SoftBank Makes Major IoT Play
SoftBank, a Japanese provider of telecom and internet services, made waves in the Internet of Things industry on Monday by revealing its plans to acquire U.K.-based chip designer ARM Holdings for $32 billion. ARM’s processor designs, licensed by many brands including Samsung and Qualcomm, are used in more than 95 percent of the world’s smartphones, but ARM has been making a strong play for the IoT market—particularly smart-home products, connected cars and agriculture.
The SoftBank deal would hit two milestones: It would be SoftBank’s biggest investment to date and the largest ever acquisition of a British company by an Asian buyer. Simon Segars, ARM’s chief executive, told the Wall Street Journal that his company had not been looking for a buyer before being approached by the Japanese firm, but that SoftBank assured him the acquisition would not come with significant changes to ARM’s culture. SoftBank said that by 2021, it would like to grow ARM’s U.K. team of 1,600 employees (its global workforce is 4,000) by 100 percent.
Last year, SoftBank began selling a robot called Pepper to consumers and to businesses (who use the device to perform customer service at retail stores and banks). Pepper uses IBM’s Watson machine-learning platform to help the robot understand the needs, interests and emotions of the humans with whom it interacts. This week, on the heels of the ARM news, SoftBank announced a partnership with Honda, through which it plans to integrate the software that powers Pepper into automotive control systems, with the aim of enabling autonomous or semi-autonomous vehicles to monitor the speech patterns and possibly even the emotions of drivers, in order to provide driving assistance or emotional support.
And Yahoo Japan, a joint venture between SoftBank and tech company Yahoo, has contracted with a Finnish firm called IndoorAtlas, which sells an indoor location-tracking technology service, to provide indoor location-based mapping and marketing services to smartphone users in Japan.
Two Advancements in Standards: Open Trust Protocol and MQTT
A consortium of organizations, led by semiconductor design company ARM and digital security provider Symantec, have developed a draft security protocol designed to protect IoT devices. Known as The Open Trust Protocol (OTrP), it is designed as a decentralized approach to managing data and programming code securely, similarly to how e-commerce and banking security systems are designed. Its purpose is to protect IoT devices from attack via malware.
The protocol employs a public key infrastructure and is designed to be used in a Trusted Execution Environment, which is a secured segment of a smartphone or other connected device’s processor, or with any microcontroller that can run RSA cryptography. The group has made the draft standard available for download at the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) website, so that developers can test it and create prototypical applications using the protocol. The IETF is a network of designers, operators, vendors and researchers who collaborate on the internet’s architecture and operation.
The draft will remain on the IETF website until early next year, during which the IETF community will be invited to provide feedback. The consortium hopes to develop the protocol into an open, industry-wide data security standard.
In addition, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) this week approved the messaging protocol MQTT, which was developed by the nonprofit IT standard development group Oasis, for standardization. Version 3.1.1 of MQTT was balloted through the Joint Technical Committee on Information Technology (JTC1) of ISO and IEC, and was given the designation ISO/IEC 20922.
MQTT is a publish/subscribe messaging transport protocol that requires little bandwidth, making it attractive for IoT applications in which sensors run on battery power. It is used, for example, in wireless blood-pressure monitors and other bio-medical devices, as well as for sensors that transmit data from oil and gas pipelines. According to Oasis, developers of connected-vehicle and mobile-phone applications are also beginning to use MQTT.
ForgeRock Updates Identity Platform Offering
ForgeRock, a provider of identity-management solutions, has updated its ForgeRock Identity Platform, which employs a two-step authentication system, without the use of passwords, to securely log users into networks. ForgeRock is marketing its service to companies developing smart-car and smart-home applications, as well as for health-care devices, wearables, mobile banking and industrial IoT devices that must be secured to specific users.
The latest edition of ForgeRock software includes a number of upgrades, such as use of an industry-standard authorization framework, a tool for auditing and analyzing network activity, new graphics capabilities and encryption features.
Zebra Unveils Two New Access Points
Zebra Technologies, a provider of automatic-identification technologies, has introduced two new access points—the AP8432 and the AP8533, both designed for use in Internet of Things networks, for industries including retail, hospitality, health care, transportation, logistics and manufacturing.
The access points communicate data to back-end systems via 802.11ac Wave 2 (an addendum to the original 802.11ac wireless specification, and one that boosts wireless speeds up to 6.93 gigabits per second). They also contain Zebra’s Triple Sensor Technology, which comprises the Wi-Fi radio and controller that runs Zebra’s AirDefense software, which provides security monitoring that alerts IT personnel to network attacks and vulnerabilities, and can instantly terminate the connection to a suspicious device. It also comes with a Bluetooth radio that enables the AP8432 or the AP8533 to act as a beacon to support location-based services and mobile application activation, and an RF spectrum sensor that, according to Zebra, monitors and identifies RF interference without slowing down the throughput on the data radios.
The access points also contain Power over Ethernet (PoE-out) ports, to power and network IP-based video cameras, wireless temperature sensors or other IP-based, Wi-Fi- or Bluetooth-connected third-party IoT network devices. Both products are available now, though pricing has not been publicly released.
Murata’s 2.4 GHz Module Gains ISA Certification
Murata Americas, a manufacturer of electronic components, says the International Society of Automation (ISA) has certified Murata’s 2.4 GHz-band wireless communication module, the LBBA0ZZ1EU, as compliant with the ISA100 Wireless standard. The module is designed for use in wireless sensors deployed to track temperature, vibrations and other variables that impact the operation of machines used in industrial environments. It is important that these sensors can transmit data across existing wired and wireless monitoring and control systems, which is why the ISA100 Wireless standard ensures compatibility with industrial communication protocols, including FOUNDATION fieldbus, HART and PROFIBUS.
The ISA100 Wireless standard is an IPv6-based industrial wireless network protocol, compliant with ETSI EN 300.328 v1.8.1. It uses carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance (or CSMA/CA, also known as “listen before talk”), as well as clear channel assessment (CCA) technology to avoid interference with other wireless devices using the same 2.4 GHz spectrum.
Bluvision Integrates Sensor-Enabled Manufacturing Solutions With Siemens Technology
Bluvision has announced that it is working to integrate its suite of connected manufacturing solutions, including real-time location system (RTLS), proximity location system (PLS) and motor Condition Monitoring solutions, with Siemens‘ technology so that data collected from sensors can be fed into a machine’s so-called digital twin for monitoring, diagnostic and prognostic purposes. A digital twin is a digital copy that is created and developed simultaneously with an actual machine. Siemens offers software systems for the development of these digital twins.
Bluvision’s connected manufacturing solutions provide visibility and documentation into the location, health and performance of assets and the workforce within a location, the company reports. Bluvision’s RTLS is a software-based solution that provides greater than 1-meter (3.3-foot) accuracy in locating an asset, requires no wired hardware and, according to the company, comes with the lowest cost of ownership on the market. Bluvision says its PLS is used to track assets into and out of specific areas within a facility, and is a better alternative to RFID-based solutions. The firm’s Condition Monitoring system tracks the health and condition of motors and motorized equipment by monitoring critical telemetry data, including vibration and temperature, in an agnostic, low-cost fashion.
Bluvision’s RTLS solution can be integrated with a digital twin to provide a virtual version of an employee wearing a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) badge. When the worker approaches a specific workstation within a simulated work environment, his or her pertinent process metrics can be loaded into the virtual model, which can then be used to evaluate workflow process and workforce optimization. Using Bluvision’s PLS, the same BLE badges can be configured to facilitate collaboration and safety measures through the creation of user-defined alerts. The beacons can be programmed to issue alerts to the supervisor when a worker requires assistance or additional materials. When Bluvision’s Condition Monitoring system is integrated with a digital twin and Siemens’ X-Tools, it can be used to minimize manufacturing downtime due to motor failure, as well as optimize the production process.