The following are news announcements made during the past week:
PRESS RELEASE:
Turkcell Rolls Out Narrow-Band IoT Network Across Turkey
Turkcell, continuing to invest in LTE – A infrastructure, became the first operator in Turkey to support NB IOT (NarrowBand-Internet of Things) required for new-gen innovative applications on LTE – A networks. NarrowBand technology is an upper segment of IoT (Internet of Things) which allows things to communicate over the internet like the people. With the NarrowBand IoT technology, sensors in smart cities will communicate the measuring results to a platform with short delay times provided by LTE – A. Data collected by the sensors and communicated to cloud via LTE – A network will be turned into meaningful data which add to the city environment through big data analyses.
Gediz Sezgin, Turkcell’s Executive Vice President Network Technologies, says “While our living spaces become more and more “connected” every day, Turkcell’s mobile infrastructure is now ready for a world where billions of devices will connect. We became the first operator in Turkey to support NB IOT (NarrowBand-Internet of Things) required for new-gen innovative applications. 5G’s essential ‘NarrowBand Internet of Things’ is in Turkey for the first time by Turkcell. So we open the door to 5G. NarrowBand – Internet of Things will extend smart city applications and many innovative solutions will be developed. It is expected that the economy created by this technology as of 2025 will exceed USD 3 trillion. Offering a technology which will create such a volume requires a very strong LTE – A infrastructure. We offer the first and the best NarrowBand – Internet of Things services in Turkey thanks to the advantages and broad coverage of the frequencies. As Turkcell, we will continue to research and invest to introduce the most contemporary technologies.”
Thanks to this new technology made possible by Turkcell’s LTE – A network, machines communicate fast and effectively and makes lives easier and smarter in cities. As an example this technology can be used in large cities where parking space is a problem, where sensors which communicate fast allow people to reserve parking spaces in advance and save time and fuel. Sensors installed on garbage containers allow the garbage to be collected on time based on fill rate. Smart sensors make remote monitoring of water and gas levels easier.
On the other hand, this technology brings a new vision to agriculture and livestock industries. Automatic irrigation of cultivated areas based on measurement of humidity improve the crop yield and tracking applications for livestock are made more effective and easier. This new technology contributes to the organizations by changing their way of doing business and facilitates tracking of human health. This helps tracking health and sport activities through body sensors and ensures that the necessary interventions in a timely manner.
PRESS RELEASE:
Sigfox Provides Internet of Things Wireless Network to City of Buffalo
The New York city of Buffalo has joined other cities throughout the United States that have deployed a wireless network tailored for the Internet Things (IoT). The network—a partnership between Sigfox, a global IoT connectivity provider, and the University at Buffalo (UB)’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences—puts Buffalo in company with San Francisco, Boston and a few dozen other high-tech hotbeds.
To stream video and transmit other data-intensive content, traditional wireless technologies, such as Wi-Fi, 3G and 4G cellular systems, are needed to support fast speeds and large amounts of bandwidth. According to Sigfox, these devices are relatively expensive, use a lot of power and can cause wireless traffic jams.
The system employs a device-to-cloud communications approach that utilizes radio frequencies to send small amounts of data over long distances—what is known as a low-power wide-area network (LPWAN). It reduces the cost to connect to the internet, while also limiting battery consumption.
Sigfox’s LPWAN is suitable for systems that track whether a parking spot is vacant or occupied, if a public recycling bin is empty or full, whether or not a shipment has arrived, or if a door is open or closed. The range of a Sigfox network is greater than that of most cellular providers, the company claims—for example, its network at UB provides coverage to the Buffalo Niagara region.
“It’s really cutting-edge technology for UB researchers to conduct groundbreaking experiments that could lead to great societal benefits,” said Josep Jornet, an assistant professor of electrical engineering at UB, in a prepared statement. “We’ll also be able to implement the network into our classrooms, offering students an immersive, hands-on course specifically about the Internet of Things.”
As part of that course, UB is working with the City of Buffalo to identify how students can apply the technology to improve services. Buffalo’s technology sector, startup community and hobbyists will benefit as well, as the IoT could be worth more than $11 trillion by 2025, according to McKinsey & Co.
“We are excited the University at Buffalo chose Sigfox LPWA network as the backbone to support the internet of things academics,” said Sean Horan, Sigfox North America’s director of sales and partners, in the prepared statement. “What can be achieved through the IoT is limited only by human imagination, and providing universities with IoT technologies, where imagination is fostered, we’ll see a whole new wave of innovation powered by the IoT.”
“Bringing Sigfox to Buffalo provides fantastic new opportunities for our academic community, as well as for our many startup and tech communities,” said Liesl Folks, the dean of UB’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, in the prepared statement. “The network will provide a state-of-the-art technology platform for professors and students, as well as for entrepreneurs and existing companies looking to innovate.”
PRESS RELEASE:
OSRAM Acquires Software Platform Provider Digital Lumens Inc.
OSRAM has agreed to acquire Digital Lumens Inc., a U.S. company based in Boston, Massachusetts, that specializes in industrial IoT solutions. Founded in 2008, Digital Lumens employs 65 people and in the last fiscal year generated sales in the mid-double-digit millions (USD). The Digital Lumens software platform can be used to run applications covering everything from intelli-gent lighting control, energy use, and security systems to the measurement of envi-ronmental parameters such as air quality. The cloud-based platform is compatible with components and hardware of other manufacturers. Digital Lumens has built a strong customer base for industrial IoT solutions, with more than 2,500 installations.
“The acquisition of Digital Lumens puts OSRAM in a strong position when it comes to offering future-focused digital solutions for the facilities management sector and IoT applications,” said Stefan Kampmann, Chief Technology Officer at OSRAM Licht AG. “By integrating software and sensors in a single platform, we will be able to give businesses a deeper in-sight into the environment within their buildings and their utilization of space. As a company that understands space, OSRAM is taking the next step in developing new business models that go beyond lighting. What’s more, the platform is also compatible with light products made by other manufacturers.”
The acquisition of Digital Lumens from a group of venture capital investors will enable OSRAM to expand its business with digital lighting solutions and add to its expertise in soft-ware, sensors and connectivity. Customers using the Digital Lumens cloud-based IoT solu-tion pay a monthly service charge to access data that is continually recorded and analyzed by their lighting management system. This allows them to optimize business processes and document process-critical environmental variables.
“I am delighted that we will be working with OSRAM’s technology experts to pave the way for further growth and new customer applications. Our existing and future customers can look forward to even more value-adding innovations,” said Tom Pincince, President and CEO of Digital Lumens.
Plans are in place to integrate some of OSRAM’s existing digital services into the platform. This includes the navigation and location solution Einstone, which uses Bluetooth to send targeted offers to users’ smartphones, for example, when they are in retail environments. In a pilot project, significant and measurable increases in sales were achieved, for which Ein-stone was presented with the Best In-Store Solutions Award at the Euroshop 2017 trade fair.
Building on its existing product and services business, OSRAM will increasingly be positioning itself not only as a provider of platform-based industrial IoT applications but also as a part-ner for tailor-made solutions, which optimize processes within buildings.
PRESS RELEASE:
TraqIQ Completes Two Acquisitions to Form IoT and Data-Analytics Public Company
TraqIQ, Inc. has announced that it has completed the acquisition of OmniM2M, Inc. and ci2i Services, Inc. in order to form a publicly held Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and Data Analytics company.
On August 24, 2017, the Company filed a Current Report on Form 8-K with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which includes 2016 and 2015 audited financial reports and other information for the Company and its combined subsidiary businesses to help investors and analysts better understand its historical financial and operating results.
On July 19, 2017, TraqIQ, Inc. entered into a Share Exchange Agreement with OmniM2M, Inc. (“OmniM2M”) and its shareholders and Ci2i Services, Inc. (“Ci2i”) and its shareholders whereby the OmniM2M shareholders and the Ci2i shareholders agreed to exchange all of their respective shares in OmniM2M and Ci2i in exchange for 3,000,000 shares each of the Company’s common stock, par value $0.0001, effective upon the execution of the Share Exchange Agreement by all of the OmniM2M Shareholders and the Ci2i Shareholders.
The Company also filed with the SEC a Current Report on Form 8-K which details the Share Exchange Agreement; Changes to the Board of Directors and Officers; and Accounting Treatment for the transactions under the Share Exchange Agreement, which is being accounted for as a business combination with TraqIQ as the legal acquirer with Ci2i Services as the accounting acquirer.
“The combination of these companies will help TraqIQ deliver a comprehensive line of IIoT and data analytics cloud products and services that meet customers’ needs,” said Ajay Sikka, President and CEO of TraqIQ, Inc. “TraqIQ is actively researching potential acquisitions related to tracking and monitoring anything of value in multiple industries, including mobility and transportation, food services, energy and natural resources, and manufacturing.”
The Company’s new board of directors consists of Messrs. Ajay Sikka and Lloyd Spencer. The Company’s intends to list its common stock with OTC Markets in the immediate future.
PRESS RELEASE:
ChikPea to Demonstrate IoT Devices
The telecommunications industry is an extremely complex and unique business with specific challenges that are seen in no other industry. The Internet of Things (IoT) is equally complicated and mirrors those unique challenges seen in the telecom space. The two industries have strikingly similar business orchestrations, delivering complex software-driven services to their customers. Due to the Telecom and IOT communities’ business models being built on tech, there is a constant need in both businesses for bug fixes, maintenance, security patches, etc.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is a business model of independent devices that are often programmed with embedded software communicating with each other. Embedded software, usually a type of Linux with a security patch, is great for programming these devices. However, there is a main constraint that is built into the definition of each embedded software device: once the device is programmed it is on its own and cannot be updated unless the device is accessed physically and re-programmed. This need for service delivery, service maintenance and service ordering are the exact same issues that telecom companies have on a daily basis.
These devices have to be maintained with security patches, security upgrades, software upgrades and physical maintenance. Device failure and replacement are issues that need a proper infrastructure in place to manage. These are also the exact same issues that Tier 2 telecom companies/carriers have been dealing with since the inception of the market.
This creates the need for a solution that manages all the projects and various Field Application Engineers and also shows in real time which projects they are working on and provides status updates; a solution that manages the various premises projects and needs under the same company umbrella; and a solution that acts as a single source of truth so that sales and support reps have up-to-date information for the customer and can better manage the relationships with their customers over time.
IoT companies have the benefit of learning from the experience of telecom companies before them. Telecom companies’ in-house systems needed to be able to connect to their customer CRM systems and real-time information in order to be truly useful. Since the Internet of Things is fairly new and lives in the Cloud Computing/ SaaS era, the ability to improve delivery of service to customers, maintain devices and have information connected to sales and service reps’ desks instantaneously is a lot easier and much more cost effective than trying to build an in-house system to manage all of this.
Luckily, the IoT market was created in the post-cloud computing/ post-SaaS world. When the IoT market began to experience the exact same challenges in the service delivery and service order model that the telecom market had experienced, it was lucky enough to already have a pre-written gameplan to follow to tackle these challenges. Like telecom companies before them, IoT companies found outside companies that provided the solutions they needed.
Telecom companies, large and small, have noticed the benefit of a Telecom Order Management tool that reduces costs, improves efficiency and visibility into projects and gives sales and support reps the ability to provide customers with up-to-the-second information regarding their service delivery.
PRESS RELEASE:
Machfu Raises $1.6 Million to Accelerate IIoT Deployments in Energy, Smart Water
Machfu, an Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) company, has announced that it has raised $1.6 million during the first round of institutional financing. This investment, led by Blu Venture Investors, will allow the company to accelerate its successes in the smart-grid and smart-water markets, and to expand its footprint in the oil and gas industry. The company has recently received financing from Maryland’s TEDCO and other angel investors.
“The big problems impeding the growth of the IIoT at scale,” said Prakash Chakravarthi, Machfu’s founder and CEO, in a prepared statement, “are security and the sheer variety of application protocols, cloud connectivity protocols, wireless and wireline interfaces that make it difficult for legacy and IIoT technologies to communicate effectively.”
“With the help of our new investment partners,” Chakravarthi said, “we are enabling companies and organizations across a variety of industries to quickly and securely create applications that will help them to gather and utilize data, make sound business decisions with the additional information gleaned from that data, and increase their energy and operational efficiency as a result.”
Machfu developed the Layer 7 Gateway with applications and communication capabilities for the IIoT. The system securely unifies a fragmented industrial automation market, takes advantage of a large and established developer community, enables a secure enterprise application management framework concept for the IoT with secure sandboxed applications, and makes hyper-growth potential of the IIoT possible. Machfu is positioned to capitalize on a large emerging opportunity, the company reports—conservatively predicted to exceed $20 billion annually by 2020.
PRESS RELEASE:
Embraco Unveils IoT-enabled Refrigerator Solution
A new solution from Embraco, a multinational focused on innovative refrigeration solutions, is seeking to change the way managers understand point-of-sale and equipment usage by introducing a growing tech trend to commercial refrigeration: the internet of things model.
The new offering, called diili, assesses the status of up to thousands of machines at once to allow managers to have insight into real-time data. diili utilizes cutting-edge sensor technology to record data such as when freezer doors are opened or closed and even which products are purchased the most, and then sends the data to your phone or computer where it analyzes trends to help managers optimize their practices. It can also alert managers to low stock issues, energy outages or preventative maintenance reminders, and it can even help reduce energy consumption by up to 15 percent.
Have you ever imagined owning a food and beverage brand and receiving, for example, information on how many times the beverage refrigerator door has been opened and which product is consumed the most? To answer strategic questions like this one and in real time, Embraco, a multinational focused on innovative refrigeration solutions, presents diili, a new business that allows beverage and food brands to effectively manage their point-of-sale freezers and refrigerators.
For the end consumer, it guarantees beer at the ideal temperature, ice cream in the right consistency or fresh juice at any time of the day. For the brands of these products it means increased sales potential, greater energy efficiency and up to 15 percent reduction in operating costs. The platform can manage this not only in one refrigerator, but in tens, hundreds and even thousands of installed units.
Developed based on the Internet of Things (IoT), diili understands the operation of commercial freezers and refrigerators, indicates the equipment’s location and alerts about lack of stock, faults or the need for preventive maintenance. Additionally, it reveals consumer behavior at the point-of-sale, allowing for more complete analysis of the performance of the displayed products. It also brings metrics to the real world, previously offered only by e-commerce, which will recommend the most strategic location for the equipment.
The intelligence generated enables brands to better understand the consumer and help make strategic decisions to increase sales and reduce maintenance costs by up to 10 percent. Also, aligned with Embraco’s sustainability strategy, diili even has the potential to reduce a refrigerator’s energy consumption by 15 percent, allowing for the most appropriate refrigeration specifications for the type of goods stored as well as the operational characteristics at the point-of-sale.
“diili represents a new Era of commercial refrigeration. It makes equipment intelligent and brings innovative solutions to the entire refrigeration chain, including end-users and our customers. Embraco intends to continue being the leader of this evolution to improve people’s quality of life,” summarizes Luis Felipe Dau, Embraco’s CEO, which invests from 3 percent to 4 percent of net revenue in Research & Development and counts on 600 professionals dedicated exclusively to this area.
The intelligence adds value to the business because diili is able to assess the status of commercial refrigeration equipment in the field 24 hours a day. For this, it uses advanced IoT techniques, including sensors distributed throughout the equipment to understand its operation, the environment in which it’s installed and how the refrigerator or freezer is used. All this information is sent via internet to a cloud application and from there diili goes into action. The platform analyzes data, makes correlations and traces necessary learnings generating intelligence and contributing to brand strategy.
The brand tracks the results through the diili application online, via a cell phone or computer. By using the solution, it’s possible to anticipate eventual problems and preserve food quality in case of power failure or even hundreds of them if the problem is in a large region. This peace of mind that results from diili’sintelligence, leads to a lower risk of loss and more confidence in sales. The platform also allows the brand to interact with its consumers through promotions.
Embraco’s 46-year experience in refrigeration coupled with its leadership role, innovative DNA and customer focus have created an ecosystem conducive to diili’s development. “At the beginning, we dedicated the time to get to know the customers’ reality and apply modern and agile innovation techniques in our processes. This combination helped us create a business model aligned to their needs, which was validated after some pilots”, states Ernani Nunes, Director of New Business at Embraco.
According to him, the platform will initially serve Brazil, but it’s already on its way to becoming a global solution. “The developed solution’s architecture can be used in different regions. By operating in the cloud, it meets the most advanced security criteria. For this construction, we rely on our partners’ support combined with Embraco’s ability to develop all of the technology’s layers, which permits a better performance level,” he emphasizes.
Embraco is one of the first companies in the refrigeration solutions segment to move its culture to digital positioning. Initiatives such as the acquisition of UpPoints, a startup that developed an innovative system of consumer behavior and image recognition as well as product sales performance analysis, along with the Toolbox App, which gathers information necessary for the contractors’ daily routine, are examples of this digital journey. The company is also a co-founder of the Brazilian Industrial Internet Association (ABII), and has other actions in the context of Industrial Internet of Things.
PRESS RELEASE:
SPYRUS Announces Security Platform for Internet of Things
SPYRUS, Inc. has announced the Security in a Box (SDK), offering a comprehensive development and support environment for IoT platform security. Release of this SPYRUS SDK extends the initial Raspberry Pi introduction earlier this year to the Qualcomm Dragonboard and TI’s OMAP product lines. The SPYRUS Security in a Box boasts easy access to open source code repositories, scripts, and related source code samples, accessible by registering at our SPYRUS IoT Developers’ Site: http://developer.spyrus.com. Security in a Box offers simple integration with our extensive SPYRUS product family of FIPS 140-2 Level 3 certified hardware security modules (HSM) that includes form factors such as the Rosetta Smart Card, Rosetta USB, Rosetta Micro embedded QFN packages, and Rosetta TrustedFlash microSDHC. Each with embedded or external hardware encrypted data storage.
For enterprise data protection deployment requirements, our SPYRUS USB 3.0 SSD class hardware encrypting bootable live drives for Windows To Go, Linux2Go and the PocketVault P-3X encrypted storage drives are protected by our Rosetta HSM and certified SPYRUS Cryptographic Operating System (SPYCOS). Our “Made in the USA” SPYRUS Rosetta HSM suite features PKI digital signatures, hashing, key management, and our patented zero knowledge secret sharing technology — a true hardware root of trust for IoT. Whether embedded in circuit boards, computing platforms or SPYRUS devices, the Rosetta devices leverage industry standard cryptographic algorithms and protocols operating in a fully FIPS 140-2 Level 3 certified HSM .
“Today’s network enabled IoT devices are vulnerable to intrusion, denial of services, and hijacking threats that can escalate to Distributed Denials of Service (DDOS) attacks such as the well-publicized Mirai Trojan horse virus,” said Tom Dickens, SPYRUS COO. “Made in the USA, the SPYRUS Security in a Box for IoT offers the only Hardware Root of Trust essential to securing mission critical end points and applications such as real time health monitoring of aircraft, power grids, telemedicine, homeland security, and other publicly and privately owned critical national infrastructure. SPYRUS continues its leadership role as a Cyber Security thought leader and investment in a flexible family of hardware root of trust devices to the Raspberry Pi, Qualcomm, and TI OMAP that will enable a seamless integration into IoT platforms and cloud computing back end infrastructures.”
The SPYRUS Security in a Box SDK offers state of the art technologies for low power, cost effective compute platforms that provide aggregators and gateways for sensor information as well as secure endpoints for control of physical infrastructure functions. Secured by SPYRUS gateways, alone or supplemented with low power accelerators, provides the basis for a network of interconnected processing elements to implement “fog” computing. This rapidly evolving distributed computing paradigm enhances the opportunities for data analytics and other computer intensive functions to be performed at the “edge” rather than a centralized or “cloud” server, mitigating latency and providing high availability through redundancy.
PRESS RELEASE:
Logic Supply Launches Industrial PC for IIoT, Image-Processing Applications
Global Industrial and IoT hardware manufacturer Logic Supply (www.logicsupply.com) has unveiled the MC850small form factor, GPU-capable computer, featuring Intel Kaby Lake processing. Offering compatibility with the latest generation 10-Series NVIDIA graphics cards, and an integrated power supply, the MC850 Series is ideal for high-end image processing applications like machine vision, virtual reality, Fog Computing, Edge Devices, Industrial IoT and interactive digital signage.
“As industrial computing applications continue to evolve, we’ve seen increasing demand for hardware that can accommodate advanced processing power as well as additional PCIe expansion for dedicated graphics, proprietary cards and FPGA cards,” said Logic Supply Senior Product Manager Murat Erdogan. “In the MC850 you’ll find an elegantly designed system that’s both powerful and flexible, allowing for configurations to suit a wide range of complex computing tasks.
The MC850 combines powerful computing capabilities with a sleek, small form factor design unlike anything else available in the IPC space.” The MC850-50 can be configured with Intel 6th generation (Skylake) or 7th generation (Kaby Lake) Celeron, Pentium or Core i3/i5/i7 processors. The system supports up to 32 GB of DDR4 RAM and up to 3TB of total storage via mSATA and 2x 2.5″ SSD drives.
For graphics intensive applications, the MC850-50 offers the NVIDIA GeForce 1060 dedicated GPU as an available option. Additional networking and I/O cards can also be added via the system’s direct-plug PCIe expansion slot. Onboard power is provided by an integrated 300W, direct-plug PSU, eliminating the need for an external power brick.
Available standard I/O includes HDMI, DisplayPort and VGA for connecting multiple displays. Other onboard connectivity includes 4 USB 3.0 ports, 2 USB 2.0 ports, 2 COM ports and 2 Gb LAN ports. The MC850-50 is compatible with Windows 7, Windows 10 and Ubuntu Linux.