Here’s a look at a cargo drone initiative in Africa, aimed at quickly upgrading distribution infrastructure, called Sky Donkeys, while DHL begins using drones to deliver to a German island. These are Intel’s 10 “unexpected” IoT projects from its developer conference, and here’s a hands-on look at the Microsoft IoT dev kit. Meanwhile, Nanomarkets predicts the market for IoT power sources will grow from $57m this year to $590m in 2018 and $2.4bn in 2021, and GigaOM looks at the role that Twilio’s MMS messaging could play in IoT.
EyeForTransport reports that M2M will surpass RFID and bar codes as the means of collecting supply chain information, start-up Vesper’s piezoelectric MEMS microphones have achieved an industry-leading 70dB signal-to-noise ratio, and STMicro has shipped its 5 billionth MEMS sensor. Elsewhere, Tech Mahindra and Bosch Software have partnered to work on IoT platform, IBM’s open cloud PaaS BlueMix has been cleared for general release, with a new focus on IoT business deployments and developments, and Xively appears to be losing senior execs at an alarming rate.
There appear to be more smart meter fires, this time in Reno, and ComEd is due to refund $46.2bn to customers after a lawsuit challenged a smart grid surcharge applied in 2008. In other energy related news Grid-integrated water heaters appear to be the best way to cope with the surges in power supply generated by wind power, effectively turning water tanks into batteries. Navigant reports that the smart waste industry will exceed $42bn by 2023, but that’s only a fraction of the current $3tr waste management industry. Here’s a two part look at IBM’s involvement in a community housing project as part of the Smart America challenge, while Forbes laments that the Apple Watch is a missed opportunity to define the IoT.
Sony’s smart glasses will be on sale in March but it won’t be winning any design awards going on this prototype, and in other ocular developments, this lens-less camera uses software to make an image and can be made for pennies-per-unit, giving eyes to IoT devices. AT&T and Mojio have partnered on a connected car diagnostics service, with Mojio providing a plug-in module and AT&T supplying a cellular data connection. It costs $150 for the device and a free year’s service, and then $5 per month thereafter. We don’t expect this to sell very well.
Relayr, the company behind the chocolate bar shaped WunderBar dev kit, has received $2.3m in seed funding, and Estimote has added indoor positioning to its app dev-kit, letting you locate a BLE beacon on a floor-plan. Here’s Pocket Lint’s guide to starting a smart home now, and Stack’s new Alba bulbs can learn behaviors and act as Bluetooth iBeacons, demonstrating the simplest way to connect a smart home in one fell swoop.
Microsoft and LG have partnered to jointly develop IoT tech, Claro Partners has released a business guide to planning an IoT product, while Quartz looks at 5 ways the IoT is broken and how to fix it, and lastly, money is pouring into tech like it’s 1999, and that’s not a good thing according to Wired.