BROWSING: Smart Cities

Japanese duo Mitsubishi Corporation and Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) Corporation have jointly acquired a 30 percent ownership stake Netherlands-based mapping company HERE Technologies. The two companies have co-invested in HERE via holding company COCO Tech Holding in the Netherlands, which the pair established together...

The internet of things (IoT) is changing the shape of many businesses. Not only does it herald greater visibility of asset effectiveness, improve operational efficiencies, and facilitate more informed decision making, it is also opening up new ways of doing business. Its reach is...

The UK divisions of US networking giant Cisco and Spanish telecoms group Telefónica have contributed to a new “cybersecurity blueprint” to protect the UK from cyber-attacks on connected and autonomous vehicles and transport systems. The pair joined with the Warwick Manufacturing Group at the University...

  The city of Austin and NTT have announced their intention to partner to carry out a smart project that will use new technologies to analyze traffic patterns, ease congestion and support community planning in Austin. Under the smart city Project, NTT’s Accelerate Smart data platform,...

The Canadian government has awarded $3 million (CAD) to IoT connectivity provider BehrTech, an early exponent of telegram-splitting ultra-narrowband (TS-UNB) technology, to build an industrial IoT lab at its headquarters in Toronto. Its remit is to foster collaboration and drive innovation in the Industry...

Short-term impacts from the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic on the burgeoning internet-of-things (IoT) market will see an 18 percent slump in new wide-area connections in 2020 compared with previous forecasts. However, the IoT sector will find its mark in the longer-term as the planet adjusts...

Miami-Dade County in southeastern Florida in the US has deployed an IoT solution for waste water management to mitigate regulatory issues, prevent sewer overflows, improve water quality, and ensure safety for the public. Tech company Itron, based in Washington state, has been drafted in by...

The trade groups representing Bluetooth technology and the DALI smart-lighting interface are working together to promote their technologies as complementary IoT standards for commercial indoor lighting systems. The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG), the trade association that oversees Bluetooth technology, and the Digital Illumination Interface Alliance...

Work has started in the UK to develop 300 kilometres of public roads for live testing of connected and autonomous vehicles. The new UK test environment, running from Coventry to Birmingham in the West Midlands in the UK, will see autonomous vehicles trialled on urban,...

Network operators are looking to segment their private LTE and 5G offers for enterprises into gold, silver, and bronze tiers to distinguish between standalone systems using slices of public networks, managed services using privately-licensed ‘vertical’ spectrum, and plug-and-play installations running in unlicensed bands. So says...

Norwegian telecoms group Telenor has created a new silo-busting enterprise 5G and IoT office to stimulate collaboration between its Nordic operations. The new Nordic Hub will take a ‘lean’ approach to co-innovation, the company said, seeking to foster collaboration between teams and technologies in the...

The developer community working with LoRa-based IoT solutions took stock of Semtech’s new LR1110 module at a virtual meet-up last month, and declared it a “pretty unique piece of silicon”. The LR1110 is the latest in a flurry of dual-mode silicon that appears to...

Telekom Slovenije is to build a 5G test network at the Port of Koper (Luka Koper) in Slovenia as a platform for new automation and intelligence tools to bring greater efficiency to port and shipping operations. The European Union (EU) backed project, which goes under...

The coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic will accelerate rollout and takeup of narrowband IoT (NB-IoT), which is building a head of steam already. NB-IoT passed 100 million connections in January on the back of a continuing surge in China, according to the GSMA, and is on...

Peachtree Corners in Georgia in the US has launched a fleet of remote controlled electric scooters that can be delivered to customers and returned to parking spots by tele-operators – working from an office in Mexico City. These twin challenges – to locate scooters for...

  The University of California, Berkeley and NTT announced a partnership to carry out a connected campus pilot project. The initiative will leverage technology to transform the UC Berkeley Parking and Transportation Department by analyzing patterns, easing traffic congestion and increasing pedestrian safety in the Bancroft...

Mexico City has completed one of the fastest-ever integrated deployments of a connected city-wide surveillance system. The Mexican capital has seen 13,720 LTE-based video cameras installed in four months. Austin-based video surveillance firm Eagle Eye Networks said it was installing 250 cameras per day in...

Las Vegas has extended its smart-city rollout with Japanese group NTT to cover high-definition optical and audio sensors at 14 locations across the city. The extension follows an initial trial, which provided information to city personnel to increase situational awareness and provide some minor traffic...

Siemens has struck a deal with private network provider Ondas Networks to range the California firm’s wireless radio systems under its own brand in North America, as part of its offer to the railroad sector. The German industrial giant will integrate radio technology from Ondas...

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has voted to approve usage of six megahertz of 900 MHz spectrum for private networking by utility companies in the US, declaring the ‘juice is worth the squeeze’ despite its diminutive spread. The six-megahertz is split between two five-megahertz holdings...

Amazon Web Services has joined the board of the LoRa Alliance, alongside US telecoms company Charter Communications, German untility Netze BW, and US LoRaWAN operator Senet. Members from each company will serve on the alliance board for the 2020-2021 period, at least, joining existing board...

Singapore is trialing the usage of a robot dog from Boston Dynamics to assist with social distancing measures in parks, gardens and nature reserves. The announcement by Singapore’s Smart Nation and Digital Government Group, which comprises its The Smart Nation and Digital Government Office (SNDGO)...

German industrial giant Siemens has called for the planet to urgently prioritise digital technologies, of the type it is selling, in order to meet environmental and societal challenges, and to equip the economy with the working tools to better cope in mass-crisis scenarios, such...

Sidewalk Labs, the smart-city side project of Google-parent company Alphabet, has pulled the plug on its controversial tech-fuelled urban re-development project in Toronto, blaming “economic uncertainty” brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. The firm said the economic impact of the coronavirus crisis was felt in...