On Target: Embedded Systems

CES 2016, Part 3: Wireless IoT Technologies Proliferate

Another of the trends that stood out most to VDC at this year’s CES was the ubiquity of wireless technologies. It was rare that any connected product on display did not include wireless, the most prevalent types being Bluetooth Smart, Wi-Fi, and ZigBee. Bluetooth Smart, also known as Bluetooth Low Energy (LE), is ideal for many wearable devices that will communicate with the user’s nearby smartphone. Wi-Fi is best for IoT devices in a home or small business environment, leveraging existing routers and networking for other PC and Internet communications. ZigBee is a short range mesh network with a communications... Read more →

CES 2016, Part 2: Automotive Technologies Move Forward

At this year’s CES, booths were brimming with IoT products such as home automation devices, connected audio and video gear, pet trackers, and fitness monitors. But one of the trends that stood out most to VDC was the prevalence of automotive technology, which came to the forefront as never before. Two of the keynote speeches at CES featured heads of major carmakers. One of the keynotes was by Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors, although more than half of her presentation was essentially a live infomercial for the 2017 Chevy Bolt all-electric vehicle, including a bit of a cheap-shot at... Read more →

CES 2016, Part 1: Drills, Holes, and Holemakers

Since long before the turn of the millennium, every January has brought to Las Vegas the humongous trade show and conference known as CES. Those three letters no longer officially stand for Consumer Electronics Show, but that’s how many people in the industry still refer to it. The very term “consumer electronics” is usually considered a category of devices, as in a department in retail stores where consumers buy their boxes of TVs, audio and video players, cameras, etc. But as the industry has evolved, more and more of the products have included (or in some cases wholly become) intangibles... Read more →

LogMeIn Helps Grow the IoT Pie at Xively Xperience

Cloud service provider LogMeIn hosted its first Xively Xperience conference on October 1-2, 2015 in Boston. As an invitation-only event, it attracted approximately 200 C-level executives and industry experts for keynotes and panel discussions on the current and future state of the IoT. Although the conference included several demos of technology from LogMeIn and it’s IoT cloud service Xively.com, by and large it was devoted to the IoT as a whole, and not merely a sales pitch for LogMeIn/Xively. As such, it was more an early market effort to help grow the whole IoT pie, rather than carve out a... Read more →

Security Comes to the Forefront at IoT Security Conference 2015

Members of the VDC Team spent the last two days at the inaugural IoT Security event on the beautiful Boston waterfront, where Steve Hoffenberg, VDC’s Director of IoT & Embedded Technology, spoke alongside a diverse and distinguished panel of guests that included various leaders of government, research, and industry. One of the main themes that emerged throughout the two-day conference was the growing importance and adoption of Security as a Service. If it makes more sense from both a financial and an operations perspective to outsource computing, storage, applications, and infrastructure to specialized providers in order to capitalize on economies... Read more →

VDC's Steve Hoffenberg Speaking at IoT Security Conference in Boston

VDC's Director of IoT & Embedded Technology will be speaking at the IoT Security conference in Boston, September 22-23. He'll be hosting an Analyst Breakfast Briefing roundtable discussion on Wednesday, September 23, and also on that same day, he'll be participating as a panelist in the session entitled, "Maximizing Technology to Safeguard the Business of IoT." Check out the full conference info at www.iotsecurityevent.com. If you plan to attend and would like to connect with Steve there, contact him at [email protected]. Read more →

Samsung Invests in Sigfox. Is the Race Over for Long-Range Low-Power Wireless Competitors?

A preliminary market battle has been brewing over the past year between technologies to connect IoT devices via wireless wide area networks. These cellular-type networks allow very low power battery devices to transmit small amounts of data over several miles, a solution highly suitable to many types of IoT devices such weather sensors and smart meters. Entrants in this market include Sigfox, LoRa, and Neul. (In addition, standards organization IEEE is developing the 802.11ah wireless networking protocol for distances up to a kilometer.) Sigfox announced on June 15 that Samsung’s Artik IoT platform would integrate Sigfox support. Also, noted in... Read more →

Where To Next For PTC After ColdLight Analytics Acquisition?

At this month’s LiveWorx event put on by PTC (formerly known as Parametric Technology Corp.), the news highlight was the company’s acquisition of IoT analytics firm ColdLight. (See press release here.) ColdLight’s Neuron software for cloud or on-premise datacenters applies machine learning technology to M2M and IoT data, automating predictive analytics tasks. The ColdLight acquisition was a logical extension to PTC’s prior acquisition of ThingWorx and Axeda in the IoT space. At the front end of the product development process, PTC has assembled software offerings for product lifecycle management (Windchill), computer-aided design (Creo), application lifecycle management and systems engineering (Integrity).... Read more →

India Takes Giant Steps Toward Smart Cities

With many benefits of IoT becoming apparent, more countries are implementing smart city reforms. This year, India has been the most ambitious in its IoT plans with an allocated budget of Rs. 7060 crores ($1.6 billion USD). Prior to his May 2014 election, Prime Minister Narendra Modi promised to transform 100 regions of India into smart cities by 2022. As India’s economy continues to rapidly increase with 60% of India’s GDP coming from urban jobs, Modi hopes that the development of new cities will accommodate for the rapid urbanization. By creating satellite cities and improving existing cities, India hopes to... Read more →

RSA Security Conference 2015: Data from Things, and Data about Things

At recent trade shows such as CES and Embedded World, attendees couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting a sign reading “Internet of Things.” But at this week’s RSA Conference for the cybersecurity industry at San Francisco’s Moscone Center, the focus was squarely on security for conventional IT and cloud computing systems, with IoT-centric offerings sparse. That’s not to say IoT was missing, but rather that it’s presence was relatively low key, which is perhaps a good thing after the past year’s worth of hype. Besides, many system implementations that could be considered IoT are extensions of conventional IT. And... Read more →