Semtech LoRa Technology Selected for Australia’s First IoT Network
Semtech Corp., a supplier of analog and mixed-signal semiconductors, has announced that its LoRa wireless platform is being used in Australia’s first Internet of Things LPWAN network, in Launceston, Tasmania. The deployment, the company reports, is expected to enable numerous applications involving real-time transportation monitoring, inventory control, health care and more.
LoRa technology and the standardized LoRaWAN specification enable ease in deployment of IoT networks, by offering compatibility with existing infrastructure and interoperability with companies within the LoRa Alliance ecosystem. This citywide LPWAN deployment is a collaborative effort among the University of Tasmania’s Sense-T, Definium Technologies and CSIRO’s Data 61.
Definium Technologies will manufacture network gateways and sensors using LoRa technology that will run the network. Local businesses and residents will then be able to deploy and use IoT applications to improve manual processes, safety, conservation and more once the network is rolled out.
“This LoRaWAN network will stimulate IoT innovation and business opportunities, locally at first and then regionally, as the project expands,” said Michael Ferguson, Definium Technologies’ minister for information technology and innovation, in a prepared statement. “The range of applications for LoRaWAN networks is extensive, and we are excited to help lay the groundwork to bring IoT to Australia.”
“This ground-breaking project adds Australia to the list of forward-thinking countries developing smart network infrastructures based on LoRa technology to help streamline day-to-day processes and elevate business decisions, environmental conservation, public infrastructure and more,” said Marc Pegulu, the VP and general manager of Semtech’s Wireless and Sensing Products Group, in the prepared statement. “LoRa technology makes large-scale network rollouts possible by integrating into existing infrastructure, offering strong connectivity, providing long range communication and low-power operation.”
CALLUP to Introduce Remote SIM Card Management System for the IoT
CALLUP, a provider of mobile device management and value-added services solutions for the telecommunications industry, has announced that it plans to introduce an Internet of Things-based subscriber identity module (SIM) card management system at the Mobile World Congress, to be held from Feb. 27 to Mar. 2, 2017, in Barcelona, Spain. The system, known as CALLUP IoT Engine, will be displayed at CALLUP’s booth at the event.
The CALLUP IoT Engine can remotely manage the entire life cycle of SIM cards embedded in various devices, such as smart meters, home appliances, in-vehicle systems and personal devices, from activation to upgrades, and on to to SIM card cancellation and swap. The new engine, an IoT-enhanced version of the CALLUP SIM OTA system, is utilized by various mobile operators worldwide, according to the company, and offers features and interfaces allowing easy integration with third-party systems.
“The cellular world is evolving from phones to various devices and objects, and we are witnessing an increasing number of connected devices in various environments, from homes to smart cities,” said Alon Roth, CALLUP’s CEO, in a prepared statement. “The innovative SIM card management system will help the expansion of the Internet of Things, including the deployment of IoT-dedicated networks.”
The CALLUP IoT engine enables mobile operators and IoT network operators to issue control commands on SIM cards using application programming interfaces (APIs), or via a user interface. It can update any file on the card’s file system, provided it is allowed to be modified over the air. Status and reports can be collected in real time or as a request for report at a later date. The system will automatically repeat the update process on SIM cards that could not accept the original update for various reasons, such as devices that were turned off.
Bridge Alliance, Gemalto Offer eSIM Solution for Consumer IoT Devices
The Bridge Alliance has announced that it is offering consumer eSIM remote subscription management, optimized for the latest generation of Internet of Things devices across its members’ footprint in the Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa regions.
With connectivity for consumer IoT devices like Samsung‘s Gear S3 Frontier 4G, the company explains, customers can connect to any Bridge Alliance member network and have immediate internet access via their devices. They will also be able to remotely manage their mobile subscriptions using a platform powered by Gemalto.
“In addition to being the largest mobile alliance in the APAC, this makes us the first mobile alliance to offer effortless connectivity for industrial and consumer IoT devices,” said Eileen Tan, the Bridge Alliance’s CEO, in a prepared statement. “We are pleased to partner with Gemalto for this solution and enable our members to embrace the latest innovation, in support of GSMA’s embedded SIM specifications for consumer devices.”
Itron, Bsquare Provide App Community for Grid Edge Devices
Itron and Bsquare, a supplier of Internet of Things software and integration services, are providing a secure OpenWay Riva App Community for edge devices, including meters and sensors. Itron will use Bsquare’s DataV IoT software stack to enable easy app downloads and management for Itron’s OpenWay Riva network devices, the companies report.
Itron’s OpenWay Riva solution provides distributed intelligence and computing power in meters and grid devices, enabling real-time analysis of data and peer-to-peer communication among intelligent devices at the edge of a network. Bsquare DataV offers a software distribution layer embedded within the OpenWay Riva network that allows utilities to dynamically and securely download apps to targeted populations of meters.
The ability for utilities to securely distribute apps to meters and grid devices can add a wide range of functionality, the companies explain, thereby adding value to fixed capital assets. Applications that can be dynamically added to devices include theft detection, high impedance detection, load disaggregation, locational awareness and active demand response. In addition, third-party developers can provide their applications to the community. According to the two companies, Bsquare DataV provides Itron’s app community with the ability to manage and monitor the status of millions of remote devices.
“Itron’s OpenWay Riva solution puts intelligence into devices across a utility’s service territory and provides dynamic and powerful new methods of improving grid reliability, reducing operating costs and enhancing revenue opportunities,” said Mark de Vere White, the president of Itron’s Electricity business line, in a prepared statement. “With the interest from third parties, including utilities, we expect hundreds of apps available over time. These app community capabilities make it easier for our customers to access apps and deliver and manage them over the OpenWay Riva network.”
“This is an excellent example of the innovative ways in which IoT technology can be applied to diverse business problems,” said Dave Wagstaff, Bsquare’s CTO, in the prepared statement. “For DataV, the ability to securely and reliably manage the distribution of software apps to tens of millions of meters—and do it in such a way that core revenue generating functions cannot be impaired—was a snap. As important, DataV is able to deliver these capabilities even over networks that are extremely constrained from a bandwidth perspective.”
SALUS Controls Chooses Ayla Networks to Connect Smart Building Products to the IoT
SALUS Controls, a provider of energy-control solutions to professional markets worldwide, is using Ayla Networks‘ Internet of Things platform to connect its SALUS Wyse.ly suite of smart building products to the cloud. Leveraging IoT connectivity, Wyse.ly products—including thermostats, smart plugs, and window and door sensors—can connect with one another through the SALUS Universal Gateway, and can be controlled via a free iOS or Android mobile app.
“Using the Ayla IoT platform to connect our products to the cloud gives us the flexible connectivity and broad protocol support we need today, as well as the confidence that we can scale our products far into the future,” said Shen Owyang, the general manager of SALUS North America, in a prepared statement. “It will also enable our Wyse.ly suite of smart building products to interact with other manufacturers’ products through the Ayla IoT cloud.”
SALUS plans to use the IoT data-analytics capabilities enabled by the Ayla IoT platform to design and deliver value-added services that further enhance building safety, comfort and convenience. “By offering a comprehensive and agile IoT platform, Ayla is making it easier for SALUS to expand from its primarily professional wholesale channels to the retail market,” said David Friedman, Ayla Networks’ CEO and co-founder, in the prepared statement. “The Ayla IoT platform also supports the company’s different business models and specific product needs in its various global markets in Europe, North America and Asia.”
Ayla’s IoT platform provides device, cloud and mobile app connectivity for any kind of product, the company reports. The platform speeds up time to market for connected products, and also handles IoT security, performance, scalability and interoperability.
Microsoft Intros New Blockchain Product-Tracking Project
Microsoft has undertaken Project Manifest, a blockchain deployment intended to monitor goods moving through worldwide supply chains. The project involves technology initially created to help the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) communicate with deep-space probes. According to an article posted at CoinDesk.com, Project Manifest could help to ensure the origins of products, as well as make sure that the labor involved in creating them conforms to ethical standards.
Project Manifest, established in initial partnership with Mojix, leverages the company’s ViZix Internet of Things platform, designed to help retailers, distribution centers and factories monitor products via radio frequency identification technology. According to the article, the implementation enables a company to alert supply chain members in the event that shipped products end up missing.
Mojix has raised $40 million in venture funding from Red Rock Ventures and other companies. An noSQL database powers the big-data framework behind the IoT platform. The blockchain solution integrates the ViZix platform with a smart contracts application layer.
Mojix exhibited the technology at the National Retail Federation (NRF) Big Show 2017 convention, held last month in New York City. “At NRF,” a Microsoft spokesperson told RFID Journal, “in Microsoft’s booth, Mojix demonstrated a proof-of-concept for how these smart contracts are created in blockchain and have the ability to show the provenance of an item, so retailers know, when placing an order, that they are adhering to their company’s corporate social responsibility programs and are only working with partners who operate ethically.”
The blockchain integration, according to Mojix, takes advantage of the growing use of RFID, GPS and Bluetooth sensors in the manufacture of goods. “Microsoft and its partners are delivering solutions that enable retailers to transform their businesses today,” the spokesperson explained, “but we also have an eye on the future and are constantly innovating with the specific needs of retailers in mind.”
According to the spokesperson, “Microsoft partner Mojix has developed technology to enable blockchain-powered smart contracts, driving the next wave of innovation across supply chains. Mojix’s RFID hardware and software feeds data through Microsoft’s cloud platform, Azure, into the blockchain ledger, creating an irrefutable record of a product moving through a retailer’s supply chain. Ultimately, this will create more agile supply chains and create closer cooperation and enhanced trust among retailers, suppliers and logistic partners.”
Red Ledge Launches Open RFID- and IIoT-Ready Asset-Management System
Software application and engineering company Red Ledge is launching a new asset-management system (AMS) with open access to all RFID readers, bypassing manufacturers’ proprietary application programming interfaces. The AMS also enables access to multiple Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) devices, including all types of sensor, GPRS and RFID tags.
Andy O’Donnell, Red Ledge’s managing director, said in a prepared statement that the Red Ledge RFID-IIoT Asset Management System “leverages the ubiquity of IIoT and the power of RFID to set a new standard for industrial asset connectivity—one that increases the user’s ability to track and trace industrial assets exponentially.” The first public showing of the new AMS will be provided at the IntraLogisteX supply chain event, to be held in the United Kingdom on Mar. 15-16, 2017.
The RFID-IIoT AMS is suitable for any organization with assets that are distributed across a wide area on multiple sites, the company reports. It is a fully managed system that checks an item’s location, monitors any maintenance for that asset, identifies problems, assigns personnel with the right skillset to solve them and provides a full audit trail for all tracked assets. It can be integrated with mainstream enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions, in addition to other enterprise systems.
The number of connected devices is forecast to rise from 10 billion in 2015 to 34 billion by 2020, according to a report by BusinessInsider.com. Almost $6 trillion will be spent on the Internet of Things from now until 2021, the report indicates.
MITRE Announces Winner of Internet of Things Challenge
A team from Georgia has won MITRE‘s Unique Identification of Things (IoT) Challenge. Team 0xDEADBEEF, led by Ciena‘s Duncan Thompson, won $50,000 by posting the highest score in the competition. The two runner-up teams were from Pulzze Systems and Tietronix Software, both of which work in the IoT field.
MITRE created the IoT challenge, which attracted 130 teams worldwide, to propose ideas for addressing a key security issue inherent in IoT networks: identifying devices on a network and knowing when changes occur. The goal, according to the company, was to help government agencies, industry and individuals reap the benefits of the Internet of Things, while minimizing risks. The contest launched in October 2016 and ended last month.
“The top three teams had different approaches to solving the problem, which is what we hoped would happen,” said Jeff Schwefler, the contest’s creator, in a prepared statement. “These teams are willing to share their knowledge with MITRE’s government sponsors at an event to be held in the spring… The challenge showed that there is no one answer to the problem of IoT security. There’s still a lot more work to be done in this area. What we’ve learned already has helped reveal the gaps in our knowledge and where we need to do additional work to identify devices in a real-world network.”
Schwefler led a team of MITRE subject-matter experts and interns to create the core of the challenge, setting up a model home network that included a large number of IoT devices, such as door locks, thermostats and lighting controls. They re-created a home setting because of the wide availability of affordable devices, and because a solution that works in the home could be adapted to other network environments, such as a hospital or military facility.
Each registered team was given access to radio frequency (RF) capture data from the model home network. The first recording was a baseline RF capture of the environment. The second recording was a “challenge” RF recording in which IoT devices were either added, removed or modified. Each team was required to answer a series of questions regarding the baseline and challenge recordings, and MITRE then assessed their ability to uniquely identify devices.
Team 0xDEADBEEF was led by Duncan Thompson, from Roswell, Ga. Thompson, a hardware engineer at Ciena, works on verification for optical networking switches. He graduated from Georgia Tech with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in computer engineering.
Pulzze Systems, a technology company headquartered in Silicon Valley, is developing systems to advance IoT technology in the areas of end point detection, entity recognition and service interaction. Its team members included Peter Jung, Baek Soo Kwak, Kausik Sridhar, Jason Monroe, David Jung and Divya Sridhar.
Finally, Tietronix, based in Houston, Texas, provides engineering and software solutions to government and commercial clients, specializing in software development, IT security, training, simulation, internal R&D projects, government agency-funded research and projects with universities. Its members included William Baker, Svetlana Hanson, Cody Hodges, Steve Knight, Kyle Nguyen, Glen Rieke and Ngoc Vu.