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
1,393 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
Scientists develop tiny tooth-mounted sensors that can track what you eat
Wireless real-time monitoring could add precision to the linkage between diet and health
https://now.tufts.edu/news-releases/scientists-develop-tiny-tooth-mounted-sensors-can-track-what-you-eat
Monitoring in real time what happens in and around our bodies can be invaluable in the context of health care or clinical studies, but not so easy to do. That could soon change thanks to new, miniaturized sensors developed by researchers at the Tufts University School of Engineering that, when mounted directly on a tooth and communicating wirelessly with a mobile device, can transmit information on glucose, salt and alcohol intake. In research to be published soon in the journal Advanced Materials, researchers note that future adaptations of these sensors could enable the detection and recording of a wide range of nutrients, chemicals and physiological states.
Previous wearable devices for monitoring dietary intake suffered from limitations such as requiring the use of a mouth guard, bulky wiring, or necessitating frequent replacement as the sensors rapidly degraded. Tufts engineers sought a more adoptable technology and developed a sensor with a mere 2mm x 2mm footprint that can flexibly conform and bond to the irregular surface of a tooth.
For example, if the central layer takes on salt, or ethanol, its electrical properties will shift, causing the sensor to absorb and transmit a different spectrum of radiofrequency waves, with varying intensity. That is how nutrients and other analytes can be detected and measured.
Tomi Engdahl says:
IIoT in the plant: three ways to profit
Business goals and organization must align to succeed.
https://www.plantengineering.com/single-article/iiot-in-the-plant-three-ways-to-profit/50a82cf02683ce3d1287ad9d16af5999.html?OCVALIDATE&[email protected]&ocid=101781
Buzzwords abound when it comes to technology in manufacturing: digital transformation, Industrie 4.0., and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). Regardless of the terminology, manufacturers are aggressively embracing new ways of using technology to achieve business goals like improved productivity and profitability. A recent study reports a 72% increase in productivity and a 69% increase in profitability from the applications of IIoT processes. At the same time, many manufacturers are missing the opportunity to improve their business outcomes simply because they don’t know where to start.
The vast amounts of data that connected manufacturing equipment already collects represents one such opportunity that can quickly pay dividends for manufacturers. This data holds the key to achieving all manner of business value. Yet, despite unprecedented access to this wealth of information, only 3% of U.S. manufacturers are fully utilizing it and other operational data.
For any IIoT initiative to succeed, companies need to focus on two important things. First, they need to clearly identify the business goals they are trying to reach, and second, they must identify the team and organizational adjustments necessary to reach those objectives.
The most effective IIoT projects start with small goals that are measurable and outcome-focused.
There are three key areas to focus on at this stage of IIoT development:
1. Predictive analytics
Employing predictive analytics to enhance things like quality improvement and demand forecasting has been a staple of manufacturing organizations for years. But it can now play a pivotal role in improving a broader range of business metrics, such as machine uptime and longevity by predicting malfunctions or failures before they occur.
2. Condition-based maintenance
Making broader use of valuable machine data, the IIoT system can analyze current and past datasets to create a condition-based maintenance program that recommends service based on each machine’s actual usage and operational condition. Typical maintenance schedules are based on standardized intervals – such as units made, hours operated, or elapsed time.
3. Real-time equipment optimization
Conventional wisdom holds that certain machines just perform better than others. But with real-time equipment optimization, this doesn’t have to be the case. Many factors contribute to variances in efficiency, output quality, or yield—from environmental conditions to a particular machine’s factory configuration. Sensor data provides clues about each machine’s performance, but sophisticated analytics are needed to analyze it quickly and accurately enough to detect equipment inefficiencies, assess variations in production capacity, and adjust to achieve optimal operational performance in real time.
Moving forward with IIoT
After identifying a business case that will deliver measurable results, it is a matter of getting stakeholders organization-wide on board to support the initiative and to work with the relevant personnel from IT, operations, trusted IIoT partners, and other organizational groups to make it happen. The adoption of IIoT is a maturity progression that starts with connected equipment and moves from simply monitoring machine data to using digital models, powerful data analytics, and machine learning to enable use cases such as predictive analytics, condition-based maintenance, and equipment optimization.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Artificial intelligence in the industrial enterprise
https://www.plantengineering.com/single-article/artificial-intelligence-in-the-industrial-enterprise/453681f5ceb571fad400c2d53ea815c2.html?OCVALIDATE&[email protected]&ocid=101781
Analytics can deliver insight as to how things are going, but artificial intelligence (AI) doesn’t become a thing until you start using machine learning and semantics for insight.
For the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), predictive maintenance of machinery and equipment is the first application demonstrating wide commercial acceptance. “This can be done with classic regression and predictive analytics. With artificial intelligence, however, you go beyond the structured deterministic to the fuzzier stochastic,” said Jeff Kavanaugh, vice president, senior partner, Infosys. “With machine learning based on input such as audio signatures, the computer learns as a human would, by first paying attention to how a machine sounds when it’s healthy and then understanding anomalies.”
Infosys recently conducted a global survey on the adoption of intelligent automation. The survey’s central point, that artificial intelligence technology is going mainstream, is a good one. A certain amount of skepticism is warranted, however, as to the specific figures
Sample set asymmetry
A question often asked is whether companies have the data needed to enable machine learning, and whether the data is in a form suitable for such use. “People have more data than they think, but less than they hope,” said Kavanaugh. “While there are a lot of data stores that don’t lend themselves to machine learning, there are instances where great amounts of data simply aren’t needed. At other times, companies can build on the power of accumulated data. Industrial manufacturers do have deep troves of simple data which can be converted to use cases, where they can go deep.”
Asked to compare the potential impact of today’s emerging technologies with those of the 1980s, when PLCs, DCSs, SCADA, CAD, and ERP were all introduced, Kavanaugh said, “The introduction of new technologies of the 1980s brought significant change, but it was basically the automation of rows and columns, applied to the plant floor and out in the field. Today, incorporating experience, a multi-attribute perspective of what actually happens, is a bigger part. We’re talking about things that are inherently cognitive, in other words fuzzy. While the earlier transformation was from full analog to computerized operations, the current one is more pervasive, more connected, more intelligent—and ultimately—more profound.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Turning Big Data analytics into actionable information
https://www.plantengineering.com/single-article/turning-big-data-analytics-into-actionable-information/ecd7b5cb06c641a2afadc20f82777789.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.
Designing data analytic solutions for process industry applications
While many technologies, including AI, can be used in data analytics applications, the focus should not be on the technologies. Instead, the focus should be on the user experience and the acceleration of insights into process data.
The focus must be on subject matter experts (SMEs)—process engineers, data analysis experts, and others—and on their ability to find insights in their data. Regardless of the technologies used in data analytics applications, the goal always is to make the solution accessible to a user who doesn’t have extensive data science expertise.
Well-designed data analytics applications empower SMEs to produce results. As data analytics applications tap additional functionality, they should implement these innovations in the context of easy-to-use features accessible by process experts.
Data analytics applications should use available technologies to help end users succeed. If it’s ML or AI functionality, great, but data analytics applications should not be restricted to only these features, or others for the sake of market hype. Many algorithms and innovations are available to assist users who need to find insights in data.
Algorithm functions can include digital signal processing for data cleansing, shape detection in process signals, and map-reduce models for distributed computing. Calling algorithms ML, AI, or otherwise, isn’t the point. The point is to help end users succeed faster.
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.
Tomi Engdahl says:
TSN solves measurement and control challenges
https://www.plantengineering.com/single-article/tsn-solves-measurement-and-control-challenges/9fca9190e72d3dd8b73f9244a3ac71b7.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.
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.
The introduction of TSN is a huge step forward in solving the whole system synchronization challenge. Another concern engineers developing these systems have is reducing the overall system complexity while maintaining or improving reliability. In our structural test example, the application can be developed to leverage TSN-based measurement and control systems, but there is still the challenge of programming the two in their respective environments and dealing with their respective data collection mechanisms.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Latest Smart Home Tech is Run by Artificial Intelligence
https://www.eeweb.com/profile/raesteinbach/articles/the-latest-smart-home-tech-is-run-by-artificial-intelligence?utm_source=Aspencore&utm_medium=EDN
For consumers, AI and ML are producing new ways of protecting our homes. Also, they’re making our homes more energy efficient and centralizing the applications in one place through smart hubs, hand-held remotes, and digital assistants like Apple’s Siri and Google’s Alexa.
Tomi Engdahl says:
http://etn.fi/index.php/13-news/7777-telia-tuo-ensimmaisena-nb-iot-tekniikan
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/bakers-best/4460462/Trust-and-then-verify-your-IoT-security-?utm_source=Aspencore&utm_medium=EDN&utm_campaign=social
Tomi Engdahl says:
IoT Developer Show | Blockchain and the Hyperledger Sawtooth Implementation
https://software.intel.com/en-us/videos/iot-developer-show-blockchain-and-the-hyperledger-sawtooth-implementation
Tomi Engdahl says:
Amazon Echo with Home Automation ( Smartthings )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMW6aXmsWNE
Tomi Engdahl says:
University shows its smarts with cloud-based lighting controls and indoor positioning
http://www.ledsmagazine.com/articles/2018/03/university-shows-its-smarts-with-cloud-based-lighting-controls-and-indoor-positioning.html?eid=293591077&bid=2050245
The university BMS receives data from Interact Office courtesy of the IoT lighting, enabling cloud-based control of lights and HVAC systems and improving building energy efficiency.
HBMSU students receive a combination of web-based and classroom learning that places it at the forefront of modern university education.
Instead of using light switches, HBMSU’s lighting is controlled in a variety of ways: by occupancy sensors in luminaires that detect people’s presence, switching lighting on and off; by automatic adjustment of light levels according to the availability of natural daylight; by a smartphone or tablet app; or from a central console.
Some industry insiders have been predicting the demise of the traditional light switch with the advent of software-enabled IoT lighting controls – although just prior to the recent Light+Building exhibition, Philips had also announced that new partners will be delivering wall controls compatible with its well-known Hue LED lamp offerings, a move that recognizes a desire for familiar controls even while newer smart technology is being embraced across many demographics.
The Interact Office platform recently announced by Philips enables the university to deliver new experiences and services. The software system is integrated with the university’s Building Management System (BMS) so that all the building systems work together seamlessly.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Internet of insecure Things: Software still riddled with security holes
Which means devices could be pwned by crooks
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/03/28/iot_software_still_insecure/
An audit of the security of IoT mobile applications available on official stores has found that tech to safeguard the world of connected things remains outstandingly mediocre.
Pradeo Security put a representative sample of 100 iOS and Android applications developed to manage connected objects (heaters, lights, door-locks, baby monitors, CCTV etc) through their paces.
Researchers at the mobile security firm found that around one in seven (15 per cent) applications sourced from the Google Play and Apple App Store were vulnerable to takeover. Hijacking was a risk because these apps were discovered to be defenceless against bugs that might lend themselves to man-in-the-middle attacks.
Four in five of the tested applications carry vulnerabilities, with an average of 15 per application.
Around one in 12 (8 per cent) of applications phoned home or otherwise connected to uncertified servers. “Among these, some [certificates] have expired and are available for sale. Anyone buying them could access all the data they receive,” Pradeo warns.
Failings in this area were many and varied.
Application file content: 81 per cent of applications
Hardware information (device manufacturer, commercial name, battery status…): 73 per cent
Device information (OS version number…): 73 per cent
Temporary files: 38 per cent
Phone network information (service provider, country code…): 27 per cent
Video and audio records: 19 per cent
Files coming from app static data: 19 per cent
Geolocation: 12 per cent
Network information (IP address, 2D address, Wi-Fi connection state): 12 per cent
Device identifiers (IMEI): 8 per cent
Tomi Engdahl says:
Meet CuteCircuit: The British Fashion Tech Brand Loved By Fergie And Katy Perry
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kittyknowles/2018/03/29/cutecircuits-fantastic-fashion-tech-world-firsts/#75d4f5c91ee6
Nineties pop was all about baggy cargo pants, butterfly hair clips, and chokers.
Now though, stars wear internet-connected clothes.
Katy Perry caught the world’s attention in the first LED lit dress to hit the red carpet, while former Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger wowed fans in the world’s first ‘Twitter dress’.
Tomi Engdahl says:
A programmer’s cleaning guide for messy sensor data
https://opensource.com/article/17/9/messy-sensor-data?sc_cid=7016000000127ECAAY
If you have never used Pandas before and know the basics of Python, this tutorial is for you.
Tomi Engdahl says:
100,000 IoT Sensors Monitor a 1,400-Kilometer Canal in China
https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/telecom/internet/a-massive-iot-sensor-network-keeps-watch-over-a-1400kilometer-canal
The massive internet-of-things (IoT) network that has been quietly overseeing the middle route is impressive in its own right. More than 100,000 individual sensors stud the 1400-kilometer waterway, which connects the Danjiangkou reservoir to Beijing and Tianjin. For the last year, it’s been scanning the canal for structural damage, tracking water quality and flow rates, and watching for intruders, whether humans or animals.
Tomi Engdahl says:
IoT devices could be next customer data frontier
https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/30/iot-devices-could-be-next-customer-data-frontier/?utm_source=tcfbpage&sr_share=facebook
AdChoices
IoT devices could be next customer data frontier
Ron Miller
@ron_miller / 17 hours ago
Mobile communication and digital data concept.
At the Adobe Summit this week in Las Vegas, the company introduced what could be the ultimate customer experience construct, a customer experience system of record that pulls in information, not just from Adobe tools, but wherever it lives. In many ways it marked a new period in the notion of customer experience management, putting it front and center of the marketing strategy.
Adobe was not alone, of course. Salesforce, with its three-headed monster, the sales, marketing and service clouds, was also thinking of a similar idea. In fact, they spent $6.5 billion dollars last week to buy MuleSoft to act as a data integration layer
As data collection takes center stage, we actually could be on the edge of yet another data revolution, one that could be more profound than even the web and mobile were before it. That is…the Internet of Things.
There are three main pieces to that IoT revolution at the moment from a consumer perspective. First of all, there is the smart speaker like the Amazon Echo or Google Home.
Next, we have the idea of a connected car, one separate from the self-driving car.
Finally we, have sensors like iBeacons sitting in stores, providing retailers with a world of information about a customer’s journey through the store — what they like or don’t like, what they pick up, what they try on and so forth.
Regardless of the vendor, all of this is about understanding the customer better to provide a central data gathering system with the hope of giving people exactly what they want. We are no longer a generic mass of consumers. We are instead individuals with different needs
Part of what Adobe, Salesforce and others can deliver is a way to gather that information, pull it together into his uber record keeping system and apply a level of machine and learning and intelligence to help further the brand’s ultimate goals of serving a customer of one and delivering an efficient (and perhaps even pleasurable) experience.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Fever-Detecting Pacifier Wins IEEE Maker Project Contest
http://theinstitute.ieee.org/members/ieee-groups/feverdetecting-pacifier-wins-ieee-maker-project-contest
Bubu Digital alerts parents when their baby’s temperature rises
Three IEEE student members won the 2017 Maker Project contest for their Bubu Digital project. The electronic pacifier measures a child’s body temperature. It can detect illnesses early, and it has the potential to reduce child mortality rates.
The Institute interviewed Guedes to learn more about the project, how he and his colleagues got the idea for the pacifier, and challenges they faced.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Alibaba IoT Platform Partners with NXP for Automotive
https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1333135
AliOS, the operating system for IoT solutions developed by China’s Alibaba Group, has entered into a partnership with NXP to install the AliOS system and NXP’s automotive infotainment solution in “millions of vehicles” in China by 2020.
The collaboration will help build a smart cockpit enhanced by multi-screen display, artificial-intelligence-driven interaction and secure over-the-air (OTA) updates, according to the companies.
Alibaba is said to be aiming to connect 10 billion devices by 2023 on its IoT network, and it appears to be creating the ecosystem to develop this, with partnerships announced in recent months with STMicroelectronics, MediaTek and others.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Week in Review: IoT
IoT hazards; nano-satellites; Arm and Nvidia.
https://semiengineering.com/the-week-in-review-iot-91/
The Consumer Product Safety Commission is accepting public comments on “potential safety issues and hazards associated with Internet-connected consumer products.” The agency is concerned about “unexpected operating conditions” with Internet of Things devices, along with hacking that could start fires through a stovetop or grill, and the potential compromising of home safety systems, such as motion detectors and smoke alarms.
Siren, which develops fabric with embedded microsensors, took in $3.4 million from DCM, Founders Fund, and Khosla Ventures.
. Siren developed what it calls Neurofabric, used to make “smart socks.” These Siren Diabetic Socks can detect changes in foot temperature and warn of possible foot ulcers, paired with a mobile application and an online Web portal. The socks are available for pre-order on a subscription basis for $19.95 a month
Arm is teaming with Nvidia to offer deep learning inferences for use in IoT devices, along with consumer electronics and mobile devices. The open-source Nvidia Deep Learning Accelerator architecture will be integrated with Arm’s Project Trillium machine learning platform.
NXP Semiconductors will work with AliOS, the IoT operating system developed by Alibaba Group, to come up with technology for connected cars in China. AliOS will be paired with NXP’s i.MX applications processors for a smart cockpit featuring multi-screen displays, artificial intelligence-driven interaction, and secure over-the-air software updates.
The IPSO Alliance has merged with the Open Mobile Alliance, transferring its assets, work, and memberships to OMA and establishing a joint organization that will be known as OMA SpecWorks. The IPSO and OMA technical working groups will continue their efforts. Jan Höller, now an OMA SpecWorks board member, said in a statement, “Our work on the Smart Object Guidelines, which were implemented by OMA’s Lightweight M2M effort, first brought our organizations together. With a growing need to formalize the definitions, and with our work increasingly focused on issues relating to the IoT services layer, it quickly became clear that, together, IPSO and OMA could make strong technical progress to define technical specifications for the IoT.”
ON World forecasts low-power wide-area networking will be a $56 billion IoT market by 2022. Unlicensed networks, such as LoRa and Sigfox, now represent two-thirds of the almost 100 LPWA network operators in the world, according to the market research firm.
Licensed LPWA networks, including LTE-M and narrowband IoT, account for about one-third of the network operators evaluated by ON World, which predicts NB-IoT network operator activity will increase 1,800% in 2018.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Spark Microsystems: LP On-Chip Radios
Startup seeks to displace BLE with RF that is extremely low energy.
https://semiengineering.com/spark-microsystems-lp-on-chip-radios/
Spark Microsystems is taking aim at on-chip radios that continue to be the primary source of battery drain, even in power-conserving designs like Bluetooth Low Energy.
“If you wear AirPods, something like 80% of the power is going to power the radio, not the sound. That’s not the most efficient approach.” according to Frederic Nabki, co-founder of Spark Microsystems, and a former professor of electrical engineering and the University of Montreal’s École de technologie supérieure (ÉTS).
The company is developing an ultra-low-power transceiver and microcontroller called the SR1000, a proprietary, ultra-low power, ultra-short latency radio system whose overall with net power use is 20 times lower than the most efficient BLE units on the market, 35 times better than the BLE average, and 600 times more efficient than Zigbee, according to Nabki, who developed the technology as part of his university research and launched Spark with co-researcher and fellow EE professor Dominc Deslandes in 2016.
The transceiver can send a packet in 1/15th the time it takes a BLE device, and saves power by flipping on and off to broadcast in just 50 microseconds, compared to approximately 3 milliseconds for a BLE device, Nabki said. It has a range of 50 meters, broadcasts in the 3GHz to 6GHz unlicensed ultra-wideband spectrum and demonstrates latency 60 times lower than BLE.
Its maximum data rate for TX/RX for a group of devices is 10Mbit/sec compared to the 227kBit/sec or so delivered on average by BLE, whose nominal throughput is 1Mbit/sec.
The SR1000 is a beta version of the package, built on a 65nm process at TSMC that Spark will be testing and developing with potential partners though much of this year before finalizing a mask for the production version during the second quarter, which should make production versions available during 2019.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How Does the IoT Help Save Energy for Today’s Smart Factory?
http://www.electronicdesign.com/power/how-does-iot-help-save-energy-today-s-smart-factory?NL=ED-003&Issue=ED-003_20180330_ED-003_975&sfvc4enews=42&cl=article_2_b&utm_rid=CPG05000002750211&utm_campaign=16343&utm_medium=email&elq2=12c3f174a33a49a0a1e672bd348448b1
If you run a manufacturing factory, you have just a handful of variables that present options for cost-cutting. Chief among them is energy use.
Energy conservation saves money. This fact isn’t new. What is new is the IoT.
Lots of effort is put into saving energy—use of motion-sensitive bulbs, limited time use of air conditioners, and cutting the number of shifts and functioning hours are some examples. But those actions require productivity/OEE boosting focus of the facility rather than affect energy conservation. Energy conservation is a byproduct of those efforts.
Adding the Internet of Things (IoT), on the other hand, can enable direct energy savings for the smart factory of today.
Many experts recommend IoT-based real-time monitoring systems to bring optimum use of energy. But the issue is more nuanced than that. Sure, real-time monitoring helps you track energy consumption, but that might not lead directly to energy conservation. For that, the real-time energy monitoring should lead to better predictions of energy usage and become a guide to implementing the right load-level energy equipment.
Addressing a Wide Range of Energy Consumers
Apart from regular electrical consumption of motors and HVAC, IoT can address numerous energy sources and resources. These include:
Air compressors—the source of air across plant.
Boilers that serve as the main source of steam used across plants.
Backup generators that provide an alternative electricity source in case of failure of the primary.
Fuel, including diesel, coal, wood, solar, and batteries that are used to run above systems.
How IoT Can Help
In the pre-IoT era, the traditional energy-management system would collect a sample of energy usage at an interval. The traditional system is good to get energy-consumption data, but it doesn’t help you with alerts in case of spikes, curating usage pattern, predicting the seasonal demand, or suggesting appropriate configuration.
With the IoT in place, the analyses can occur on real-time data from the motor. That makes the analysis quick, painless, and more accurate. IoT brings real-time alerts, ability to predict energy demand, usage patterns, and ways to optimize energy consumption.
With the right IoT platform, you can recommend the proper sizing needed for motors, thus saving money on the original investment. IoT-based conditional monitoring ensures the motor never reaches its threshold limit, which means the motor lasts longer and suffers fewer failures.
An IoT-based monitoring system gives early warnings of electric motor vibration/temperature problems. Condition monitoring saves time from unplanned production outages. And the unnecessary stress of carrying out urgent repairs can be avoided.
The ultimate goal of the smart factory is a generating a real-time energy audit that traditional energy monitoring systems can’t provide.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How to Wirelessly Power and Access a 1-Wire Network (Part 1)
http://www.electronicdesign.com/power/how-wirelessly-power-and-access-1-wire-network-part-1?NL=ED-003&Issue=ED-003_20180330_ED-003_975&sfvc4enews=42&cl=article_1_b&utm_rid=CPG05000002750211&utm_campaign=16343&utm_medium=email&elq2=12c3f174a33a49a0a1e672bd348448b1
By using a single node for 1-Wire communication, temperature sensing, authentication, and memory storage are possible with harvested power from an NFC link.
Norberto Sánchez-Dichi, Mohamed Ismael | Mar 29, 2018
1-Wire devices only use a single conductor and ground to provide functionality in mechanical assemblies and electronic systems. As a result, communication and power delivery on a 1-Wire bus reduce the number of nodes required in a system to just one.
A near-field communications (NFC) transceiver—with a built-in 256-bit secure hash algorithm (SHA-256) co-processor for symmetric authentication—paired with an NFC transponder that includes an I2C master/slave port and an energy-harvesting output, provides security for wireless access to a node of closed portable devices. NFC systems compatible with ISO-15693 and FIPS 180-4 provide a wireless method to power and securely access 1-Wire devices. Wireless access to a 1-Wire network provides new use cases and additional flexibility for electronics in applications where NFC is the preferred method of wireless power transfer and communication.
Wireless access to a 1-Wire network involves translation between a wireless communication protocol such as NFC and the 1-Wire communication protocol.
NFC relies on electromagnetic induction between nearby antennas to transmit and receive power, obtain control, and transfer data.
Figure 1 illustrates an NFC hardware setup using a transceiver such as the MAX66300 and a transponder like the MAX66242, both developed by Maxim Integrated.
While in the I2C master mode, the MAX66242 can relay information from connected circuitry such as sensors, a microcontroller, and other ancillary circuitry to an NFC transceiver such as the MAX66300 or a smartphone. In the I2C slave mode, the MAX66242 can serve as an intermediary between connected host circuitry and an NFC transceiver.
To access and control a 1-Wire network, the MAX66242 requires bidirectional I2C and 1-Wire protocol translation. An I2C-to-1-Wire bridge such as the DS2484 facilitates this task.
The DS2484 complements the MAX66242 by converting between I2C and 1-Wire protocol with adjustable timing and a sleep mode.
If the application requires symmetric key-based authentication of the 1-Wire network, the MAX66242 provides a built-in SHA-256 engine for computing a message authentication code (MAC) under FIPS 180-4. If asymmetric public-key based authentication is required, the DS2475, which is an elliptic-curve digital signature algorithm (ECDSA) co-processor with I2C to 1-Wire master capability, can be used in place of the DS2484.
The MAX66300 and the MAX66242 complete an NFC system that meets the ISO 15693 and the FIPS 180-4.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Who’s Responsible For Security?
https://semiengineering.com/whos-responsible-for-security-3/
Experts at the Table, part 3: How to manage the cost of security; the value of passwords; insignificant versus real threats.
SE: If something is manufactured in one place, shipped somewhere else for assembly and then shipped to a distributor, how do you know what you’re getting is the real thing?
Hayton: We started this with mobile phones, and because we enable payments on mobile phones as a trusted execution environment, people need to know that it’s a trusted device. We do ‘trust injection’ on a lot of different devices. But that’s pretty simple. We trust whoever is making the phone, and they do it all themselves. IoT isn’t like that. You outsource to module makers. In some markets you get a hologram. We’re doing something similar with digital holograms, whereby we can track different stages during manufacturing. ‘Here’s a sticker to put on this to say this device is at this stage, so later I can say it’s gone through stages A, B, C and D in the right order.’ But it doesn’t tell you if those people have actually done the right thing.
Schaeffer: In silicon we’re going to start to see identities on possibly every part. But you have to create a scalable model. If you have a very-low-power piece of silicon, a PUF might be really good for that if you don’t already have a crypto engine on it.
Povey: We’re working with companies like Data-IO to enable the OEM to deploy certificates and identity material at the point of manufacturing. You have to get the identity in there early with a digital hologram or certificate.
Canel: You’ll see a fragmented ecosystem with security. You’re going to have solutions with no root of trust—sensors that are 10 cents or 15 cents embedded into a building when that building is being put together. You’ll see devices with parts that cell for 50 cents. And then you’ll see parts with tamper resistance and security, and those will sell for $10. You’ll see a spectrum of solutions. We will have to deal with a set of inconsistent environments. There will be vertical markets that are fully regulated and companies that are concerned about their reputations, and we’ll see some level of normalization of practices.
SE: But there are a lot of touch points along the way, from the IP developers to the manufacturers to the distributors. Doesn’t each one require the same level of scrutiny? And is that realistic?
Schaeffer: It doesn’t need the same level of scrutiny. There can be some secure mechanisms put into place, but you have to choose the right tool for the right job. If I can get one key and use that to penetrate one device, that’s fine. That’s not a scalable attack. If I can use one device to get a key to penetrate 1,000 devices, that’s not alright. That will need either more protection or a secure mechanism. But we can have a set of devices where you have the same level of security. Then it will be up to the OEM to determine which technique is appropriate for a particular application.
Povey: Instead of who takes responsibility, we have to change the math. We have to take security and turn it from a cost into an intrinsic value—an underpinning enabler for the system. Then, everybody will make the right decision. Instead of saying, ‘I’ve got to put a root of trust in this and it will cost me 30 cents,’ or ‘I have to write better software and it will cost me $1 million,’ you are building a strategic relationship with your customer who you can sell to again and again. You deliver updates, management services and high value. That becomes part of the purchasing requirement. You can do better analytics because you trust the data and derive value out of that. And if you can defend your brand, that’s valuable. The only way to make this work is to change the business models.
Canel: Along those lines, insurance companies are going to play a very important role in a lot of industries.
SE: How much of this is the consumer’s responsibility? You have to change passwords regularly, which most people don’t.
Hayton: Passwords are terrible, but that’s a narrow view of security. You’re putting your password into a device and connecting to some multinational corporation that is awake every minute of every hour. Shouldn’t you be more concerned about that than whether your password is good or not? Typing in the password has been a long time in dying, but it is beginning to die. I’ve got a fingerprint sensor in my phone and another one on my PC. There are better ways to log in. You can’t trust users to come up with good passwords and then not forget them.
Schaeffer: The question is who bears the responsibility if you do something stupid like that. If someone steals money from my bank account from my Gmail account, who’s liable?
Povey: Most consumers don’t care and shouldn’t have to care. So many of the devices on the IoT won’t have user interfaces. We can’t even enter a password. For a smart home, you do have to enable services to help manage services and to maintain them. A lot of consumers don’t update their PCs, and they’re easy to update. They certainly won’t update their heating systems, their cars, their toasters. You have to outsource that to a trusted third party. In the industrial IoT, that has to go back to the info team to manage. There are better ways for IT teams to manage large, complex systems. Patching coming from the OEM has to be backed up and deployed at a certain time when the system is in the quietest mode. We can move away from passwords there and to certificate-based technology. We have to go back to better security technologies, which can be managed through good systems.
SE: This has ramifications that go well beyond a device. A toaster may seem insignificant, but it can burn down a house, and lots of toasters can burn down an entire community.
Holmberg: A lot of what has been discussed here involves infrastructure. When you think about software, that has to be developed in a different way.
Schaeffer: The FDA is starting to move in that direction. They know safety. Security is part of that.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Here are the five things I learned installing a smart mirror
https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/02/here-are-the-five-things-i-learned-installing-a-smart-mirror-in-my-house/?utm_source=tcfbpage&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&utm_content=FaceBook&sr_share=facebook
Tomi Engdahl says:
Arm TrustZone – A foundation for Secure IoT Architecture
https://www.mentor.com/embedded-software/resources/overview/arm-trustzone-a-foundation-for-secure-iot-architecture-d1909b1b-95b7-49f9-87fe-3b4fa9c402c4?uuid=d1909b1b-95b7-49f9-87fe-3b4fa9c402c4&contactid=1&PC=L&c=2018_04_03_esd_newsletter_update_mar_2018
Arm® TrustZone™ can be thought of as a hardware-based solution that is able to define a subset of the SoC for access by software. This presentation will look at Arm® TrustZone™ in the context of larger IoT solutions.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Enhanced Cloud-based Device Profiling and Health Monitoring
https://www.mentor.com/embedded-software/resources/overview/enhanced-cloud-based-device-profiling-and-health-monitoring-5852155a-0759-42b0-ba5e-10febcada80c?uuid=5852155a-0759-42b0-ba5e-10febcada80c&contactid=1&PC=L&c=2018_04_03_esd_newsletter_update_mar_2018
This session will look at monitoring of your devices in IoT
Tomi Engdahl says:
IIoT Evolution: An Approach To Reuse And Scale Your IIoT Technology Investment
https://www.mentor.com/embedded-software/resources/overview/iiot-evolution-an-approach-to-reuse-and-scale-your-iiot-technology-investment-a2f4e0d1-c168-4481-bbad-1971e23e9848?uuid=a2f4e0d1-c168-4481-bbad-1971e23e9848&contactid=1&PC=L&c=2018_04_03_esd_newsletter_update_mar_2018
The Mentor Embedded IoT Framework complements and extends the massive investments made by cloud vendors to provide comprehensive IIoT features that can be implemented down to the hardware of the edge or end node devices – and can be ported across platforms and clouds. The benefits of using a framework such as MEIF are abundantly clear: minimize learning curves, simplify implementations, increase code reuse, reduce porting costs,
and reduce testing.
Tomi Engdahl says:
IoT Diversity Challenges ROI
LPWA spreads $56B across 40+ apps
https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1333149
There’s plenty of growth ahead for the Internet of Things, but the market’s fragmented nature can make it hard to find the return on investment, said a market watcher with a new report on low power wide area (LPWA) networks
“It’s not just one product like a smartphone, its hundreds of different products, and the trick is creating enough products to meet demand,” said Mareca Hatler, director of research for ON World Inc.
Overall the market researcher expects revenues for LPWA systems and services to reach $56 billion by 2022. But the market is fragmented with users in some stage of exploring or deploying more than 40 unique IoT applications just for LPWA nets.
ON World’s latest report projects the Narrowband-IoT (NB-IoT) version of LTE and the 900 MHz LoRa network will take leading roles in LPWA over the next few years. One of their chief rivals, Sigfox, will trail, in part a victim of the demand for unique designs.
“Sigfox has millions of subscriber devices, but its challenge is getting enough devices to meet demand — it’s a product availability problem,” she said.
The problem of needing to customize designs for IoT deployments is a challenge all vendors face. But some feel it more than others.
“One advantage for LoRa is it has a bigger ecosystem with more products. There are dozens of LoRa modules and gateways, Sigfox has a handful,” Hatler said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
PLUG AND PLAY
RECONFIGURABLE
SOLUTIONS FOR
HETEROGENEOUS IOT
http://jultika.oulu.fi/files/isbn9789526218410.pdf
Tomi Engdahl says:
Positioning satellites to secure elephants
The GPS satellites attached to the African elephant’s neck help Tanzanian forest guards to follow the movements of the hemispheres and protect them more effectively. Up to 60 elephants will be filed in Tanzania’s Selous Protected Area and its surroundings this year.
“Satellite Stations have proved to be an excellent way to keep track of elephant movements and improve the conservation of the species in a vast area such as Selous,” says Tanja Pirinen , WWF’s Protective Specialist.
“It is important to ensure that the location information does not fall into the wrong hands. Only knowledgeable scientists and forest guards can access protected information, ” Pirinen says.
Source: https://www.uusiteknologia.fi/2018/04/05/paikantavat-gps-pannat-elefanttien-turvaksi/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:
Microsoft says it will invest $5B in IoT over the next four years to boost research and the development of products, services, and new programs — Microsoft, the ‘intelligent cloud/intelligent edge’ company, plans to step up its work in IoT research, products and programs.
Microsoft commits to spending $5B over four years on IoT
https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-commits-to-spending-5-billion-over-four-years-on-iot/
Microsoft, the ‘intelligent cloud/intelligent edge’ company, plans to step up its work in IoT research, products and programs.
Tomi Engdahl says:
IoT Diversity Challenges ROI
LPWA spreads $56B across 40+ apps
https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1333149
There’s plenty of growth ahead for the Internet of Things, but the market’s fragmented nature can make it hard to find the return on investment, said a market watcher with a new report on low power wide area (LPWA) networks
“It’s not just one product like a smartphone, its hundreds of different products, and the trick is creating enough products to meet demand,” said Mareca Hatler, director of research for ON World Inc.
Overall the market researcher expects revenues for LPWA systems and services to reach $56 billion by 2022. But the market is fragmented with users in some stage of exploring or deploying more than 40 unique IoT applications just for LPWA nets.
ON World’s latest report projects the Narrowband-IoT (NB-IoT) version of LTE and the 900 MHz LoRa network will take leading roles in LPWA over the next few years. One of their chief rivals, Sigfox, will trail, in part a victim of the demand for unique designs.
“Sigfox has millions of subscriber devices, but its challenge is getting enough devices to meet demand — it’s a product availability problem,” she said.
The problem of needing to customize designs for IoT deployments is a challenge all vendors face.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Preparing For An IoT Edge Project
15 considerations to save time and money.
https://semiengineering.com/preparing-for-an-iot-edge-project/
Before starting your IoT edge device development process, it is wise to spend time preparing for your new project. Planning before you start will limit frustration and save you time and money in the long run.
https://www.mentor.com/tannereda/resources/overview/preparing-for-an-iot-edge-project-401c952f-f8b6-44f8-b16c-c6317beeea30?cmpid=10171
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mesh Networking Grows For ICs
https://semiengineering.com/mesh-networking-grows-for-ics/
Approach is yet another way to scale SoCs and systems, but it also adds new level of complexity.
Mesh networks were invented to create rich interaction among groups of almost-unrelated peers, but now they are showing up in everything from advanced chip packages to IoT networks.
The flexibility of a many-to-many peer-connection model made the mesh approach a favorite for two-dimensional network-on-a-chip topologies, to the point where they began to supplant data-bus connections during the mid-2000s. That flexibility kept mesh on designers’ short list as 2-D topologies gave way to 3-D, which scale and handle advanced packaging more efficiently
Lessons learned from reaching that balance in chips designed for IoT devices with low power requirements may be useful in designing networks of those devices connected using a mesh-capable extension for Bluetooth Low Energy. The technology can be used to connect as many as 32,000 devices peerlessly, with enough structure to minimize both contention and power use.
Structured mesh topologies already are being applied inside advanced packages, for complex systems such as cars and industrial operations, and across many devices that need to communicate without the formalities of defined hub-and-spoke network structure and role definition. The idea is that chips can be developed independently, function independently, but organize dynamically and non-hierarchically to share information and work together efficiently.
“This is already being implemented on-chip,”
“Rather than going to 7nm and beyond, where you have to deal with yield and cost issues, the goal is not to spin an entire SoC every time you want to go after a new market opportunity,” said Sundari Mitra, CEO of NetSpeed Systems. “The way to do that is to take core IP blocks like accelerators, and combine them with base die such as I/Os and PHYs, which can remain at bigger geometries. But the connection has to be correct so that you don’t end up with deadlocks, and you need an extensible network that allows you to do that. Whether that is purely mesh isn’t essential. You don’t necessarily have to be rigid on the topology. But you do want to connect this all together at the architectural level because verifying it is difficult.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Research: The IoT project is successful by piloting and supporting enterprise management
The Internet of Things is one of the most important technology areas that organizations need to take over to optimize their existing processes and to transform their businesses digitally competitively. The Market Research Institute IDC explained successful IoT projects last year with the help of software company SAP.
Almost 40 percent of organizations from all sectors in the Nordic countries use IoT. However, a significant part of the organizations are at an early stage of testing, but those who use it in their daily business have improved their level of efficiency, IDC explains.
Source: https://www.uusiteknologia.fi/2018/04/05/tutkimus-iot-projekti-onnistuu-pilotoimalla-ja-yritysjohdon-tuella/
More:
IDC Nordic Internet of Things Survey 2017
http://www.mynewsdesk.com/material/pressrelease/2468349/download?resource_type=resource_attached_pdf_document
Tomi Engdahl says:
Is wearable sensor tech really the stress-buster modern humans need?
https://www.electropages.com/2018/03/is-wearable-stress-sensor-tech-the-stress-buster-modern-humans-need/?utm_campaign=&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=article&utm_content=Is+wearable+sensor+tech+really+the+stress-buster+modern+humans+need%3F
April is Stress Awareness Month and has been ever since 1992 and, no, this is not an April 1st spoof story but a look at a stress-related study using wearable technology.
I think most of us are all too well aware of the prolific outpourings of marketing hyperbole telling us how wearable technology can resolve stress problems.
So how is it that stress is affecting so many people when apparently so many of us are either wearing or carrying health monitoring technology that provides the analysis essential to guiding us smoothly through life in a state of stress-free karma?
To continue the search for an answer to that question this April will see hordes of health professionals congregate to try and hammer out cures for what many of them see as the stress epidemic impacting on modern lives.
But the reality is that stress has in fact reached near epidemic proportions. So much so that estimates suggest around 65-75% of doctors appointments are to deal with stress or conditions that have stress–related indications.
So given all the trillions of bytes of health data that all this trendy wearable tech is providing us humans what exactly is happening about the pragmatic reduction of stress?
An interesting study early this year has been completed using digital sensing equipment that has compiled what is claimed to be the largest global databank on stress detection.
Called Stress in the Work Environment, the study compiled information from a 1,000 people and is said to be the first large-scale study that used wearable technology to establish the link between mental stress and physiological symptoms that humans feel in daily life.
During the study the participants’ basic stress levels and activators were determined using psychological questionnaires. They were then fitted with a stress monitor bracelet and a wireless ECG patch which they wore constantly for five days. The ECG patch monitored heart rate and heart rhythm variability as well as acceleration (movement). The stress wristband used algorithms to measure skin temperature and skin conductance.
The latter item, skin conductance, is more usually referred to as electrodermal activity (EDA) and relates to the continuous variation in the electrical characteristics of the skin.
The basic premise of EDA is that skin resistance varies with the state of sweat glands in the skin. Sweating is controlled by the sympathetic nervous system and EDA is an indication of psychological or physiological reactions.
Tomi Engdahl says:
IBM’s tiny blockchain computer will help protect against counterfeiting
https://www.electronicproducts.com/Computer_Systems/Standalone_Mobile/IBM_39_s_tiny_blockchain_computer_will_help_protect_against_counterfeiting.aspx
The micro-computer is a complete system-on-a-chip with a processor, memory, storage, and a communication module that can implement blockchain and act as a crypto-anchor
IBM released something huge for blockchains but extravagantly small in size. The company’s new computer, which is the smallest in the world, has a footprint of only 1 x 1 mm. That is astonishingly small for a computer, considering that it’s smaller than a grain of salt. The computers contain a complete system-on-a-chip (SoC) with a processor, memory, storage, and a communication module and can analyze, communicate, and even act on data. Used with blockchain technology with added crypto-anchors, this new computer may revolutionize the way that shipping companies track freight to fight fraud.
This ordinary-looking chip is actually an array of 64 SoCs, each containing a photocell and LED array for optical communications, SRAM, and IBM’s salt-grain-sized processor.
The new tiny computer IBM has created may be able to solve the problem of counterfeiting through the application of blockchain technology. Originally created for use with cryptocurrency, blockchain technology is a distributed electronic ledger that records all interactions that take place involving a particular transaction, providing a secure copy to all stakeholders in the transaction that includes links to records of prior transactions. Blockchains record every time a bitcoin changes hands, for instance, with the links providing a history of its ownership. The secure, distributed ledger ensures that no one can falsify a transaction without detection.
A second element of the counterfeiting solution involves crypto-anchors, which extend blockchain’s value into the physical realm. A crypto-anchor is a tamper-proof digital “fingerprint” embedded into a device that provides it with a unique identity. Coupled with blockchain, the presence of a crypto-anchor allows secure tracking of the object’s ownership as it changes hands. Counterfeits then become simple to detect because they will not have a valid blockchain associated with them.
IBM aims at applying its tiny computers as crypto-anchors to this method of blockchain-based object tracking. By embedding the computers, each encoded with a unique, encrypted identity, into goods intended to be shipped, the retailers or customers who buy those products can then use blockchain to track products back through the places that the items have been — even in real time.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Fribo: A Robot for People Who Live Alone
https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/home-robots/fribo-a-robot-for-people-who-live-alone
In the United States, there are over 5 million young adults between the ages of 18-35 living alone, and that number is growing.
At the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human Robot Interaction last month, roboticists from Korea introduced a robot called Fribo, which is designed to provide a way for young adults who live alone to maintain daily connections with one another. It does this by listening for what goes on in your life and the life of your friends, in as non-creepy a way as possible.
Fribo operates by listening for what’s called “living noise,” which is all of the stuff in your home that makes noise besides you. The robot’s voice recognition is minimal (and it doesn’t record voices), so it’s much more private than something like Alexa. It’s also smarter in many ways, with the ability to understand what’s going on in its environment just by listening.
Fribo can recognize noises like a vacuum cleaner motor running, a microwave turning on, a running washing machine, a refrigerator door opening or closing, noises from entrance doors or specific room doors, and more.
When a Fribo in your home hears a noise that it recognizes, it sends a message to another Fribo in your friend’s home, or even to an entire network of Fribos belonging to people you know
Fribo, in other words, is not exactly a social robot: It’s more like a social networking robot.
Fundamentally, Fribo is intended to be a “trigger,” providing prompts that encourage follow-up social interactions. The robot itself isn’t really a mediator—it expects you to reach out to your friends, but it provides you with reasons to do so.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Securing IoT Edge Devices
https://semiengineering.com/securing-iot-edge-devices/
Limited compute resources and a complex ecosystem make edge security tough, but chip-to-cloud solutions could help.
It certainly isn’t any secret that the industry continues to be challenged when it comes to adopting and implementing practical IoT security solutions. However, it is important to understand that IoT edge devices typically only have basic resources, such as reduced CPU processing power and a minimal amount of RAM and flash memory. This means there are limited compute capabilities available for security solutions. For example, a typical smartphone processor scores 5000-10,000 on the industry standard Embedded Microprocessor Benchmark Consortium (EEMBC) CoreMark benchmark, while an average smart meter processor scores only 10-300. Most smartphones use at least 1GB of RAM, while only 50-500KB of RAM is available in the average smart meter.
OEMs and service providers also have a complex ecosystem to contend with, which starts with the integration of the chipset firmware and third-party libraries and involves a number of stakeholders and steps along the way. These include OEMs, electronics manufacturing services (EMS), IoT platform providers and security and key management providers. This complexity has the potential to increase the attack surface, with layered vulnerabilities that are difficult to identify before deployment and detect after deployment.
Device management and budgetary challenges
Onboarding and managing the lifecycle of millions of devices also presents a particularly daunting scalability challenge for both OEMs and service providers. Let’s take a closer look at what manually onboarding IoT devices involves. Firstly, the device must be configured. Then, device credentials are provisioned and linked to the device registry in the cloud. Moreover, it can take up to 20 minutes to onboard a single device; 33 hours for 100; and 138 days for 10K devices. Let’s think about this in the context of onboarding and managing the lifecycles of 27.5B devices by 2020!
Meanwhile, device cost consideration and time to market (TTM) pressure means OEMs typically only implement and utilize limited device security measures. Why? Well, let’s take a closer look at an estimated average security cost breakdown. Device security hardware and/or firmware at $1-2 per device; credential provisioning at 10 cents per device; client and cloud integration, as well as non-recurring engineering (NRE) costs of $300K. Now, what about TTM? Well, for client and cloud security integration you are looking at a 6-month investment for each, which can add up to a total of one year in terms of TTM impact.
Securing the edge: A practical approach
Fortunately, there are a number of practical approaches to IoT security. As we noted earlier, IoT devices are somewhat constrained by limited device resources (CPU/RAM). Nevertheless, device manufacturers can choose IoT processors that include integrated security hardware to reduce CPU load, RAM usage and code footprint. Meanwhile, the complexity of the IoT ecosystem (device to cloud) can be simplified for both OEMs and service providers by adopting an integrated chip-to-cloud solution – rather than stitching together multiple, discrete components. In addition, service providers can utilize a scalable over-the-air (OTA) secure provisioning solution to more easily manage device onboarding and lifecycle. Lastly, since most chipset vendors do not charge extra for using available security hardware resources, OEMs can choose a chip-to-cloud solution that leverages existing chipset security capabilities to mitigate device cost limitations and TTM pressure.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How To Build A Modern Network
https://semiengineering.com/how-to-build-a-modern-network/
How to sort through the different telemetry approaches for the optimum solution.
There have, in recent years, been fundamental changes to the way in which networks are implemented, as data demands have necessitated a wider breadth of functionality and elevated degrees of operational performance. Accompanying all this is a greater need for accurate measurement of such performance benchmarks in real time, plus in-depth analysis in order to identify and subsequently resolve any underlying issues before they escalate.
A broad spectrum of different options are available when looking to extract telemetry material, whether that be passive monitoring, active measurement, or a hybrid approach. An increasingly common practice is the piggy-backing of telemetry information onto the data packets that are passing through the network. This tactic is being utilized within both in-situ OAM (IOAM) and in-band network telemetry (INT), as well as in an alternate marking performance measurement (AM-PM) context.
WHITE PAPER
Network Telemetry Solutions for Data Center and Enterprise Networks
https://www.marvell.com/documents/8ni0aekscuc444ay31nn/
Active measurement uses dedicated control plane (OAM) messages. The performance of these messages is monitored, thereby giving an indicator ofthe performance of the user traffic.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Smart home devices boost tech support needs
http://www.broadbandtechreport.com/articles/2018/04/smart-home-devices-boost-tech-support-needs.html?cmpid=enl_btr_weekly_2018-04-05&pwhid=6b9badc08db25d04d04ee00b499089ffc280910702f8ef99951bdbdad3175f54dcae8b7ad9fa2c1f5697ffa19d05535df56b8dc1e6f75b7b6f6f8c7461ce0b24
According to Parks Associates, problems with computing and entertainment devices are declining steadily year-over-year, dropping by more than 50% since 2014. However, smart home devices are creating more problems in households. Thirty-four percent of smart home device owners experienced problems with their devices in 2017, up from 28% in 2016. Purchase intentions for most smart home devices in the next 12 months are 20-25% among U.S. broadband households, so tech support companies and service providers are starting to invest more support resources focusing on solutions for those products, such as in-home consultation services.
“Problems with computing and entertainment devices have declined due to mature technologies that improve device reliability and performance, including self-healing technologies, product updates, and intuitive user interfaces,” said Patrice Samuels, Parks’ senior analyst. “For smart home products, this market is moving toward the early majority, who are typically less tech savvy than the early adopters, resulting in a higher demand for support.”
The research house says 44% of technical problems with computing and entertainment devices are ultimately resolved by a professional technician, while 35% of smart home problems are resolved by professional support.
Other findings indicate:
The average number of connected computing and entertainment devices in broadband households increased from 4.1 in 2010 to 8.3 in 2017.
39% of consumers who intend to purchase a smart home device found a service that helps them set up and configure new devices highly appealing in 2017, compared to 28% in 2016.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ben Fox Rubin / CNET:
Amazon Key rolls out keyless entry, remote lock and unlock, and guest access to all US users and adds five new compatible smart locks, bringing total to eight — A handful of Amazon Key’s main features are being rolled out across the US. — That means you can now use the service anywhere …
Some Amazon Key features, including keyless entry, go nationwide
https://www.cnet.com/news/some-amazon-key-features-including-keyless-entry-go-nationwide/
But don’t expect nationwide in-home deliveries just yet.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Self-Powered Image Sensor Could Watch You Forever
https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/semiconductors/optoelectronics/selfpowered-image-sensor-could-watch-you-forever
Solar cells convert light to electricity. Image sensors also convert light to electricity. If you could do them both at the same time in the same chip, you’d have the makings of a self-powered camera. Engineers at University of Michigan have recently come up with just that, an image sensor that does both things well enough to capture 15 images per second powered only by the daylight falling on it.
With such an energy harvesting imager integrated with and powering a tiny processor and wireless transceiver you could “put a small camera, almost invisible, anywhere,” says Euisik Yoon, the professor of electrical engineering and computer science at University of Michigan who led its development. They reported their results this week in IEEE Electron Device Letters.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Under a millimeter wide and powered by light, these tiny cameras could hide almost anywhere
https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/06/under-a-millimeter-wide-and-powered-by-light-these-tiny-cameras-could-hide-almost-anywhere/?utm_source=tcfbpage&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&utm_content=FaceBook&sr_share=facebook
As if there weren’t already cameras enough in this world, researchers created a new type that is both microscopic and self-powered, making it possible to embed just about anywhere and have it work perpetually. It’s undoubtedly cool technology, but it’s probably also going to cause a spike in tinfoil sales.
Engineers have previously investigated the possibility of having a camera sensor power itself with the same light that falls on it. After all, it’s basically just two different functions of a photovoltaic cell — one stores the energy that falls on it while the other records how much energy fell on it.
The prototype sensor they built is less than a square millimeter, and fully self-powered in sunlight. It captured images at up to 15 frames per second of pretty reasonable quality
Ultimately the sensor could be essentially a nearly invisible camera that operates forever with no need for a battery or even wireless power. Sounds great!
In order for this to be a successful spy camera, of course, it needs more than just an imaging component — a storage and transmission medium are necessary for any camera to be useful. But microscopic versions of those are also in development
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ry Crist / CNET:
Amazon rolls out “Announcements” feature for Alexa, which lets users send a short voice message to every Echo device in the house — Rolling out to customers in the US and Canada today, the new feature lets you send a short voice message to every Echo device under your roof with a single voice command.
Tell the family ‘dinner’s ready’ with Alexa Announcements
https://www.cnet.com/news/alexa-announcements-intercom-feature/
Rolling out to customers in the US and Canada today, the new feature lets you send a short voice message to every Echo device under your roof with a single voice command.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How to secure your Raspberry Pi
https://opensource.com/article/17/3/iot-security-raspberry-pi?sc_cid=7016000000127ECAAY
Find out what sensible steps you can take to protect your Raspberry Pi and other IoT devices.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Week in Review: IoT
Microsoft’s IoT push; at-risk seniors; cheers, all!
https://semiengineering.com/the-week-in-review-iot-92/
Microsoft this week said it will spend $5 billion over four years on Internet of Things programs in research, development, and partner enablement. The company previously spent $1.5 billion on developing IoT technology. The move could pay dividends for the Microsoft Azure cloud platform and lead to wider use of Azure Stack, which pairs Microsoft software with hardware from approved partners.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, United Microelectronics, Semiconductor Manufacturing International, Vanguard International Semiconductor, and Hua Hong Semiconductor are reportedly running their 8-inch wafer fabrication lines at full production capacity to keep up with demand for IoT chips.
C3 IoT received a multi-year contract from 3M to provide artificial intelligence and IoT technologies. C3 will help 3M in implementing AI applications for predictive health care and supply chain analytics.
Chris Wilder, senior analyst at Moor Insights and Strategy, identifies companies that have emerged as leaders in the Industrial IoT ecosystem. They are Amazon Web Services, Cisco Systems, CyberHat, Dell Technologies, IBM, IFS AB, Inocybe Technologies, and Jabil.
Frost & Sullivan forecasts the worldwide market for smart cities will be worth more than $2 trillion by 2025. As more people live in cities, smart-city technology will be enhanced by advanced driver-assistance systems, artificial intelligence, distributed energy generation, personalized health care, and robotics, the market research firm predicts.
Tomi Engdahl says:
I’m not sure connected planters will ever succeed
But I love them anyway
https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/4/7/17203754/connected-planter-grow-duo-edyn-parrot-pot-circuit-breaker-live
I love all smart, connected planters because I can’t keep a living thing alive, but they also seem to keep failing. Parrot attempted a smart pot with its Parrot Pot, which was discontinued. Another company, Edyn, launched with a successful Kickstarter campaign and later a partnership with Home Depot, but it now appears to be struggling. Still, companies want to keep trying to make smart planters. Click & Grow sells a bunch of different indoor planters with timed lights and water reservoirs. Oh, and of course proprietary soil pods for users to plant. Remember this Circuit Breaker Live show?
Now, a company called Grow has announced its first product, the Grow Duo. It’s a large planter for outdoor use that comes with a companion iOS / Android app, a moisture sensor for the soil, temperature sensors for both the soil and outside air, and a light sensor for the sun. It hooks up to a user’s hose, so there’s no need to water the plants; its automated sprinklers take care of it. You can use your own seeds, although the company also sells “seed sheets” that eventually disintegrate.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Armis raises $30 million Series B as enterprise IoT security heats up
https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/09/armis-raises-30-million-series-b-as-enterprise-iot-security-heats-up/
When Armis launched in 2015, the company founders looked over the horizon and they saw the Internet of Things requiring a strong security layer. Today, the IoT security startup announced a $30 million Series B.
The company has attracted a strong group of venture capitalists. The round was led by Bain Capital Ventures and Red Dot Capital. Sequoia Capital and Tenaya Capital, who were investors in earlier rounds, also participated. Today’s investment brings the total raised to $47 million.
The company secures IoT devices without an agent because it’s often impossible to put an agent on a connected device like a video camera, light bulb or sensor. That requires some knowledge of these devices and their expected behavior and Armis has created a growing database of more than 5 million devices to track this information.
Company co-founder and CEO Yevgeny Dibrov says it involves taking that database and combining it with other information about the environment in which the device operates to understand if it’s behaving in an expected fashion. When it’s not they may shut it down and alert the customer, depending on how it’s configured and how severe the problem appears to be.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Security Model Targets Industrial IoT
https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1333164
The Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC) rolled out its next step in an effort to deliver guidelines for securing the IoT in business settings. A new white paper lays out a process for companies to define and deliver levels of security appropriate for their situations.
The so-called security maturity model follows a security framework that the IIC rolled out in late 2016. The trade group, formed in 2014, will now turn its focus to delivering a document on best practices and a set of industry profiles.
A handful of companies now provide IoT security audits, but “we realized there were gaps to determine what’s the right level of security for your solution — there were guidelines missing,” said Ron Zahavi, who co-authored the white paper and chairs an IIC security committee.
IoT Security Maturity Model: Description and Intended Use
http://www.iiconsortium.org/pdf/SMM_Description_and_Intended_Use_2018-04-09.pdf