BROWSING: Internet of Things (IoT)

Alphabet spin-off Loon, which relies on high-altitude balloons and drones to provide wireless internet service to terrestrial users, has snagged $125 million in investment from Softbank joint venture HAPSMobile. The companies say that they are "actively exploring commercial collaborations to accelerate the deployment of...

Juniper Research claims street lighting upgrades will deliver $15 billion in cumulative energy savings for cities in the period to 2023. These savings will be achieved both by converting lamps to energy-efficient LEDs and by adding connectivity to monitor and control individual lights. It said...

Chinese vendor ZTE has signed a comprehensive strategic cooperation agreement with compatriot heavy equipment manufacturing company Sany to promote the integration of 5G and industry while accelerating the digital transformation of intelligent manufacturing. Under the terms of the agreement, ZTE and Sany will explore the...

The city of Reno, in Nevada, is using blockchain technology to validate data communications between autonomous vehicles and street infrastructure. The University of Nevada and Reno’s Center for Applied Research (NCAR) have teamed up with local blockchain company Filament on the vehicle-to-everything (V2X) trial, which...

Sidewalk Labs has released a set of visual icons for smart cities to instruct citizens about the new technologies they are deploying. The point is to define and explain the role and accountability of digital solutions being rolled out public and private authorities in...

Finnish network vendor Nokia and Finnish private LTE provider Ukkoverkot have signed a four-year deal to bring connectivity, automation, and intelligence to the Port of Kokkola, also in Finland. The Port of Kokkola is the third largest ‘general’ port in Finland. It is also...

Japanese giant Hitachi entered into a definitive agreement to acquire a robotics business operated by American firm JR Automation Technologies. The acquisition price for JR Automation is US$ 1.42 billion, Hitachi said. JR Automation builds production lines and logistics systems using industrial robots. As a...

UK-based Mettis Aerospace, manufacturer of components for the likes of Airbus, Boeing and Rolls-Royce, is to test Wi-Fi 6 for connecting industrial machines and processes. The Wireless Broadband Alliance said the trials represent the first of Wi-Fi 6 for enterprise and industrial internet-of-things (IoT)...

U.S. firm Itron, a technology company that specializes in products and services for energy and water resource management, VINCI Energies’ Electrix and Transport Canberra and City Services (TCCS) are working to create an industrial internet of things (IIoT) network to support smart lighting and...

Europe moved a step closer to rejecting 5G for autonomous vehicles in favour of wi-fi based communications last week, after the European Parliament voted in favour of the latter technology as proven, and “easy to implement and cheap”. Around 60 per cent of the vote...

Annual revenue from smart street lights will grow at compound annual rate of 31 per cent to reach $1.7 billion in 2026, reckons ABI Research. The analyst house said street lighting programmes will continue to focus on replacing conventional lamps with LED lamps through...

US frozen drinks company Freezing Point, parent to slushie brand Frazil, has partnered with Norwegian engineering firm 7Sense to develop a low-cost, retrofittable cellular NB-IoT circuit board to make its in-store slushie machines smart. The circuit board, based on the nRF9160 System-in-Package (SiP) from...

Smart Dubai has announced the completion of the first phase of the UAEPASS initiative — its nation-wide program for digital identity — integrating seven leading government entities to date. This smart city initiative allows citizens, residents and visitors to access the entities’ services via smartphones,...

UK smart street-lighting firm Telensa has appointed Belfast-based digital services provider Kainos as lead partner in the ramp-up and rollout of its Urban Data Project to additional smart cities. The Urban Data Project initiative launched in Cambridge, in the UK, in February, and brings...

Technology that was designed for optimising data centres is being applied to power distribution in airports and hospitals. Canadian infrastructure management firm Maya Heat Transfer Technologies (HTT) has repackaged its data centre platform, running on OSIsoft’s data management engine, for new verticals. Maya HTT,...

Microsoft has acquired embedded computing software firm Express Logic for an undisclosed fee, with an aim to “unlock access to billions of new connected endpoints” in the internet-of-things (IoT) space. The San Diego outfit is behind the ThreadX real-time operating system (RTOS), for managing highly...

Japanese telecommunications operator NTT DoCoMo, together with compatriot logistics firm Itochu Logistics Corp. and their U.S. subsidiaries announced that they will trial an IoT solution for delivery-fleet management in the United States. The companies said that this IoT-based solution uses LTE-M devices to visualize operational status of outsourced trucks. The trial...

Two schools in Houston will pilot an internet of things (IoT)-enabled platform called ActiveShield to improve public safety. The IoT safe-spaces technology created by Insight Enterprises (NSIT) integrates with a building safety platform from BeSafe Technologies to facilitate critical, real-time information sharing during a crisis. Insight’s Safe...

Verizon, Cradlepoint, Arrow among accelerator partners Qualcomm Technologies, a subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated, announced the launch of its Smart Cities Accelerator Program. The program will bring together companies that utilize Qualcomm's products to provide a solutions-focused website specifically for smart cities applications around the world. The...

U.K. telco O2 confirmed it will provide 5G connectivity for the testing and development of connected and autonomous vehicle (CAV) technology at Millbrook Proving Ground in Bedfordshire. O2 will enable 5G connectivity to Millbrook testing facilities from June 2019, using its 2.3 GHz and 3.4...

Moving from PoC to meaningful scale with smart cities investment When imagining a smart city, many people immediately think of pervasively connected infrastructure streaming valuable data that allows city managers to dynamically control traffic flow, improve public safety outcomes, enhance accessibility to city services, and...

Wireless technologies have been popular with consumers for several decades now (think Wi-Fi, cordless phones, etc.). The proliferation of smart devices has only fed the need for wireless advances, which have largely come in the form of vastly improved computing power, network connectivity and...

Nokia and Cellcom Israel have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to deploy Sensing as a Service in Israel with the main aim of creating a real-time environmental data offering using Cellcom Israel's existing radio infrastructure. Nokia Sensing as a Service allows the re-use of existing radio sites to...

The original Monarch system-in-package (SiP) from French chipmaker Sequans Communications has been made available Verizon’s ThingSpace IoT ‘accelerator programme’ for just $6.50. The new price point is a significant advance on the magic $10 mark for IoT chips that was breached in the middle of...