Brazilian utility Light has picked Landis+Gyr for a $313m smart grid project, the largest in South American history. RenewEconomy asks will smart meters become the latest white elephant for utilities, and consumer magazine Which is warning that the cost of the UK’s smart meter rollout is spiraling out of control – which seems to validate the notion that smart meters are something of a double-edged swords for utilities. Southern California Edison has opened the largest energy storage facility in North America, but of course, renewable energy and reduced consumption is bad news for utilities.
Spanish CaixaBank has launched a Gemalto-powered NFC wearable wristband for mobile payment authorization, Fitbit is avoiding Apple’s Healthkit, with the most popular health wearable saying it has no plans to integrate with Apple’s health platform, and Medtronic unveils its first medical wearable, a 30-day wireless cardiac monitor, after its purchase of Corventis, A u-blox powered carbon monoxide sensor wins AT&T’s smart home Hackathon, and Japanese start-up 16 Lab has demoed its BLE smart ring for interacting with things.
On the financing side of things, Alien and its tiny RFID tags have secured $35m in venture funding, Ireland’s Davra Networks is targeting the UK M2M/IoT market following a government cash injection, Wyless and Netcomm Wireless sign a distribution deal, Luxoft acquires Radius, a software company focused on IoT, and Sigfox is gunning for €50m funding for its global IoT network.
CNET looks at the latest smart home gadgets, Orange launches a French smart home platform, and also bags the French Tesla connected car deal, while Deutsche Telekom and China Mobile have agreed to fund a joint venture for connected cars in China. The smart highways market will apparently be worth $27.9bn by 2019, IBM asks is your city is ready to join the IoT, and MongoDB hosts a video of Bosch Software Innovation’s Dirk Slama discussing Bosch’s IoT strategies and how the industrial giant reorganized to meet the new market.
Modelling rat brains and adding cameras to create a “Frankenstein” AI – with a look at the potential impact on labor markets in the wake of such automatons. But with the advances in AI, will computers take your job? Intel cut factory costs in one plant by $9m with IoT sensors and help from Revolution Analytics, and USPS is looking to add big data and IoT tech to its distribution systems for extra efficiencies. Wind River has added a security profile for its VxWorks RTOS, and the AllSeen Alliance has launched a connected lighting working group.
Canadian Intelligence forces discuss their problem with defending against Chinese hackers, and that it’s only going to get worse in IoT. The FDA has released new guidelines to protect medical devices from cyber-attacks, and the Independent reports that the first online murder will happen by the end of the year.
TechCrunch hosts a great article that discusses the politics and unseen forces the drive innovation, noting that driverless cars are the overly-thought Ptolemaic Systems of transportation, and that all the benefits of automated cars can be achieved today with better investment in public transport systems. And the last thing for you to chew on over the weekend: take a look at how the IoT fits into transhumanism.