The following are news announcements made during the past week:
PRESS RELEASE:
Boston, Chicago, Atlanta Top List of Cities Poised to Benefit Most from Smart-City Tech
Chordant, the Smart City-focused IoT business of InterDigital (NASDAQ: IDCC), in collaboration withCA Technologies (NASDAQ: CA), has unveiled the CA-Chordant Smart City Benefits Index – the first comprehensive study designed to examine the relative potential benefits of Smart City technology in America’s major metropolitan areas.
Industry experts agree that Smart City technology – everything from connected transportation systems to smart building technology to IoT-enabled energy systems – has the potential to unlock tremendous benefits for cities and the people, industries and businesses that call them home. But those benefits will vary widely based on differences in geography, transportation systems, demographics and a variety of other factors.
“The Internet of Things (IoT) holds huge promises for the public sector, especially as it relates to Smart Cities technology,” said Rahim Bhatia, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Developer Products, CA Technologies. “We are seeing an uptick in the adoption of Smart Cities practices. The efficiencies, conveniences and analytics that come from Smart Cities technology is something these communities can use to help improve transportation, infrastructure and services to ultimately enrich the lives of their citizens.”
The CA-Chordant Smart City Benefits Index is produced by industry-leading market research firm Compass Intelligence, and uses a proprietary algorithm to calculate the relative benefits of Smart City technology to each city based on a broad range of data points. The selection of 50 cities was based on over 1,000 compiled and curated news articles, reports, summaries, and research over the course of 3 weeks, including a review of smart city projects in place, historical listings of city rankings, and those who participated in the US Department of Transportation Smart City Challenge.
The index based its ranking on five categories of data: city demographics, city spend and infrastructure, business and economy, education, and other. Data integrated into the model includes transportation costs, infrastructure needs, population density, and business needs, among others.
“The CA-Chordant Smart City Benefits Index evaluates each city’s expected position and readiness to embrace, adopt, implement, and scale smart city projects, initiatives, investments, technologies, and solutions,” said Stephanie Atkinson, Founder and Principal Consultant, Compass Intelligence. “Those cities ranked higher or that have higher total points on the index are expected to be earlier adopters of smart city technologies and could potentially reap greater benefits of a return on investment.”
In terms of results, tech hub Boston tops the list of potential Smart City beneficiaries, but it’s more traditionally industrial cities including Chicago, Atlanta and Philadelphia that follow close behind, ahead of Austin, TX in fifth place. Only four of the top ten cities – Boston, Austin, Seattle and San Diego – are typically seen as significant tech hubs, while cities with a more traditional mix of industries (Chicago, Atlanta, Philadelphia, New York, Phoenix and Kansas City) dominated the top ten. There were also some surprises: Cleveland, typically seen as a net loser in the transition from industrial to technological, came in 12th ahead of tech giants San Jose and San Francisco, while Minneapolis, one of the larger metro areas in the United States, came in at the bottom ten of the index.
“Our absolute conviction is that Smart City technology can benefit every single city in the world, but it’s useful to look at where those benefits will be felt most strongly,” said Jim Nolan, Executive Vice President, Chordant, at InterDigital. “A ranking like the CA-Chordant Smart City Benefits Index should catch the attention of public officials, as they hold the responsibility for making their cities and regions competitive as homes for people and businesses. It’s critical that they start thinking today about how Smart City technology can shape the future.”
PRESS RELEASE:
Industrial Internet Consortium, EdgeX Foundry Announce Liaison
The Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC), the world’s leading organization transforming business and society by accelerating the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), and EdgeX Foundry, an open-source project building a common interoperability framework to facilitate an ecosystem for IoT edge computing, announced they have agreed to a liaison. Under the agreement, the IIC and the EdgeX Foundry will work together to align efforts to maximize interoperability, portability, security and privacy for the industrial Internet.
Joint activities between the IIC and the EdgeX Foundry will include:
• Identifying and sharing best practices
• Collaborating on test beds and experimental projects
• Working toward interoperability by harmonizing architecture and other elements
• Collaborating on common elements
• Periodically hosting joint seminars
“We are excited about working with EdgeX Foundry,” James Clardy, IIC liaison to EdgeX Foundry. “And we look forward to leveraging the experiences of the IIC to help further accelerate the adoption of the industrial Internet.”
“EdgeX Foundry’s primary goal is to simplify and accelerate Industrial IoT by delivering a unified edge computing platform supported by an ecosystem of solutions providers,” said Philip DesAutels, senior director of IoT for The Linux Foundation. “Formalizing this liaison relationship with the IIC is fundamental to unlocking business value at scale. Together, we will provide better best practices that will drive the unification of the industrial IoT.”
The IIC Liaison Working Group is the gateway for formal relationships with standards and open-source organizations, consortia, alliances, certification and testing bodies and government entities/agencies. The agreement with the EdgeX Foundry is one of a number of agreements made by the IIC Liaison Working Group. For a list of current liaisons, click here.
PRESS RELEASE:
Thingstream Launches Starter Kit to Simplify Global IoT Connectivity Without the Internet
IIoT connectivity provider Thingstream has launched its own IoT Starter Kit, enabling device manufacturers to rapidly develop globally connected devices and accelerate IoT projects. Leveraging GSM connectivity without reliance on cellular data or SMS, the Thingstream Starter Kit will allow a device to connect to almost any GSM network, worldwide; and communicate with applications via MQTT messaging.
The Starter Kit is comprised of both hardware and software, including:
• The Thingstream IoT Module, boasting GSM/GPS connectivity out of the box, ARM Cortex-M0+ core, 128/256 KB program flash memory, 32 KB SRAM, SPI, I2C, UART, PWM, 16bit ADC, real time clock and 15 GPIOs
• A companion baseboard to allow developers to easily use the 15 GPIOs
• The Thingstream Global IoT SIM
• Three months of full access to the global network and connectivity software tools including a sophisticated data flow Stream Editor
“We want to make IoT connectivity simple and address both commercial and technical challenges,” explains Neil Hamilton, VP of Business Development at Thingstream. “Traditionally, building a connected device that communicates remotely has been a costly process. Any connected hardware has had to support TCP/IP in order to communicate, taking up power and space, while making the data vulnerable to security threats.”
“Our solution leverages USSD messaging via GSM networks, which not only removes complexities around roaming but also reduces power consumption and space by removing the processing capacity normally used for TCP/IP. We believe our solution is particularly compelling to the market as it combines ubiquitous global access with the necessary hardware, ready to be bolted on and connected to a whole variety of devices.”
Thingstream is focusing on developing its technology for the Industrial IoT (IIoT) market including the asset tracking, logistics/supply chain, facilities management, energy and environmental monitoring sectors, with a number of partnerships already secured. Thingstream’s IoT solutions are now available to buy. For more information or to purchase Thingstream-enabled SIMs, buttons, modules or the Starter Kit, please visit https://thingstream.io/.
PRESS RELEASE:
TrackNet Builds Engineering Team to Target IoT Networks, Hardware, Localization
TrackNet, Inc., a cutting-edge LoRaWAN Internet of Things (IoT) solutions provider and developer of the all-in-one smart-home and monitoring solution “Tabs,” has announced the hiring of three key technical staff that expand the company’s ability to develop IoT hardware and localization technology. The new hires include Brian Bosso as Vice President of Hardware Development; Richard Fuller as Senior Systems Architect and Stéphane Beauregard as Senior Localization Solutions Architect.
The expertise of the new hires in hardware development and localization solutions complement the expertise of the founding team in networking, system architecture, and security. That team is made up from veterans from IBM and Semtech who were instrumental in the development of LoRa and LoRaWAN.
“We’re seeing the IoT market grow and evolve and we’ve been able to attract some top-notch talent to TrackNet to help us develop the technology that will be instrumental in emerging applications,” said Hardy Schmidbauer, CEO and Co-Founder of TrackNet. “Brian, Richard and Stéphane are already making a contribution to the company and I’m excited to have them on board.”
Bosso, who is now VP of Hardware, was previously VP of Engineering at Energous Corp., developing RF wireless power-at-a-distance technologies. Before that, he spent over a decade at Marvell Semiconductor where he served as Senior Director of Wireless System Hardware and was instrumental in growing Marvell’s wireless business and portfolio.
Before Marvell, he developed wireless broadband and satellite communications products at Omnispectrum, nBand Communications, Stanford Telecom, Newbridge Networks, Alcatel, and Lockheed Martin. Brian holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo and a Master of Business Administration from Santa Clara University. He has over 25 U.S. patents granted in various RF and wireless communications technologies.
Fuller, who serves as senior systems architect at TrackNet, previously spent over 25 years working for such companies as OmniTrail, NextNav, Broadcom, GeoTrax, and Loral Space Systems in wireless systems and location technologies. Richard began his career as the chief system architect and programmer for the GPS Tensor, a position, time and attitude space receiver design that was the most frequently-launched space-based GPS receiver of its time. In 2002, he founded a company that pioneered the use of hybrid location technology in the recovery of stolen currency. Richard also serves as chair of the IEEE Location-Based Services Special Interest Group (LBS SIG) and holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University in Aeronautics and Astronautics Engineering.
Beauregard, who serves as Senior Localization Solutions Architect at TrackNet, is a highly experienced engineer, researcher, and inventor. In this work, he’s developed an in-depth knowledge of sensors and location technologies. Beauregard’s areas of expertise include signal processing, stochastic estimation, machine learning and data science, software prototype design, and implementation. Beauregard has authored articles at all levels of the research and development process. He has several patents issued and/or pending for indoor, pedestrian, sensor and RF-based location systems. Beauregard holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science and Navigation from University of Bremen.
PRESS RELEASE:
Verdigris Offers API Giving Customers Access to Energy Data that Powers Smart Buildings
Verdigris, an IoT company in the energy sector, has announced a new set of APIs to power smart buildings. The APIs allow customers to integrate energy usage data within their own platforms, and leverage Verdigris’ artificial intelligence to deliver meaningful insights from noisy energy data. For building owners and facilities managers, having the right energy data at the correct time creates opportunities to reduce costs and optimize operations. Verdigris APIs are a new way to put highly detailed, device-level data and energy management insights in the hands of customers.
“Advancements in artificial intelligence have evolved our platform to process a bigger data pipeline and bring our technology to as many facilities as we can, eventually transforming the building industry as a whole,” said Mark Chung, Verdigris co-founder and CEO. “Our ultimate goal is to create a sustainable planet, and we see AI becoming a connective layer and living entity that can manage and reduce energy from the device level through buildings to smart cities. This set of APIs will help developers easily integrate live energy data into their own solutions to help everyone get closer to that goal.”
Facility and property managers can now access data collected by Verdigris’ patented hardware and AI. The hardware is installed like a meter on a building’s electrical panels monitoring energy use at the device level. This hardware connects to an analytics tool in the cloud through 4G or Wifi. Developers can use these APIs to create a dashboard showing real-time energy usage, power quality, and equipment health.
Specifically, the APIs released today include:
• Energy API: access energy consumption data in increments of minutes, quarter hourly, hourly and daily
• Forecasting API: forecast the electrical demand of a building based on historical data
• Disaggregation API: track device-level energy usage from a single circuit
Verdigris continually adds features to existing products and will release the following APIs in Q4:
• Voltage API: track voltage fluctuations in distribution boards
• Power Factor API: see the ratio of real power used for work and the apparent power supplied to the circuit
• Power Quality API: forecast the electrical network’s ability to supply a clean and stable power supply
CB Insights named Verdigris one of the world’s leading AI startups. Fast Company named Verdigris one of the top 10 most innovative energy companies. Verdigris has a ground-breaking sensor technology that makes mission critical buildings energy-intelligent. Verdigris customers include Jabil, Verizon, JBS, Hyatt and Starwood Hotels among others. NASA and Verdigris partnered on researching equipment failure prediction for space habitats.