Smart Homes and Buildings Apple is reportedly developing a rival to Amazon’s Echo. Xiaomi has released the Mi Cube, a tiny cube that can act as a remote control for its smart home portfolio, and costs around $10. Netatmo has launched the Netatmo Connect developer platform, in a move to ensure its independence from the likes of HomeKit or IFTTT. Wearables Fitbit has acquired the wearable payment assets of Coin, a startup that had focused on fin-tech and consumer electronics. Pebble has launched two new smartwatches with heartbeat monitoring, as well as the Pebble Core, a clip-on device with no screen, that offers a lots of programmable functions for triggering actions and apparently runs Android. Connected Vehicles STMicro and Autotalks…