Upon visiting Berlin’s IFA2107 — Germany’s answer to CES — recently, there was one word I kept hearing: Alexa. In the consumer hardware space, it’s a great time to be Amazon, if the sheer number of hardware companies jumping on the Alexa bandwagon are anything to go by. Only today it was revealed that Amazon is working… Read more »
Local municipalities are increasingly turning to smart city technology to reduce public crime through efforts such as connected lighting, targeted surveillance and data assets. One of the more innovative smart solutions is ShotSpotter, a gunshot detection, acoustic surveillance technology that uses sensors to detect, locate and alert law enforcement agencies of illegal gunfire incidents in real… Read more »
Air pollution is a significant problem in many parts of the world. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) 6.5 million deaths per year can be attributed to air pollution, much greater than the number who die from HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and road injuries combined. A number of enduring serious health conditions can also be attributed to… Read more »
Germany has always been a place for industrial invention and innovation, reflected by the creation of the concept of “Industrie 4.0” by the German Government. Last week saw Europe’s leading technologists involved in the digitalization of industry bought together at Hannover Messe to showcase their answers to the key question faced by industrial enterprises everywhere: How… Read more »
A report released this week by global research and consulting firm Ovum has explored the changing identity of the customer in the digital age with the emergence of what they term the “Augmented Customer” — an interconnectedness between customers, retailers, and technology. “With the number of connected smart devices expected to double thanks to advancements in smart home,… Read more »
The Linux Foundation this week announced the launch of EdgeX Foundry at Hanover Messe, an open source project to build a common open framework for IoT edge computing and an ecosystem of interoperable components that unifies the marketplace and accelerates enterprise and Industrial IoT. The initiative is aligned around a common goal: the simplification and… Read more »
On first thought, agtech seems something of a contradiction. Agriculture involves growing crops. There’s no real world shortcut or fast track in that plants require planting in appropriate seasons with access to sun, water and soil nutrients and time to grow. By comparison, tech is about speed, rapid prototyping and timely deployment. But agtech is actually an evolving nexus between… Read more »
A use of old technology in a new way is transforming the potential capabilities of IoT. Myriad Group, a mobile software company that originated in Switzerland in the 1990’s, have created Pressto, a connected bundle built on Myriad’s IoT platform, ThingStream.io. The device uses the Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) protocol to send 182 character messages… Read more »
The recent Mobile World Congress in Barcelona revealed that while few brand new and innovative smart city deployments are center stage, it’s an area of technology that is intensely interesting to many and worthy of much consideration. Here are some of my thoughts based on what was showcased: Idea #1: Traditional industries should continue to form… Read more »
With the old adage everything old is new again, this certainly seems to be the case for phenomenon bone conduction. Once the darling of hearing aids, it began to show up in the consumer headphone market in the early 2000s. During this time, bone conduction headphones were marketed as safer for long-term hearing than their… Read more »
When you think of robots designed to help people, you might think of the role of robotics in caring and customer service roles or companion orientated service robots like Pepper, Nao or even Hasbro’s companion pets. Then more recently there’s the emergence of robots as sexual or romantic partners. One start-up from Israel, Intuition Robotics is throwing… Read more »
