/2018/03/20/iot-ohjaus-lampopumppuun-alya-termostaatteihin/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Feed the dog and close the door with an open source home automation system
https://opensource.com/article/18/3/smart-home-assistant?sc_cid=7016000000127ECAAY
Home Assistant, a versatile and lightweight open source tool, makes it easy to automate everyday household tasks.
As voice assistants, smart bulbs, and other devices increasingly become household staples, more people than ever are bringing smart technology into their homes. But the bewildering assortment of products on the market can present challenges: Remembering which app to use and trying to link things together with automation can get complicated quickly. In this article, I’ll show you a few ways I used an open source home automation platform, Home Assistant, to bring all my devices together.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Amazon adds fingerprint authentication to Key app for Android
https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/20/amazon-adds-fingerprint-authentication-to-key-app-for-android/?utm_source=tcfbpage&sr_share=facebook
The Key app was announced in October, alongside the Cloud Cam, which lets users watch goings on in their homes as delivery professionals come in and out of their space.
Given that the app essentially controls who gets in and out of your home, it would be problematic if your phone got into the hands of someone malicious. So Amazon has added an additional layer of security, your fingerprint, to the Android version of the app.
Amazon recently acquired smart doorbell maker Ring in a deal reportedly valued at $1.1 billion, which presumably furthers the mission of truly last mile deliveries. Late last year, Amazon also acquired security startup Blink for a reported $90 million.
But Amazon isn’t the only one dabbling in in-home deliveries. WalMart partnered with August Lock last year to allow delivery people to bring groceries and other goods all the way into the home and put them away.
Tomi Engdahl says:
IoT Without Limits
https://www.hackster.io/contests/Helium
Build IoT solutions with Helium, SparkFun, and Google Cloud IoT!
Tomi Engdahl says:
IBM working on ‘world’s smallest computer’ to attach to just about everything
https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/19/ibm-working-on-worlds-smallest-computer-to-attach-to-just-about-everything/
IBM is hard at work on the problem of ubiquitous computing, and its approach, understandably enough, is to make a computer small enough that you might mistake it for a grain of sand. Eventually these omnipresent tiny computers could help authenticate products, track medications and more.
It’s an evolution of IBM’s “crypto anchor” program, which uses a variety of methods to create what amounts to high-tech watermarks for products that verify they’re, for example, from the factory the distributor claims they are, and not counterfeits mixed in with genuine items.
The “world’s smallest computer,” as IBM continually refers to it, is meant to bring blockchain capability into this; the security advantages of blockchain-based logistics and tracking could be brought to something as benign as a bottle of wine or box of cereal.
In addition to getting the computers extra-tiny, IBM intends to make them extra-cheap, perhaps 10 cents apiece. So there’s not much of a lower limit on what types of products could be equipped with the tech.
Not only that, but the usual promises of ubiquitous computing also apply: this smart dust could be all over the place, doing little calculations, sensing conditions, connecting with other motes and the internet to allow… well, use your imagination.
It’s small (about 1mm x 1mm), but it still has the power of a complete computer, albeit not a hot new one. With a few hundred thousand transistors, a bit of RAM, a solar cell and a communications module, it has about the power of a chip from 1990. And we got a lot done on those, right?
Tomi Engdahl says:
LoRa leads to a tightening IoT mesh crash
Soon it begins. Millions of sensors are sent by continuous feed to either local computation or cloud computing. But what of the available networking technologies will win? The race is getting hot, says Analysys Mason.
According to the research institute, 74 LoRa-based networks were introduced at the end of last year. There were 68 NB-IoT networks operating on mobile networks, Sigfox networks 48 and LTE-M based networks 26. All of these numbers grew clearly during the year.
According to Analysys Mason, figures only indicate that the winner can not yet be declared. Even Sigfox, whose growth slowed last year, succeeded in increasing eighteen networks into its rostrum.
NB-IoT is of course an interesting technique, as many operators are just preparing to launch their own service packages. NB-IoT works on LTE frequencies, but requires changes to the base station. Therefore, the network will be expanded gradually, as required.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7738&via=n&datum=2018-03-21_15:02:23&mottagare=31202
Tomi Engdahl says:
IoT Designers Seek Multimode Connectivity
https://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1333081
Adding multiple radio chips to a basic microcontroller-based design can be complicated and costly. A better solution is to choose a multiprotocol IoT processor.
IoT designers address a wide range of applications, but a growing number aren’t satisfied with a single connectivity protocol. This situation arises most often in the smart home, where a lack of standards (or more precisely, a superfluity of them) requires products to connect in a variety of ways. Even some industrial systems can take advantage of a multimode radio. These situations are driving demand for processors with multiple radios.
Tomi Engdahl says:
TSN solves measurement and control challenges
http://www.controleng.com/single-article/tsn-solves-measurement-and-control-challenges/269f599a75420de83314d8d38f76ae96.html
Time-sensitive networking (TSN) is an evolution of standard Ethernet and adds the bounded latency and guaranteed bandwidth provided by hard real-time Ethernet, which is crucial as more devices are connected to the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT).
Of the 50 billion devices it is said will be connected by the year 2020, experts estimate that the industrial sector will account for nearly half. This means that engineers and scientists have a big voice when it comes to implementing the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) across factories, test laboratories, power grids, refineries, and infrastructure.
The global processing industry is an early adopter of IIoT, and it’s easy to see why. Unscheduled asset downtime in the industry costs $20 billion annually, 80% of which is preventable, according to ARC Advisory Group. However, it’s not just the global processing industry that can benefit from IIoT. Among business leaders, 95% expect their companies to use the IIoT within the next 36 months.
Engineers can expect to gain three key benefits:
Increased uptime with predictive maintenance
Boosted performance with control at the edge
Improved product design and manufacturing through connected, real-world data.
A few challenges arise when attempting to develop such a system:
Synchronizing the potentially thousands of channels and numerous measurement systems
Synchronizing the control systems such that all actuation happens at the correct time
Synchronizing the measurements and control systems.
These challenges are further exaggerated as systems grow, and more measurement and control capabilities are added to an application. Synchronizing measurement systems with other measurement systems, and control systems with other control systems, is not a new challenge. Typically, this can be achieved with signal-based methods, in which physical cabling is used to route a common time base or signal to distributed nodes. Unfortunately, this has limitations on distance and scalability, as well as a risk of noise.
Another possibility
Figure 2: Time-sensitive networking is the evolution of standard Ethernet to include time-based synchronization, traffic scheduling, and system configuration. Courtesy: National InstrumentsAnother option is to leverage a protocol built on top of a common standard like Ethernet. Ethernet offers openness and interoperability but has no bounds for latency or guarantees for bandwidth. To solve this challenge, custom versions of Ethernet, often referred to as Hard Real-Time Ethernet, have been developed. EtherCAT, Profinet, and EtherNet/IP are prime examples. These custom variants of Ethernet provide hard real-time performance and best-in-class latency and control. However, each variant includes both hardware and software modifications to network infrastructure, which increases costs and means different devices from different vendors cannot function on the same network.
A new technology to solve this synchronization challenge is coming to market now, called time-sensitive networking (TSN). TSN is an evolution of standard Ethernet that provides openness and interoperability but adds the bounded latency and guaranteed bandwidth provided by hard real-time Ethernet. Specifically, TSN delivers three key components: time-based synchronization, traffic scheduling, and system configuration. The synchronization capabilities are based on the IEEE 1588 precision time protocol profile, providing a sub-microsecond level of network synchronization. In addition, traffic scheduling and system configuration power deterministic data communication, so users can schedule and prioritize time-critical data (such as control signals) across the network.
An important aspect of TSN is the convergence of time-critical traffic and other Ethernet traffic. Because TSN is a feature of the Ethernet standard, the new capabilities of time synchronization and deterministic communication run over the same network as other network communication. This means a single port on the measurement or control system can perform deterministic communication while also updating remote user interface terminals and supporting file transfer.
TSN is a key enhancement for many industrial applications, such as process and machine control, in which low communication latency and minimal jitter are critical to meeting closed-loop control requirements. Time-based synchronization over Ethernet also minimizes cabling traditionally found in monitoring applications and physical system testing (like our structural example) leading to a simpler, cost-effective solution without sacrificing reliability.
Tomi Engdahl says:
2018 HMI Software and Hardware Study: Upward trends for HMIs
http://www.controleng.com/single-article/2018-hmi-software-and-hardware-study-upward-trends-for-hmis/4c8fd6fd07f9bf5d8bd7621dad09f640.html
The 2018 HMI Software and Hardware study revealed several upward trends on the usage of human-machine interface software and hardware.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Turning Big Data analytics into actionable information
http://www.controleng.com/single-article/turning-big-data-analytics-into-actionable-information/244bfc5e81c801b5b8b8766311628cb5.html
To be effective, Big Data analytics must deliver on the end-user experience, and not on the hype associated with artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Some might assume Big Data analytics is synonymous with machine learning (ML) or artificial intelligence (AI), but this is incorrect. Although some aspects of these technologies may be used in Big Data analytic applications, focusing only on them is sure to create confusion and inflate expectations. The hype around AI suggests automatic generation of insights when it is applied to Big Data. It yields results with little or no effort from the end user. The data analytics user experience, however, is quite different.
Given that a 10-year old function was repackaged, relabeled, and hyped as AI indicates confusion among the flavors of cognitive computing. Partly to blame is a lack of understanding about what constitutes AI, ML, deep learning, and other variations of “cognitive computing,” as well as the arguments about supervised and unsupervised variations.
This kind of hype is in contrast to the bitter reality, which shows a large percentage of collected data doesn’t even get analyzed or leveraged for insights by the engineers and analysts who could use it to produce actionable information.
Beyond the algorithm
Cognitive computing algorithms are an important part of the solution for analytics in process manufacturing and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) solutions, but only a part of it. Other aspects include data wrangling, which is the required data connectivity, cleansing, and contextualization to prepare data for use. The data analytics application’s focus must include these preparatory steps so results are accelerated from data connection to insight to distribution.
Finally, data analytics applications should enable users to expand and extend analytics to whatever level is required. End users will keep expanding the use of data analytics applications and the need for specific algorithms. Therefore, data analytics applications should include extensibility to additional algorithms through features such as REST API, OData, and integration of algorithms into the user experience.
When data analytics applications allow users to focus on the problem rather than the technology, desired results can be obtained quickly, as these use case examples show.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Philips Lighting reveals new name: Signify
http://www.ledsmagazine.com/articles/2018/03/philips-lighting-reveals-new-name-signify.html?eid=293591077&bid=2041952
The change reflects the industry’s new IoT lighting-and-beyond zeitgeist. Shareholder approval pending.
Philips Lighting, the world’s largest lighting company, has revealed its new name for the digital era in which the industry is widening its scope and morphing its identity: Signify.
Sounding as much Wittgenstein as lighting vendor, the company noted that the choice of Signify “originates from the fact that light becomes an intelligent language, which connects and conveys meaning.”
This Internet of Things (IoT) strategy would then position lighting vendors as gatherers and providers of monetized data that will help run operations of all sorts. Just for a few examples, smart street lights will help improve traffic flow and assist motorists in finding parking spaces. They could also monitor crime, noise, and air quality. Indoors, smart lights could help facility managers and retailers figure out how to better use space and track assets, they can engage shoppers with promotional offers and information.
Digitally-connected lighting systems also provide richer levels of control to users, to help them save energy, and to help them set lighting levels — including brightness, color, and CCT — at suitable levels. Such controls tie into the industry’s drive toward human-centric lighting, in which lighting conforms with peoples’ circadian needs and delivers varying levels of stimulation and relaxation as needed.
The 125-year-old company will continue to use the Philips brand on products.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Data is the new lighting as Philips unfurls IoT platform
http://www.ledsmagazine.com/articles/2018/03/data-is-the-new-lighting-as-philips-unfurls-iot-platform.html?eid=293591077&bid=2041952
All data, all the time: The company’s new Interact system continuously collects and analyzes information gathered from lighting and other sources.
In the biggest declaration yet that the Internet of Things represents the industry’s future, the world’s largest lighting company, Philips Lighting, unveiled an IoT platform that turns lighting into a byword for collecting and analyzing data about everything, everywhere.
Sounding as much the head of an IT company as a lighting company, CEO Eric Rondolat repeatedly emphasized the importance of data acquisition and analytics in introducing the new lights-to-cloud-and-back capability, called Interact.
“You can imagine all these devices — lamps, drivers, luminaires, sensors — being connected, sending information through software, and all this software sending this information back to a cloud-based platform, an IoT platform that is called Interact,” Rondolat said at the Light+Building exhibition in Frankfurt. “That platform is taking in account data security, data authentication, data storage, but also data analytics that we can, with our own services but also with open APIs with the services of third companies, be able to extract further value from the data.”
Minutes after Rondolat introduced Interact, Philips issued a press release that used the word “data” 17 times in noting that Interact “supports the company’s strategy to deliver new data-enabled services as value expands from lighting products and systems to services.”
Philips and many lighting vendors have been talking up such broad IoT lighting schemes for a couple of years, and some such as chipset company Gooee and others have already launched lights-to-cloud programs. But Interact is Philips first formal IoT “platform,” and coming from the industry leader, its introduction marks a symbolic coming out for the concept.
The press released noted: “Connected light points, sensors, and devices, as well as systems, can collect large volumes of data for which Interact was designed to handle. The highly secure, scalable cloud-based Interact platform uses sophisticated and modern data management and data processing capabilities, including machine learning, to bring sense to all manner of data — creating data-enabled services for customers that will deliver benefits beyond illumination. Interact will not only support customers to improve their lighting experiences but can also generate and upload data to the Interact IoT platform.”
The company is also providing industry specific software applications for different markets. It said that it is currently targeting five vertical markets: Interact City for public space lighting, roads, streets, pedestrian areas, parks, and plazas; Interact Landmark for architectural lighting; Interact Office for offices and commercial buildings; Interact Retail for large retail and food stores; and Interact Sports for stadiums. It plans to launch Interact Industry aimed at factories and warehouses later this year. It said other industries would follow.
Tomi Engdahl says:
These Tiny Sensors Attach Directly to Your Teeth and Monitor What You Eat
https://blog.hackster.io/these-tiny-sensors-attach-directly-to-your-teeth-and-monitor-what-you-eat-9397e22c24c5
Diet is important to most people—ABC News reports a annual revenue of $20 billion just for the US weight-loss industry. But, actually monitoring what you eat, which is arguably the most important part of maintaining a healthy diet, is quite difficult. For most people, it comes down to logging what you eat by guessing exact portion sizes and hoping you can find accurate nutrition information on the food itself.
They were able to create a tiny 2x2mm flexible sensor that mounts directly onto your tooth. As you eat or drink, the sensor wirelessly transmits information about the nutritional content to a receiver where it can be analyzed and logged.
That’s possible because the sensor uses a variation of RFID (radio-frequency identification) communication that lets it send data wirelessly without needing its own power source.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Russian Astronauts Prepare to Bring the ‘Internet of Animals’ Online
https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/aerospace/satellites/a-project-to-track-animals-from-space-is-getting-close-to-launch
An ambitious project to keep an eye on thousands of animals and birds from space in a sort of “Internet of Animals” is getting ready to kick off.
In February, German researchers sent three large 200-kilogram antennas to the International Space Station (ISS) on a Soyuz rocket. The antennas joined a computer that had been sent up in October. These pieces will be the ears and brain of ICARUS, short for International Cooperation for Animal Research Using Space, an initiative funded by the Russian and German space agencies to track the movement of the smallest animals—birds, turtles, fish, and even insects—and tap into swarm intelligence.
Icarus researchers will outfit animals with tiny sensor-laden tags that will send their data to the computer aboard the ISS, which will clean it up and beam it down to a smart, central database. “Technically, it’s an Internet of Things via satellite,”
Icarus is animal-tracking on steroids.
The German team has made tiny tags loaded with a GPS receiver, 3D accelerometer, and temperature, humidity, pressure, altitude, and heart rate sensors. The tags are also equipped with solar panels and rechargeable batteries. The smallest tags weigh 2.5 grams but the team is miniaturizing them further for songbirds and honeybees, Wikelski says.
Today’s geolocation tags burn a lot of power transmitting data via cellular networks or satellite systems. But Icarus tags use a special code-division multiple access (CDMA) coding scheme to communicate with satellites using very little power. Plus, the tags are interactive: scientists can ping them for additional data if needed. (The tags designed for fish will fall off and float to the surface in order to transmit.)
Tomi Engdahl says:
Network connectivity and device protection for industrial networks
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/print/volume-26/issue-2/features/design/network-connectivity-and-device-protection-for-industrial-networks.html?cmpid=enl_cim_cim_data_center_newsletter_2018-03-22&pwhid=e8db06ed14609698465f1047e5984b63cb4378bd1778b17304d68673fe5cbd2798aa8300d050a73d96d04d9ea94e73adc417b4d6e8392599eabc952675516bc0&eid=293591077&bid=2043038
Whether it’s fiber-optic cabling, single-pair copper, or anything in between, network gear for industrial environments must be housed and protected.
Forecasts predicting enormous growth for the Industrial Internet of Things market are easy to find. What’s not always as easy to find are cabling and networking solutions to effectively, efficiently outfit an industrial environment for the impending onslaught of data flow.
Transition Networks, provider of networking products and technologies, summarizes the situation on its website: “The network needs of industrial or hardened environments require rugged media converters, hardened Ethernet switches, and SFPs that can operate effectively and efficiently under extreme conditions.
“The proliferation of these technologies has expedited the need for industrial networks that can handle the large volumes of data efficiently, securely, and reliably. Industrial environments mandate a different class of products to handle the extreme temperatures, shock, vibration, dirt, and hazardous locations prone to explosion or fire. Products used in these applications need to be manufactured according to strict guidelines and tested to ensure compliance with industry standards.”
“The growing demand for power across IIOT-ready [Industrial Internet of Things] networks necessitates reliable PoE for both legacy equipment and new infrastructure,” said Jurgen Schmid, Belden product manager. “With these injectors, customers can now supply power-hungry devices without needing to rebuild infrastructure.”
Single-pair Ethernet
A technical brief recently published by Anixter explains the efforts currently underway within the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) to specify Ethernet over a single twisted copper pair.
“With the rapid growth of IoT and the need to provide cost-effective power, connectivity and security to billions of connected devices, there are gaps that exist in the current Ethernet wiring and application standards that limit the number of devices that can connect to the network via category-rated twisted-pair cabling,” it says. “The most notable gap is that the physical reach of twisted-pair cable cannot exceed 100 meters … Commercial lighting, building management solutions and physical security are examples of solutions that can take advantage of a standard that provides Ethernet-based distance support beyond 100 meters for both data and low-watt power delivery to endpoint devices.”
The Anixter brief then explains, “The IEEE 802.3 formed the 802.3cg Task Force to develop a standard to address device support [over] twisted-pair cabling beyond 100 meters. The standard—IEEE 802.3cg 10 Mb/s Single Twisted-Pair—envisions a unified network based on single-pair Ethernet as an alternative to the hugely fragmented fieldbus landscape.
“Single-pair Ethernet offers a more-cost-effective solution for connecting IoT devices to a network, which is essential in smart buildings, where all systems and devices are integrated with the network,” Anixter says. “While single-pair Ethernet lacks the higher data rate and remote powering capacities of traditional four-pair Ethernet, it provides a more-compact and cost-efficient solution for IoT devices, most of which do not require nearly as much bandwidth and power as the devices using traditional Ethernet.”
“In nontraditional spaces, the enclosure provides the primary protection for equipment,” they continue. “The main difference between industrial enclosures and standard IT enclosures is that industrial enclosures are completely sealed when closed.”
They describe Ingress Protection (IP) ratings as specified in the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) standard 60529 Degrees of Protection provided by Enclosures (See Table 1). “The first number identifies the degree of protection against hazardous parts and against solid foreign objects (dust penetration),” they explain. “The second number identifies the degree of protection against ingress of water (liquid penetration). A higher number indicates better protection. IP codes do not address corrosion protection.”
The document also dissects the NEMA (National Electrical Manufacturers Association) 250 standard Enclosures for Electrical Equipment (1000 V Maximum), “which identifies 16 types of enclosures for nonhazardous locations, each providing a different level of protection against dust and liquid penetration.
“There is no direct comparison between IP code and NEMA types, because NEMA standards include additional product features and tests,”
The authors advise, “When you extend your network into warehouses, manufacturing floors and outdoors, you can satisfy most nonhazardous location requirements by focusing on three enclosure ratings: IP54/NEMA Type 12, IP 66/NEMA Type 4, and NEMA Type 4X … The three enclosures cover the majority of nonhazardous environmental requirements and can be field-adapted with drains, vents, fans or air conditioners.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
An Introduction to Storm Detector Modules
https://hackaday.com/2018/03/22/an-introduction-to-storm-detector-modules/
Lightning storm detectors have been around for a surprisingly long time. The early designs consisted of a pair of metal bells and a pendulum. When there was a charge applied, for example by connecting one bell to the ground and the other to a lightning rod, the bells would ring when a lightning storm was close by. In the mid 18th century, these devices were only practical for demonstration and research purposes, but very likely represent the earliest devices that convert electrostatic charge to mechanical force. A bit over a hundred years later, the first lightning detector was considered by some as the first radio receiver as well.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Comcast, Cox ramp up IoT projects
http://www.broadbandtechreport.com/articles/2018/03/comcast-cox-ramp-up-iot-projects.html?cmpid=enl_btr_weekly_2018-03-22&pwhid=6b9badc08db25d04d04ee00b499089ffc280910702f8ef99951bdbdad3175f54dcae8b7ad9fa2c1f5697ffa19d05535df56b8dc1e6f75b7b6f6f8c7461ce0b24
The Internet of Things (IoT) is getting increased attention from Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA) and Cox Communications. The two MSOs each have their own large scale IoT projects running, suggesting growing momentum for a move into a new business services market for cable operators.
Comcast
Comcast’s project, machineQ, is a scalable IoT network service and platform that uses Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) technology to build enterprise-grade solutions for businesses and municipal organizations. The service is deployed using the globally adopted LoRaWAN protocol. machineQ began in 2016 as trials in Philadelphia, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Chicago. In 2017, the company began rolling out the LoRa-based service to businesses and municipalities in Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Denver, Detroit, Indianapolis, Miami, Minneapolis, Oakland, Pittsburgh, Seattle, and Washington D.C.
Cox
The Cox project, announced today, is Cox2M, a connected asset services business line intended to give businesses and cities the data and tools they need to improve processes and operational efficiencies.
Cox2M solutions provide a turnkey ability to monitor and track commercial assets, enabling customers to connect nearly any asset, anywhere: inventory, equipment or infrastructure, everything from cars to power lines. Customers can monitor the location, condition and status of their assets and receive real-time intelligence and notifications of any issues.
Cox2M provides sensors that collect data from a variety of connected assets and enable organizations to track, monitor and manage those mobile and fixed assets. The platform bundles connectivity, hardware and software into one package. Cox2M is an open solution designed to integrate into an organization’s existing systems and processes. The solution includes analytics and machine learning capabilities to provide real-time customer insights to inform business and operational decisions.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Proaction, Not Reaction: Predictive Policing in the IoT Era
http://www.sealevel.com/community/blog/proaction-not-reaction-predictive-policing-in-the-iot-era/
Policing is a complicated matter in the 21st century. Consider the following statistics:
The US Office of Highway Police reported approximately 3.2 trillion vehicle miles of travel in 2017, with 2.9 trillion (90%) of those miles happening in urban systems.
According to the CIA World Factbook, 65% of the US population (about 215 million people) is between the ages of 15 and 64.
Conversations are happening between 238 million cellphone users.
In 2015, there were more than 265 million civilian guns in the United States.
These massive data sets exclude negative social influences that have increased in severity over time, such as systemic prejudice or the opioid crisis. Between the raw volume and the complexity of influencing factors, it is no wonder that traditional policing has become overwhelming. To simplify and improve their public work, Federal and local agencies have reformulated their tactics to engage in “predictive policing.”
What is predictive policing?
Predictive policing means maintaining law and order by “predicting” crime rather than reacting to events.
However, this predictive ability is not a Minority Report prophecy but a two-part policing method that uses analytics and critical responses to improve public safety. By tracking and analyzing data as well as monitoring it in real time, patterns can be seen that reveal insight about future crime. This insight may be about incidents, places, groups and people. Those patterns are followed up with interventional protocols rather than reactive or defensive procedures.
What technology does predictive policing use?
The primary tool of predictive policing is big data. Depending on the technical organization assisting the agency, the data may be geographic, personal, open source or crime data. The data may be historic or gathered in real-time. Examples of data collected include the rain forecast, payday schedules in a region, local events, construction, daylight duration times and previous criminal events at a specific location. These data streams are collected from traditional means — eyewitness accounts and filed reports — or they may be more modern. Modern tools include sensors, high-definition cameras and drones. Arranging sensors in an integrated, distributed model is another achievement that has improved data collection.
When is predictive policing applicable?
Predictive policing can be used across a range of enforcement issues. For example, in Chicago, officers have used their algorithm to reduce the homicide rate by 39 percent over a seven month period. Fresno was one of the first cities in the United States to apply predictive policing technology to violent crimes and see those rates drop as well.
As recently as January 2018, Japan announced that it was creating an AI system to beef up its security protocols prior to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. New iterations of predictive policing have also been applied to traffic situations: systems can predict where drivers are more likely to have accidents or engage in unlawful behavior (such as running red lights).
The drawback to technology-driven law enforcement is that it does not identify social issues as preventable factors. Thus, predictive policing is less helpful when applied during protests or when crime is heavily influenced by poverty, systemic oppression or lack of basic resources.
What is the future of predictive policing?
Dark data and automation will be two hurdles to overcome
However, with the era of IoT, edge computing predictive policing solutions offer the opportunity to handle these issues. A police department with a smart city infrastructure will have the most opportunity to automate their initiatives and manage dark data effectively.
A law-and-order edge-computing network looks different than other cloud-based solutions. These smart observers would be able to draw patterns instantaneously with real time data capture and harnessing. Equipped with processors and AI programs, these devices would be able to minimize the amount of information being relayed to central stations (thus diminishing the potential for dark data) and communicate directly with officers, automating the policing process. By being at the source, predictions could arrive faster, increasing the likelihood of preventing future crime.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Haltian Oulu, who offers IoT design services, opens a new office in the Helsinki metropolitan area to better serve its domestic customers. The aim is to bring speed to the customer interface and also to benefit from the local ecosystem.
Espoo’s office will also strengthen Haltian consulting business. Customers will continue to offer more high-value services related to technology choices or design services, for example. The head of the Otaniemi office will be Tom Lindgren, who has previously worked as a director, including Samsung and Nokia. She starts her job at the beginning of April.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7751&via=n&datum=2018-03-23_14:10:57&mottagare=31202
Tomi Engdahl says:
The former Nokia people take IoT’s 5G network
Narrowband-IoT is a standardized technology of the 3GPP organization that allows data from sensors connected to the Internet of objects and other devices to be transferred between normal LTE data. Oulainen Haltian announced yesterday its first NB-IoT-enabled sensor device. This was also the first step towards 5G network IoT devices.
More than 85 designers, Haltian, have been the most successful company in the Nokia Bridge program with several meters. The company has developed its own Thingsee IoT platform purposefully, and yesterday in Helsinki it introduced platform extensions and customers’ tangible IoT businesses at their Thingsee IoT Summit.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7750&via=n&datum=2018-03-23_14:10:57&mottagare=31202
Tomi Engdahl says:
How the Internet of Things Could Fracture Wi-Fi
New mesh Wi-Fi networks improve coverage, but at the cost of interoperability
https://spectrum.ieee.org/telecom/wireless/how-the-internet-of-things-could-fracture-wifi
Wi-Fi is the invisible workhorse of modern life. But Wi-Fi is struggling. And the next phase of the Internet—the Internet of Things—could break it.
Startups and Internet service providers are developing an application layer that divorces some functions from the base networking standard, IEEE 802.11. Many new features sprouting up within this layer—such as mesh networks (a set of routers that work together to extend wireless coverage) and provisioning tactics (which define how wireless devices connect to networks)—have been developed in response to the Internet of Things.
It reminds me of the Zigbee mesh-network specification for small, low-power digital radios, which has layers for specific classes of devices built on top of the radio. This has sowed confusion among customers about which Zigbee devices actually work with one another. I fear that Wi-Fi is heading in the same direction.
Consider a mesh Wi-Fi system. Companies including Eero, Google, and Securifi have created products that promise reliable coverage throughout every square centimeter of a home. But this works only if you buy all of your mesh routers from the same vendor.
Companies soon realized they could pop a network-based security product into mesh routers and add the ability to prioritize devices. But where does an application layer end and the core Wi-Fi standard begin?
Diner is working with major Wi-Fi chip vendors to ensure compatibility, and he is open-sourcing some of the necessary code.
The only solution to fragmentation will be at the Wi-Fi Alliance, which certifies Wi-Fi devices. Brian Bedrosian, vice president of marketing for IoT at Cypress Semiconductor Corp., says simpler provisioning and neighbor-aware networks (which let devices speak to one another without a Wi-Fi access point) must become part of the Wi-Fi certification specification.
“By comparison, it could be like the Zigbee spec, which has been a disaster,” he says. Hopefully, the Wi-Fi Alliance won’t let that happen.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Week in Review: IoT
Startup funding; Aricent acquisition; FogHorn and Google.
https://semiengineering.com/the-week-in-review-iot-90/
FogHorn Systems is collaborating with Google, integrating its Lightning edge analytics and machine learning platform with Google Cloud IoT Core for Industrial IoT applications. The pairing will be demonstrated at the Google Cloud Next conference in San Francisco on July 24-27. Sastry Malladi, FogHorn’s chief technology officer, said the agreement provides “a seamless connection between FogHorn Systems and Google.” The IIoT firm also works with Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, yet the ties with Google Cloud IoT Core will be closer.
GlobalPlatform and the IoT Connectivity Alliance signed a memorandum of understanding to work together on developing a standardized approach to IoT security based upon secure component technology. The goal is to reduce the cost of developing large-scale consumer IoT and IIoT deployments.
Juniper Research is offering two free reports – The Value of 5G for Cities and Communities, sponsored by O2, and the Intel-sponsored Smart Cities – What’s in It for Citizens?
Frost & Sullivan has a new report, Internet of Things-based Solutions for Customer Support. Details are available here.
Dan Timpson, DigiCert’s chief technology officer, writes about the challenges in IoT security in this analysis. “Hardware developers must prioritize security in the design process but should do so in a way that does not diminish the user experience,” he writes. “Leveraging public key infrastructure (PKI) and digital certificates can be used to meet these requirements.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Juniper Research is offering two free reports – The Value of 5G for Cities and Communities, sponsored by O2, and the Intel-sponsored Smart Cities – What’s in It for Citizens?
https://d10wc7q7re41fz.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Smart-Cities-Report.pdf
https://newsroom.intel.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2018/03/smart-cities-whats-in-it-for-citizens.pdf
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bluetooth 2.0 VS Bluetooth 4.0 (BLE) || Is an Upgrade worth it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1i-6cz4KHXE
the HC-05 and HM-10 board
In this VS episode we will have a closer look at the most common Bluetooth boards for the Arduino. Along the way I will present you how easy it is to implement such a board in a Bluetooth project and whether it makes sense to use Bluetooth 4.0 (BLE) or whether we should stick to Bluetooth 2.0.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Securing The Internet Of Things: A Two-Fold Challenge
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2018/03/20/securing-the-internet-of-things-a-two-fold-challenge/#45f2213822a9
One word summarizes the challenge of securing the Internet of Things (IoT): scale.
It’s actually a two-fold challenge. The first issue is the sheer number of IoT devices connected to the internet — a total that continues to grow every year. Gartner estimates that number will reach 26 billion by 2020. Secondly, how can device manufacturers and security providers possibly scale the process of identifying and authenticating each and every one of those devices?
Hardware developers must prioritize security in the design process but should do so in a way that does not diminish the user experience. Leveraging public key infrastructure (PKI) and digital certificates can be used to meet these requirements.
The KRACK bug targets a serious flaw in WPA2, a common protocol used to secure modern wireless networks.
For most IoT hardware manufacturers, security has been an afterthought. This forces them to retrofit devices after the fact, with solutions to address malicious entities when they are discovered. It is an expensive, time-consuming and ineffective approach.
For that reason, security in IoT implementations must be a critical component of the device design and manufacturing processes to ensure that basic security requirements are in place. For decades, digital certificates have been the security backbone of networked devices like servers, routers, printers and fax machines. PKI can do the same for the internet of things.
Certificates can be used to encrypt data at rest. PKI also enables the authentication of users, systems and devices without the need for tokens, password policies or other cumbersome user-initiated factors. In mutual authentication scenarios, certificates will uniquely identify devices that enhance authorization and secure device-to-device communication. As a result, certificates ensure that any data or messages transferred cannot be altered.
manufacturers to embrace “security by default.” PKI provides this capability, and certificate authorities (CAs) that are used to operating large-scale PKI systems
CAs have the necessary expertise to ensure a manufacturer adequately addresses the needs for strong authentication and encryption capabilities in the design of a new device. Failure to do so can turn any connected device into a security vulnerability and open the door for a cyberattack and unauthorized access to an organization’s network and data.
The automation of certificate issuance and management will play a critical role in ensuring the integration of PKI-based encryption is seamless and does not force manufacturing engineers and software developers to become PKI technology experts. Automated platforms also provide audits and checkpoints every step of the way for security teams.
Of course, the effort to automate certificate issuance and make the process easier for non-security staff can introduce risks around ensuring the legitimacy of certificate requests. Encryption is like any other technology — it can be used for good or malicious purposes. This requires CAs to strike a balance between providing the advantages of automated certificate issuance and stopping cyberattackers from exploiting the trust and reputation of CAs.
There must also be agreement on standards for data sharing and security.
As the IoT market continues to grow, we constantly need to be coming up with new methods and tools to ensure proper data security, authentication and mutual trust.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Internet of Things-based Solutions for Customer Support, US, 2018
http://www.frost.com/sublib/display-report.do?id=K285-01-00-00-00
Organizations and consumers are increasingly relying on technology to boost operational efficiency and effectiveness. In the enterprise market, there is a significant need to reduce unplanned/unscheduled downtime and related costs that arise out of equipment breakdowns and unanticipated delays in the supply chain including logistics. Furthermore, the need to boost return on assets is creating demand for proactive monitoring and maintainance of core operational technology such as assembly line industrial robotics or commercial jetliners. Effective and timely support can also help organizations improve satisfaction and loyalty while also reducing customer retention costs. IoT-based solutions are having a profound influence on how organizations perform various functions, ranging from tracking and monitoring physical assets to building and managing customer relations. These IoT solutions, such as predictive maintenance notifications for industrial robotics or provision of real-time insights into supply chains, are helping organizations reduce waste, boost operational efficiency, and gain greater visibility into processes. At the same time, growing adoption of IoT solutions is enabling new business models for IoT vendors and end users. For instance, growth in implementation of IoT-enabled smart building management systems is driving building system vendors to develop and market new services, thereby improving customer support while also expanding revenue streams.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Can a clever band-aid stop the cheats?
https://www.electropages.com/2018/03/can-a-clever-band-aid-stop-cheats/?utm_campaign=&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=article&utm_content=Can+a+clever+band-aid+stop+the+cheats%3F
At the end of a gruelling 5,000-metre Olympics race, the athletes push themselves past the finish line, the winners apparently obvious to all. But, moments later an Olympics official examines the athletes’ intelligent sweat patches and alerts his superiors, someone has taken banned substances. No laboratory testing needed, the announcement is made, the athlete that came second is banned, no silver medal for them. Patches, like band-aids, that detect substances in sweat could soon be used by many sports worldwide to ensure clean competitions.
The technology of a band-aid like patch with tiny channels etched in a silicon substrate that can detect chemicals is called microfluidics. Detecting banned substances in athletes’ sweat is one, “possibility, I would say it’s well within the scope of the things we can build,”
Previously used only in laboratories for biology and chemistry applications to help develop medicines, microfluidic device technology is becoming more durable for the commercial world. One of the uses is DNA analysis outside the laboratory. The more durable devices can potentially be deployed at crime scenes.
Is this the World’s most energy efficient biomedical sensor hub?
https://www.electropages.com/2016/10/worlds-energy-efficient-biomedical-sensor-hub/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Data is the new lighting as Philips unfurls IoT platform
http://www.ledsmagazine.com/articles/2018/03/data-is-the-new-lighting-as-philips-unfurls-iot-platform.html?eid=293591077&bid=2046672
All data, all the time: The company’s new Interact system continuously collects and analyzes information gathered from lighting and other sources.
In the biggest declaration yet that the Internet of Things represents the industry’s future, the world’s largest lighting company, Philips Lighting, unveiled an IoT platform that turns lighting into a byword for collecting and analyzing data about everything, everywhere.
Sounding as much the head of an IT company as a lighting company, CEO Eric Rondolat repeatedly emphasized the importance of data acquisition and analytics in introducing the new lights-to-cloud-and-back capability, called Interact.
“You can imagine all these devices — lamps, drivers, luminaires, sensors — being connected, sending information through software, and all this software sending this information back to a cloud-based platform, an IoT platform that is called Interact,” Rondolat said at the Light+Building exhibition in Frankfurt. “That platform is taking in account data security, data authentication, data storage, but also data analytics that we can, with our own services but also with open APIs with the services of third companies, be able to extract further value from the data.”
Minutes after Rondolat introduced Interact, Philips issued a press release that used the word “data” 17 times in noting that Interact “supports the company’s strategy to deliver new data-enabled services as value expands from lighting products and systems to services.”
Philips and many lighting vendors have been talking up such broad IoT lighting schemes for a couple of years, and some such as chipset company Gooee and others have already launched lights-to-cloud programs. But Interact is Philips first formal IoT “platform,” and coming from the industry leader, its introduction marks a symbolic coming out for the concept.
The press released noted: “Connected light points, sensors, and devices, as well as systems, can collect large volumes of data for which Interact was designed to handle. The highly secure, scalable cloud-based Interact platform uses sophisticated and modern data management and data processing capabilities, including machine learning, to bring sense to all manner of data — creating data-enabled services for customers that will deliver benefits beyond illumination. Interact will not only support customers to improve their lighting experiences but can also generate and upload data to the Interact IoT platform.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
IoT sensor market valued at $40 billion with 42% CAGR til 2023
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/pt/2018/03/iot-sensor-market-valued-at-40-billion-with-42-cagr-til-2023.html?cmpid=enl_cim_cim_data_center_newsletter_2018-03-26&pwhid=6b9badc08db25d04d04ee00b499089ffc280910702f8ef99951bdbdad3175f54dcae8b7ad9fa2c1f5697ffa19d05535df56b8dc1e6f75b7b6f6f8c7461ce0b24&eid=289644432&bid=2045271
A new study by Market Research Future (MRFR) notes that technology industry giants such as IBM Corporation and Texas Instruments are investing heavily into the IoT sensor market, due to increased demand from various industry verticals such as the commercial, consumer and industrial segments.
Increased need for real-time computing of applications is one major factor fueling the growth of IoT sensor market, reports the researcher. According to MRFR’s analysis, the IoT sensor market has been valued at approximately USD $40 billion with a 42% CAGR during the forecast period of 2017 to 2023. Texas Instruments is seen as dominating the internet of things market, and is considered to be the technology leader in IoT applications
According to the study, the North America region holds the largest market share of global IoT sensor market followed by Europe and Asia Pacific regions. Growth in the North America region is mainly dominated by U.S. and Canada, and is attributed to the increasing demand for mobile communication and consumer electronics in the region. The region also has a well-established infrastructure which allows implementation of advanced technologies.
The wireless network technology segment is expected to hold the largest market share of the overall IoT sensor market. The wireless network technology segment is further bifurcated into sections for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, ZigBee, Z-Wave, NFC, RFID, EnOcean, ProfiBus, Thread, WHART, DECT-ULE and others. The wireless technology sub segment is more popular owing to its flexibility and the low maintenance costs associated with it. The most prominent players in IoT sensor market are listed as follows: Texas Instruments Incorporated (U.S.), STMicroelectronics N.V. (Switzerland), TE Connectivity Ltd. (U.S.), Infineon Technologies Ag (Germany), Analog Devices, Inc. (U.S.), Broadcom Limited (U.S.), Robert Bosch GmbH (Germany), Johnson Controls International Plc. (Ireland), Sony Corporation (Japan), Honeywell International, Inc. (U.S.) among others.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Smart city IoT pioneers seen leveraging standards, open source, and AI elements
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2018/03/abi-iot-pioneers.html?cmpid=enl_cim_cim_data_center_newsletter_2018-03-26&pwhid=6b9badc08db25d04d04ee00b499089ffc280910702f8ef99951bdbdad3175f54dcae8b7ad9fa2c1f5697ffa19d05535df56b8dc1e6f75b7b6f6f8c7461ce0b24&eid=289644432&bid=2045271
According to a new report by ABI Research, in a very crowded Internet of Things (IoT) platform ecosystem, multiple vendors are targeting the Smart Cities vertical segment with optimized and dedicated solutions, and vying for dominance in this very promising market.
Per the study’s executive summary, “While established players like Cisco and Verizon excel in the width and depth of functionality offered across the value chain and vertical segments, others like IBM and Bosch are embracing next-generation technologies like AI, blockchain, and sensor data crowdsourcing to enable a new urban economy based on sharing, service, and cognitive business models for smart city services such as community-based parking, automated surveillance cams, and blockchain-enabled freight tracking.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Comcast extends Internet-of-Things service, machineQ, based on LPWAN, LoRaWAN technologies
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2018/03/comcast-iot-service.html?cmpid=enl_cim_cim_data_center_newsletter_2018-03-26&pwhid=6b9badc08db25d04d04ee00b499089ffc280910702f8ef99951bdbdad3175f54dcae8b7ad9fa2c1f5697ffa19d05535df56b8dc1e6f75b7b6f6f8c7461ce0b24&eid=289644432&bid=2045271
Comcast has announced new business customers, ranging from Fortune 1000 enterprises to emerging start-ups, for its enterprise Internet of Things (IoT) service, machineQ. MachineQ is billed as a scalable IoT network service and platform that uses Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) technology to build enterprise-grade solutions for businesses and municipal organizations. The service is deployed using the globally adopted LoRaWAN protocol.
“IoT solution providers are seeking secure, reliable and highly scalable network connectivity, device management capabilities, and new IoT microservices, like geo-location, to speed their time-to-market — and our new customers have chosen machineQ because it can be deployed across a wide range of different enterprise use cases,” said Alex Khorram, general manager of machineQ. “We want IoT solution providers to know that we can handle their network needs, so they can focus on bringing their innovative solutions to market to the benefit of their end users.”
According to a press release, using Comcast’s machineQ as their LoRaWAN-based wireless connectivity platform, the following IoT solution providers are now enabling their end users to make better-informed, data-based decisions:
Adveez – IoT hardware and software solutions provider that monitors businesses’ critical assets at airports, seaports and in cities with the goal of providing actionable data to locate and manage assets dynamically, reducing costs.
CareBand – Wearables manufacturer dedicated to reducing injuries to seniors due to dementia-related wandering by providing real-time, precise location tracking.
Neptune – Software and hardware provider to the water industry, serving more than 4,000 utilities across North America. Neptune’s new, LoRa-enabled L900 series of water endpoints provides a wide range of capabilities for water meter reading and sensor applications that demand low-power consumption and long-range connectivity
Pansofik – Developer of cost-effective, digital solutions to help SMBs and building owners integrate IoT and data analytics within their organizations.
Victor – A world leader in rodent control and a trusted brand name since 1898. Victor, a Woodstream Corporation brand, revolutionized the rodent control market over 100 years ago with the invention of the spring-based Victor Mouse Trap. Using LoRaWAN-based sensor technology operating on the machineQ network
https://machineq.com/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Foxconn Announces Purchase of Belkin, Wemo, and Linksys
https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/18/03/27/043206/foxconn-announces-purchase-of-belkin-wemo-and-linksys?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot%2Fto+%28%28Title%29Slashdot+%28rdf%29%29
Foxconn, the Taiwan-based company best-known for manufacturing Apple products announced that one of its subsidiaries (Foxconn Interconnect Technology) is purchasing U.S.-based Belkin for $866 million in cash. “Belkin owns a number of major brands, including Linksys and Wemo,”
Foxconn announces purchase of Belkin, Wemo, and Linksys
https://www.androidpolice.com/2018/03/26/foxconn-announces-purchase-belkin-wemo-linksys/
For years, Taiwan-based Foxconn has been best-known for manufacturing Apple products, but it also builds countless other consumer electronics. Today, one of the company’s subsidiaries (Foxconn Interconnect Technology) announced it is purchasing US-based Belkin for $866 million in cash. Belkin owns a number of major brands, including Linksys and Wemo.
The buyout would make Foxconn a major player in consumer electronics, instead of just a contract manufacturing company. Belkin primarily sells phone/tablet accessories, but also manufactures networking equipment like routers and Wi-Fi range extenders. The company also sells a range of smart home products under the Wemo brand, like the smart switches we reviewed earlier this year.
Belkin’s router business is likely to gather scrutiny from government officials, especially since they aren’t particularly secure to begin with. Foxconn pledged to build a $10 billion factory in Wisconsin last year
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sarah Frier / Bloomberg:
Sources: Facebook will not unveil its smart speakers at F8 while it deals with data misuse scandal, but still plans to launch speakers later this year — Social network had hoped to show off devices at F8 in May — Company still plans to launch products later this year
Facebook Delays Home-Speaker Unveil Amid Data Crisis
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-28/facebook-is-said-to-delay-home-speaker-unveil-amid-data-crisis
Social network had hoped to show off devices at F8 in May
Company still plans to launch products later this year
Facebook Inc. has decided not to unveil new home products at its major developer conference in May, in part because the public is currently so outraged about the social network’s data-privacy practices, according to people familiar with the matter.
The company’s new hardware products, connected speakers with digital-assistant and video-chat capabilities, are undergoing a deeper review to ensure that they make the right trade-offs regarding user data, the people said. While the hardware wasn’t expected to be available until the fall, the company had hoped to preview the devices at the largest annual gathering of Facebook developers, said the people, who asked not to be named discussing internal plans.
The devices are part of Facebook’s plan to become more intimately involved with users’ everyday social lives, using artificial intelligence — following a path forged by Amazon.com Inc. and its Echo in-home smart speakers. As concerns escalate about Facebook’s collection and use of personal data, now may be the wrong time to ask consumers to trust it with even more information by placing a connected device in their homes.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Stuffed pieces of paper remain in history: Smart trolleys for K-stores in Finland get a handy addition
You can now add your shopping list from the K-Food mobile app to smartcarts developed by Smartcart.
To date, smartcarts have received food information, shop navigation, product information, and promotions. Smartcart smart carts came to retailers last year.
The K-Food app has downloaded its mobile phone to nearly one million Finns. Smartcart shopping trolleys can be found in more than 50 Finnish K-food stores throughout Finland. The goal is to bring them to the 150 K-store this year.
Source: https://www.tivi.fi/Kaikki_uutiset/ruttuiset-paperinpalat-jaavat-historiaan-k-kauppojen-alykarryt-saavat-katevan-lisan-6711780
Tomi Engdahl says:
Wireless sensor tooth – analyzes eating
Measurement solutions attached to the human body will gain a whole new dimension from the implementation of the Tufts Technical University in the United States. Researchers have developed a tooth-sized sensor capable of wirelessly transmitting information about glucose, salt, and alcohol.
Previously, sensory monitoring for dieting has been clumsy because of its size, wiring and breakage. Tufts engineers are looking for more user-friendly technology and developed a sensor with only 2 x 2 millimeters and adapts flexibly to the tooth surface.
The sensors consist of three layers: the middle bioresponential layer that absorbs nutrients or other detectable chemicals. The sensor layers form a conformal radio frequency construct consisting of an active layer encapsulated between two inversely directed ring resonators.
We have expanded the overall RFID technology into a tag pack that can dynamically read and transmit information about its environment regardless of whether it is attached to the tooth, skin, or other surface,”
Previously, sensory monitoring for dieting has been clumsy because of its size, wiring and breakage. Tufts engineers are looking for more user-friendly technology and developed a sensor that is only 2 x 2 millimeters and adapts flexibly to the tooth surface.
When the incoming wave hits the sensor, some of it is suppressed and the remainder reflected by the backlight according to what the sensor detects. For example, if the central layer recognizes salt or ethanol, its electrical properties change, whereby the sensor absorbs and transmits a radio spectrum of different spectrum at varying intensity. Thus, nutrients and other analytes can be detected and measured.
“In theory, we can modify the bioresponsible layer on these sensors to target other chemicals – we only limit our creativity,” notes the author and professor Fiorenzo Omenetto Tufts.
Sources:
https://www.uusiteknologia.fi/2018/03/28/langaton-anturi-hampaaseen-analysoi-syomista/
http://www.etn.fi/index.php/13-news/7773-hammasanturi-seuraa-ruokavaliota