Avery Dennison, EVRYTHNG, Rochambeau Fashion a Smart Jacket
Avery Dennison’s smart label business line, Retail Branding and Information Solutions (RBIS), and EVRYTHNG, whose management platform creates and maintains digital identities for physical objects, have a goal to uniquely identify 10 billion products through the Janela Smart Products platform, a cloud-based Internet of Things service that will enable consumers to scan labels fitted with either EPC Gen 2 or Near Field Communication (NFC) RFID tags. This week, the companies announced that, through a collaboration with designer Rochambeau, they are starting with a limited-edition jacket. The garment—to be unveiled at the Decoded Fashion NYC technology and fashion show, being held on Nov. 1-2, 2016—will sell for $630, starting in early December, at New York City retailer The New Stand. Only 15 units of the jacket, known as the BRIGHT BMBR, will be available for purchase.
The garment has both a QR code and an NFC label integrated into its sleeve. The jacket’s purchaser will be able to download a special smartphone app that will display special offers, such as exclusive products or access—entering clubs without waiting in line, for instance—when a user scans the QR code or (with an NFC-enabled Android phone) reads the NFC tag, while inside or within 500 yards of select businesses, including art galleries, restaurants and clubs in New York. The app links to the Janela platform and, by pulling GPS data from the user’s smartphone, verifies his or her location. The jacket will also serve as a ticket to Rochambeau’s runway show during next year’s New York Fashion Week.
GlobalScan, Intrinsic-ID Partner on IoT Device Security Solution
GlobalScan, a provider of identity and security solutions, and Intrinsic-ID, which makes embedded authentication based on Physical Unclonable Function (PUF) technology, are partnering to provide original equipment manufacturers with scalable, flexible and affordable security solutions for the Internet of Things. The two companies report that their combined solution generates uncloneable, short-lived cryptographic keys and a cloud-based, high-volume certificate service that protects a network from accepting a spoofed device or other hardware hacks.
End users can leverage the unique identities that the PUF process encodes to embedded chips in IoT devices to authenticate them as part of their IoT ecosystem. The companies claim that their public key infrastructure (PKI)-based credentials support device authentication for most IoT protocols, while the process is capable of issuing thousands of device IDs per second in an automated fashion that does not change a customer’s existing manufacturing flows.
AT&T Launches San Francisco LTE-M Pilot
AT&T this week officially launched a pilot program to evaluate a newly established network of LTE-M cellular radios in San Francisco. A variant of long-term evolution (LTE) technology, LTE-M is optimized for low data transmission rates and long battery life, in order to support machine-to-machine communications. It supports data rates of up to 1 megabyte per second using 1.4 MHz of spectrum. Participants in the pilot will include Badger Meter, CalAmp, Capstone Metering, PepsiCo and Samsung. These companies will evaluate the use of the LTE-M network to support wireless communications between smart utility meters, vending machines, alarm systems, fleets of vehicles and heavy equipment, among other things. PepsiCo is testing the LTE-M network to collect data from sensors that it is integrating into vending systems, while Samsung is testing the technology’s use in connecting wearable electronics.
AT&T has brought together a range of technology providers to source LTE-M hardware and related services. These include Altair, Ericsson, Qualcomm, Sierra Wireless, Telit, u-blox, Wistron NeWeb and Xirgo Technologies. AT&T says it plans to expand its use of LTE-M technology beyond the pilot and across its entire network beginning next year.
Senet Expands Network, Partners With Trimble
Senet, a New Hampshire company that is deploying a public low-power wide-area network (LPWAN) for Internet of Things applications, has expanded its network to Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas, Seattle, San Diego, Atlanta, Denver and Washington, D.C. With this expansion, Senet says it now has coverage in 225 U.S. cities (defined as having more than 50,000 residents) throughout 23 states. Senet supports the LoRa Alliance‘s LPWAN communication protocol.
The company also announced this week that the Senet network will provide connectivity to Trimble, a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based provider of GPS-based positioning products, for its Trimble Water division series of LoRa-based IoT sensors. The Telog 41 Series wireless sensors work, in combination with cloud-hosted and on-premise Telog software, allow utilities to more easily and economically deploy wireless monitoring for applications such as measurement and reporting of water usage, sanitary and combined-sewer overflows (CSO/SSO) and flooding, and leakage. The sensors measure pressure, flow and rainfall levels.
Honeywell, Flowserve Co-developing Industrial Internet of Things Solution
Honeywell‘s automation control, instrumentation and services provider, Honeywell Process Solutions (HPS), and Flowserve, a provider of fluid motion and control products and services, are working together to provide Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) solutions designed to help customers make their operations safer, more efficient and more reliable. The collaboration is part of the Honeywell INspire program, through which Honeywell and its customers jointly develop IIoT products.
HPS will provide data management, as well as cyber-security and software services, while Flowserve will apply its domain knowledge in flow-control solutions (for pumps, valves and seals). Though the combined solutions are still under development, Andrew Hird, the VP and general manager of Honeywell Process Solutions’ Digital Transformation business, lays out three key elements that the solutions will provide to customers: secure access to the data being collected, the ability to analyze that data and the knowledge they need in order to figure out how to use this information to benefit their operations. More specifically, the firms say their combined offering for IIoT applications will help customers minimize unplanned shutdowns and safety risks, while increasing output and efficiencies.
Context Offers New Product-Security Evaluation Service
Context, a U.K.-based security-management consultancy, has launched a product-security evaluation service designed to help manufacturers of IoT products to identify and mitigate security vulnerabilities in their products. While this is not a full product-assurance process, the firm frames the service as a way of achieving a pragmatic level security in an IoT product. Each engagement will be customized to a customer’s particular needs. A prepared statement from the company states, “We will work with you to determine a suitable scope for the evaluation, taking into account the likely threat to the product and the impact of a breach in security.”
The company says its researchers are skilled in software development, as well as in reverse-engineering products to analyze for vulnerabilities. In the past, the team has exposed security flaws in a number of IoT products, including Wi-Fi lightbulbs, a Canon printer, a Yale smart alarm and Motorola home security cameras. Further details are available at Context’s wesite.