Time to get in on yet another IoT Evolution Week in Review. I’m not feeling like overly gilding the lily, so without further ado, little or no pomp and/or circumstance, and just a modicum of impropriety and shenanigans, let us get underway.
In the first of our lead stories this week, Samsung Electronics and Harman International Industries have announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Samsung will acquire Harman for $112.00 per share in cash, or total equity value of about $8 billion. When the deal closes, it will make Samsung a serious IoT player in the Connected Transportation space and the IIoT.
In a great guest post this week, Bill Brehm, Managing Director and Chief Operations Overlord, James Brehm and Associates, broached the subject of IoT farming and posed several questions to our readers. He said that growing up in a small Northwest Iowa farming community gives him a unique perspective. Could connecting things make farming easier? Could connectivity make farming more profitable? Could it provide a higher quality product?
And now, the news:
In a new announcement out of Finland, the country’s second-biggest municipal region, Tampere, has said it is launching a new period of heavy IoT development and investment, to the tune of 6 to 10 billion Euros by 2030, with the goal of establishing a fully-integrated and internationally attractive Smart City.
Trilliant, a smart energy communications provider, has now connected more than 4 million smart devices in the UK, including gas meters, electric meters and in-home displays.
The Next-Generation Energy Technologies for Connected and Autonomous On-Road Vehicles (NEXTCAR) program has been announced, and sponsored, by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E). It is designed to apply next-generation Connected Transportation technology to truck platooning and concepts for smart, cloud-connected powertrains to achieve 20 percent fuel savings for tractor trailers.
IoT integrators are always moving toward more complete capitalization of Fog devices at the Edge of the Network. These sensor networks, gateways and low power devices often need Bluetooth 4.2 and its variety of features to help bridge the networks. In a new webinar, coming up Wednesday, December 7 at 1 p.m. Eastern, which is called “Unraveling Bluetooth for the IoT Ecosystem,” Telit will showcase its new BlueMod 4.2 portfolio and roadmap.
This week, the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, chaired by Rep. Greg Walden of Oregon, and the Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade, chaired by Rep. Michael C. Burgess of Texas, held a joint hearing entitled, “Understanding the Role of Connected Devices in Recent Cyber Attacks.”
This week on the IoT Time Podcast, I sat down with Tatu Ylönen, inventor of SSH and CEO at SSH Communications Security, to talk about Mirai, SSH, and the core of the problem the IoT faces with security. This episode is sponsored by the IoT Evolution Expo. To become a sponsor of IoT Time, please email or tweet me.
There’s plenty more to read, listen to and watch, so visit us on IoT Evolution World for all the IoT news, my friends. Now is the time to put into your calendar the next IoT Evolution Expo, to be held in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Also, please get in touch with us when you have stories. As always, if you have questions, comments, complaints or compliments, please send them to me, editorial director Ken Briodagh at [email protected] or on Twitter @KenBriodagh.
