Watford Borough Council has partnered with local firm IoT Solutions Group (IoTSG) to install hundreds of Internet of Things [IoT]-powered devices in council-owned buildings across the borough.
The technology is being used to monitor the presence of the deadly Legionella bacteria, as well as the continued operation of emergency lighting, which is essential to safety during a power cut or fire.
Both solutions are expected to help improve the council’s health and safety compliance processes by making them more efficient and less labor-intensive, as well as free up resources for other crucial services.
IoTSG will deliver almost 590 Legionella mitigation and emergency lighting management devices to a number of public properties in the area, including Watford Town Hall and Watford Museum, as well as other local amenities.
The Legionella mitigation solution is aimed at improving the detection process for Legionella – the bacteria responsible for Legionnaires’ disease – which commercial landlords, facility managers, and leisure and hospitality providers have a legal obligation to monitor and mitigate in their water systems.
Continue reading: https://www.inyourarea.co.uk/news/watford-borough-council-rolls-out-internet-of-things-powered-devices/

Earlier this month, Andreessen Horowitz announced it was part of a $111 million investment in Helium. But the facts of the deal were a bit murky. The money from Andreessen was an investment in Helium Network Tokens (HNTs), not an investment in the company. However, Helium did wrap a small, undisclosed bit of outside funding from other investors into that news.
Frank Mong, the COO of Helium, told me the funding that went to the company was “insignificant,” and was raised in an earlier deal. However, he was quick to point out that the Andreessen investment in the Helium tokens was a big validation for the style of decentralized peer-to-peer network that Helium is building.
In my conversation with Mong, we spent a lot of time discussing Helium’s plans for a 5G network, which follows a similar model as its existing LoRa Wide-Area Network. Helium has turned the construction of a physical network for the IoT on its head. Instead of deploying its own gear across the country and managing the network, it has built a peer-to-peer network that rewards people who run their own hotspots with HNTs.
People install a Helium-certified hotspot that uses their home’s Wi-Fi network as backhaul to the internet. The hotspot provides the LoRa coverage and also generates HNTs whenever the hotspot supplies proof that it’s still part of the network, as well as when a Helium customer transfers data on the network. The beauty of the system is that the rise in the value of HNTs offers an incentive for people to use their broadband to provide backhaul and their home as the equivalent of a LoRa “tower.”
Continue reading: https://staceyoniot.com/heliums-investment-and-5g-plans-explained/

U.S. scientists have evaluated three different PV technologies – GaInP, GaAs, and silicon – for powering wireless temperature sensors. They found that the silicon solar module offers the lowest performance and also suggested its use may be applied to low-demand devices.
The Internet of Things (IoT) refers to any network of physical objects that embeds technology to communicate and sense or interact with external environments and their own internal states. The devices that are used in these kinds of networks are mostly wireless sensors, control systems, and technologies for home and building automation, all of which require smart, efficient, and cheap forms of power.
Scientists from the U.S. Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have tested the ability of three different solar module technologies to power Internet-of-Things devices such as wireless temperature sensors.
Continue reading: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2021/08/20/the-best-pv-tech-for-internet-of-things-devices/

 One of the best parts of going to a large drone show like AUVSI Xponential is having the opportunity to look at the amazing technology on the exhibit floor – like the SWAT team drones produced by Las Vegas-based BRINC drones.
BRINC Drones VP of Sales and Marketing Brett Kanda took the time to show me the new Lemur S: and I waylaid a BRINC customer walking by to get his view on why the Lemur is life-saving tech for SWAT teams.
The Lemur – and the Lemur S, soft-launched at AUVSI Xponential – is a drone decked out with features that make it ideal for the purpose.  It’s an indoor tactical system meant to search structures and keep public safety, first responders, and suspects safe. During a SWAT mission, the Lemur, equipped with a specialized glass breaker, is able to break a window and enter the building.  Once inside, the Lemur can explore (without GPS) room by room, providing both eyes and ears to the operators.  When the Lemur makes contact with a suspect, it can perch – on a bed, bureau, table, or wherever – for up to 10 hours, helping SWAT teams establish 2-way communication with the suspect.    That 2-way communication is critical, Brett explains.   “The data is remarkable about how much better the outcome is when you are able to establish two way communication with a suspect – you have a great opportunity for a safe resolution,” he says.
Continue reading: https://dronelife.com/2021/08/23/the-swat-team-drones-saving-lives-brinc-lemur/

Four million miles of roadways, 600,000 bridges and 350 tunnels. Two million one-hundred thousand farms. More than 4,000 U.S. public safety agencies fielding drone programs. Damage estimates for insurance companies and safeguarding against school shooters. UAS are an intrinsic part of supporting and protecting critical infrastructure in America.
Take, for example, the unmanned systems that came to the rescue when an aging dam in Florida, the only barrier holding back lead and nickel-poisoned water from flooding a nearby town, required inspection. Sending divers into toxic water was not an option. Draining the dam would have been prohibitively expensive. Triad Drones, a Safety Harbor, Florida-based company making waves in the dam sector, used its unique unmanned and networked air, ground and subsurface vehicles, with multibeam sonar, to provide predictive structural integrity and volume analysis.
This is but one of hundreds of similar drones-in-infrastructure stories increasingly happening across the country on a daily basis. (By the way, the inspection proved the dam was good to go for a few more years).
The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) outlines 16 sectors with assets, systems and networks it considers vital. Drones support nearly all of them (the possible exception is the cyber-based information technology sector). Inspections dominate drone services, but drones also assist with disaster response, construction monitoring, facility disinfecting, marketing and more.
Continue reading: https://insideunmannedsystems.com/opportunity-spotlight-drones-are-critical-to-infrastructure/

Over the past few years, the conversation around drone technology and use cases continue to heat up, particularly when it comes to the consumer-facing side of the industry. The general public is keen to know what the future holds for drone delivery and the impact that will have on our daily lives. While I can speculate what may be on the horizon for consumers, we must not overlook the incredible advancements that have already come to fruition to solve today’s real-world business problems and are paving the way for future developments in autonomy, logistics and the rapid digitalization of the physical world. Much of this can be attributed to the sensor and data analysis abilities vs. the drones themselves.
Here’s a look at how three industries are leveraging advanced drone technology to gain a new perspective: 
Agriculture
Field management is foundational to the success of a farmer. With climate change and increasingly difficult yields to manage, they need to understand the condition of their soil, the health of their crops and how new farming techniques, fertilizers and the environment may be impacting them.
Continue reading: https://www.commercialuavnews.com/forestry/drone-technology-has-reached-new-heights

(TNS) — Fresh off the notoriety of having its processors power NASA's Ingenuity helicopter on Mars, Qualcomm has rolled out its next-generation technologies for drones on Earth — aiming to drive adoption beyond hobbyists and into commercial industries. The San Diego wireless technology company announced its Flight RB5 5G Platform on Tuesday. It is the first drone system to include 5G connectivity and artificial intelligence technology, which eventually could help enable autonomous, beyond-line-of-sight flights for such things as crop inspection, search and rescue, powerline/wind turbine monitoring, package delivery, mapping and so on. In addition to the processing/connectivity platform, Qualcomm also launched its first-ever reference design kit for drone developers — essentially an aircraft body, rotors and other necessities to help companies develop drones faster and easier.  
Continue reading: https://www.govtech.com/products/qualcomm-releases-5g-ai-platform-for-commercial-drones

Realtors view drones and cyber security as the most impactful emerging technologies to their business, according to a new report from the National Association of Realtors (NAR). NAR’s 2021 Technology Survey examined NAR members’ current tech usage and attitudes about the future of real estate technology. In addition to drones (37%) and cyber security (34%), realtors believe that 5G (31%) and virtual reality (30%) will also have a significant impact on their business in the next 24 months. “The pandemic has confirmed to all of us in the industry that technology will continue to transform real estate,” said NAR CEO Bob Goldberg. “The great work being done by NAR, including our Strategic Business, Innovation and Technology group, has ensured that realtors will continue to have access to the latest technology and remain at the forefront of the innovations driving the market forward.” The survey also examined the current use of technology by realtors, finding that the most valuable tools used in the past 12 months were eSignature (78%), local MLS apps/technology (54%), social media (53%), lockboxes (48%) and video conferencing (39%).  
Continue reading: https://labusinessjournal.com/news/2021/aug/19/realtors-believe-drones-cyber-security-are-real-es/

Emergency response is a time-sensitive business. When fires burn or a driver crashes their car, seconds can mean the difference between saving lives and watching a situation spiral rapidly out of control. For fire and police departments, getting teams on site can be challenging, what with the vagaries of traffic and bad routing.
Houston-headquartered Paladin is a startup building a custom drone hardware and software solution for cities to be able to respond to emergencies faster and with better data. After years of development, the company is publicly unveiling its Knighthawk and Watchtower products.
The Knighthawk is a custom-made drone designed for the specific needs of emergency response personnel. It comes complete with two cameras — one 10x zoom optical and one thermal — to provide the best video feeds on a developing situation at both day and night with only a half second latency. Importantly, the drone has a time range of 55 minutes and can travel multiple miles away to reach a site, according to the company. Launch time can be as short as a few seconds from when a 911 call comes in.
Continue reading: https://techcrunch.com/2021/08/19/paladin-publicly-launches-knighthawk-a-first-response-drone-for-cities/

Researchers in Japan are using microwaves to power free-flying drones, a project that  could possibly pave the way for a new type of rocket.
Currently, most rockets generate thrust by using controlled explosions of a solid or liquid fuel source, which can make up 90% of their total weight. However, new research published in the Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets demonstrates the potential of using an alternative source of fuel: microwaves. 
Microwaves are a type of electromagnetic radiation. As such, they're jam-packed with energy that can be converted into electricity, much as sunlight can be converted to power by solar panels. In the new study, researchers generated electricity to fuel free-flying drones by beaming microwaves directly at them.
"In drone experiments, microwave power is sent from the antenna on the ground to the antenna on the drone. A rectifier is used to convert RF [radio frequency] to DC [direct current], and the DC power is used to drive the drone's motors. We call it "rectenna" (rectifier + antenna)," one of the new study's authors, Kohei Shimamura of the University of Tsukuba, told Space.com in an email.
Continue reading: https://www.space.com/microwave-powered-rockets-drone-project

A compact new integrated electronics package will be the brains for the next generation of advanced smart drones.
Semiconductor giant Qualcomm QCOM +0.7% has long been known for innovation in the drone sector. Way back in 2015 – pretty much the Stone Age in drone history – it produced the Snapdragon Flight, a system-on-a-chip to bring advanced video handling, communication and navigation capability to small drones. Since then they have produced successive generations of more advanced technology; it says something that the Qualcomm Flight drives the Ingenuity helicopter on Mars.
“Qualcomm has 200-plus drone customers and if you’re coming across a drone or robot – it’s likely powered by Qualcomm’s robotics and drone technology,” says Dev Singh, General Manager of Robotics, Drones and Intelligent Machines at Qualcomm.
Their latest release announced this week is the Flight RB5 5G Platform. This is another credit-card-sized device which packs all the technology needed for high-end drone operations into a single unit. As the name indicates, it has 5G connectivity – their launch slogan is ‘5G Takes Flight’ – which represents a powerful new way of communicating with drones over existing networks. But perhaps more significantly, the platform has features enabling autonomous operations, which may largely remove the need for the drone to communicate at all during a mission.
Continue reading: https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2021/08/19/new-qualcomm-release-to-drive-next-gen-smart-drones/?sh=b4b90103f979

Half of the farmers in the biggest corn, soybean, and wheat states employ precision agriculture in their operations — from GPS guidance of tractors and combines to deploying drones to scout fields or monitor livestock — twice the national average, said a USDA report on computer usage on Wednesday. Far more farms have a cellular internet connection than broadband; 18% have no internet access at all.
Earlier this year, two Purdue economists said that adoption rates for precision agriculture technology “have been very high during the past 10 years, and given the increased venture capital devoted to developing these technologies, [are] likely to continue at an accelerated pace.” For crops, precision agriculture uses computers to track production in each section of land on a farm and tailor seed, fertilizer, and pesticide usage accordingly. Large-scale operators were both the most keenly interested in the technology and the most pleased with the results of using it, said a 2019 Purdue survey.
Continue reading: https://www.agriculture.com/news/business/senate-confirms-moffitt-as-agriculture-undersecretary-for-marketing

Uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAV) have been widely used to treat agricultural crops throughout the world, and spray against disease-carrying pests like mosquitos. Now researchers are expanding trial use of drones to control harmful insects by dropping enemy species on them.
Bug vs. bug crop protection technique delivered by drone
The use of bug against bug is not new, but is expanding in terms of degree and sophistication, according to a report in the June edition of the Entomological Society of America’s Journal of Economic Entomology. DroneDJ has written about other drone applications in the battle against harmful insects, but not the research now gaining speed in North America. That involves deploying specialized agricultural craft to drop natural enemies of destructive pests in appropriate situations, and thereby limit or entirely eliminate the need for traditional insecticides.
The technique could have bigger payoffs than most observers might suspect. Harmful insects inflict more than $100 billion in damage to crops each year in the US alone. Agriculture’s lucrative organic sub-sector is particularly vulnerable, since rules determining what can be sold as naturally grown are generally strict, but particularly draconian when it comes to pesticides. So specialists are looking to multiply applications of their equation “harmful pests + enemy insects = fewer bugs all around.”
Continue reading: https://dronedj.com/2021/08/19/drones-airdrop-enemy-bugs-on-harmful-insects-in-crops/

Earlier this month, hackers nabbed over $600 million in crypto from decentralized finance (DeFi) platform Poly Network in one of the biggest crypto heists ever. The cyberattack comes hot on the heels of several major hacks throughout the year, including the ransomware attack on the Colonial Pipeline that led to brief gas shortages on the East Coast. The company paid the hackers a ransom of 75 bitcoin, or about $4.4 million at the time. 

• In 2020, $406.3 million was paid out in cryptocurrency ransoms, 337% more than the previous year. This year’s ransom payments are on pace to pass seven figures as well, according to Chainalysis.

But crime on the blockchain isn’t just a problem for big companies: Nearly 7,000 individual investors lost a collective $80 million to cryptocurrency scams from October 2020 to March 2021, according to the FTC—almost 1,000% more than in the same period the year prior.  
Illicit activity on the blockchain is heating up, from minor scams to elaborate ransomware attacks to...faking your own death? That’s what Kimberly Grauer, director of research at Chainalysis, told us is happening. Read on to hear more from Grauer about the unique challenges of fighting crypto crime.
Continue reading: https://www.morningbrew.com/daily/stories/2021/08/23/blockchain-expert-fights-crypto-crime

People often ask if Bitcoin is a safe investment not because of the market's legendary volatility, but because they're worried about the security of the digital asset. Bitcoin is one of the most popular cryptocurrencies in the world and has been around since 2009. Since then, in over a decade, the network has proven to be very resilient and powerful in protecting vital information. In recent years, the blockchain technology that Bitcoin runs on has become increasingly prevalent as cryptocurrency has begun to take center stage in many markets.
Blockchain technology that runs the virtual currency is known for its unparalleled security. It's one of the main reasons for its rapid adoption, with Bitcoin being one of the biggest success stories of the technology.
What is blockchain technology and how does it work?
Blockchain is associated with cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and others, as a platform for digital money transactions. It's a database of all cryptocurrency transactions worldwide. However, this technology has also been used to store other types of data like medical records, data on humanitarian aid, and more.
Blockchain technology is like a ledger that is digital and open to the public. It provides a secure way of making and recording transactions. All transactions made using cryptocurrency are recorded and saved as data on blocks. All this information is time-stamped.
Continue reading: https://gadgets.ndtv.com/cryptocurrency/features/how-secure-is-bitcoin-blockchain-cryptocurrency-technology-2516405

Crypto leaders have long said blockchain has great potential in entertainment. Decentralized Pictures marks the most significant vote of confidence in that to date.
For those outside the tight-knit circle of cryptocurrency devotees, the buzz around blockchain technology can feel like an impenetrable collection of technobabble — maybe nothing more than a passing fad. But early adopters of these decentralized data systems have long said blockchain is poised to change everything from finance to transportation and, yes, even entertainment.
Now, the potential of blockchain in the film industry has earned a major vote of confidence from one of Hollywood’s most influential families. The nonprofit Decentralized Pictures — co-founded by Roman Coppola, tech and entertainment veteran Leo Matchett, and American Zoetrope exec Michael Musante and led by a board that includes Sofia and Gia Coppola — plans to go live in the fall with a mission to discover and support underrepresented filmmakers using a blockchain-powered web platform.
“In a sense, this is a democratically selected film fund,” Musante told IndieWire. “Instead of a boardroom of executives, it’s our community that decides, that gives their opinion and tells people what they like.”
Continue reading: https://www.indiewire.com/2021/08/decentralized-pictures-blockchain-coppola-1234655602/

Women in the AI field are making research breakthroughs, spearheading vital ethical discussions, and inspiring the next generation of AI professionals. We created the VentureBeat Women in AI Awards to emphasize the importance of their voices, work, and experience and to shine a light on some of these leaders. In this series, publishing Fridays, we’re diving deeper into conversations with this year’s winners, whom we honored recently at Transform 2021. Check out last week’s interview with a winner of our AI responsibility and ethics award. 
For many people, nothing sounds more tech-y than AI and machine learning. But the field is of rising interest in social sciences, too. Arezou Soltani Panah, a computer scientist and the winner of VentureBeat’s Women in AI rising star award, has made strides using AI technologies to tackle complex social problems such as loneliness, family violence, and social stigma. She’s even created novel machine learning techniques for this work, specifically.
“Traditional social science is a territory mostly occupied with qualitative researchers and empirical scientists, and perhaps they’re less aware of the benefits of AI for their field,” she told VentureBeat. “But the marriage between AI and social science has already been established and is evolving.”
An immigrant to Australia from Iran, Soltani Panah’s work focuses on social inequality and disempowerment. And it’s cross-discipline in every way, often requiring collaboration with government policy advisors and subject matter experts like social scientists.
Continue reading: https://venturebeat.com/2021/08/20/how-ai-can-tackle-complex-social-problems-from-loneliness-to-stigma/

Struggling to get your Artificial Intelligence initiative past the early stages? Consider these lessons from teams that have successfully implemented and scaled AI strategies.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly seen as a must-have technology that enables businesses to become agile and innovate at scale. IDC predicts global spending on artificial intelligence (AI) systems will increase from US $50 billion in 2020 to US $110 billion in 2024.
But Gartner research estimates that 50 percent of AI implementations are struggling to get past the proof-of-concept stage and be implemented at scale. The reasons vary from overhyped expectations and lack of vision to inadequate data infrastructure and lack of skilled resources.
Another important factor is the team that’s working on the AI programs. While AI teams may have the requisite tools and technologies, many lack other key capabilities – like mining for the right use cases and optimizing decision-making – that are essential for success.
Continue reading: https://enterprisersproject.com/article/2021/8/artificial-intelligence-ai-4-characteristics-successful-teams

Artificial intelligence is everywhere. But if I asked you: “What is it exactly?” could you answer confidently?
Four years ago I thought I could answer that same question. I was about to start studying machine learning and deep learning with the hopes of finding a job. I was naïve enough to think what I was seeing from the outside was what I’d encounter on the inside.
But looks are deceiving. And artificial intelligence, surrounded by hype and flooding in funding is the best example today. There are interests beyond science and engineering that blurry and obscure the real work people are doing.
The field is extremely attractive regardless. It’s growing and evolving incredibly fast and it promises to keep this pace for some time. There will be more AI-related jobs in the coming years. And, let’s be real, it’s way more exciting and interesting than most other fields out there — we’re trying to solve intelligence after all.
That’s why many of you may benefit from knowing what to expect. Here are four things I wish I knew before starting on AI. I’d have been mentally prepared for what I was about to experience and would have had a finer, deeper perspective on the present and future of the field. Enjoy!
Continue reading: https://towardsdatascience.com/4-things-i-wish-i-knew-before-starting-in-the-ai-industry-5458c6bf48b9

Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the hottest topics in marketing right now. Raj Venkatesan and Jim Lecinski recently published a book entitled “The AI Marketing Canvas: A Five-Stage Road Map to Implementing Artificial Intelligence in Marketing”. To better understand what an AI marketing canvas is, I sought insight from Raj Venkatesan, a professor at the Darden School of Business. In full disclosure, I work with Raj and find his research and work fascinating. Below is insight on the AI marketing canvas.
Kimberly A. Whitler: Why did you and Jim write this book?
Raj Venkatesan: We heard and experienced the rise of data and algorithms. Marketing professionals had started to pay attention to this, and they wanted to invest in this new technology. But they were struggling with the why and the how questions. They needed guidance on the ultimate objective of using AI in marketing, i.e., how is marketing—and  customer relationships—going to improve from using AI. There were books written at a very high level regarding whether machines would take over. You know, is the Matrix going to take over, or for the younger people, are we all going to be in Halladay’s game, the Oasis, like Ready Player. On the other hand, there were books written around 10 steps to better email marketing. Very granular, but again not at the strategic level a senior marketing profession would want to use AI. So, we set out writing a book, that we feel is like the goldilocks solution, not too high, and not too granular.
Continue reading: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kimberlywhitler/2021/08/21/the-ai-marketing-canvas-a-roadmap-to-implementing-artificial-intelligence-in-marketing/?sh=63f6b81271ec

Your company has a team monitoring your finances on a day-to-day basis, right? That's a standard business practice. Leaders should approach their diversity, equity and inclusion goals in the same manner. If teams aren’t monitoring their DEI metrics as regularly as the finance team, they're at risk of missing business goals.
Organizations that prioritize DEI are almost two-times more likely to meet or exceed financial goals, according to a 2021 Deloitte report.
Implementing a strong DEI strategy isn't optional. To move the needle on building a more diverse workforce, organizations need to listen to those from historically excluded groups and tailor the hiring experience to be more inclusive. Plus, to counter the unconscious bias that all humans have, companies can take extra measures to help ensure a fair and equitable experience for candidates from HEGs, such as implementing AI capabilities or anonymizing resumes.
Forty-seven percent of organizations have implemented technology to help reduce unconscious bias in their recruiting and hiring, a recent report from Talent Board and iCIMS found. Although 53% have not implemented such technology, one-third of them plan to do so in the future. These practices can help to boost organizations’ DEI results when done correctly.
Continue reading: https://www.benefitnews.com/opinion/3-ways-analytics-can-help-improve-your-recruiting-pipeline-and-meet-your-dei-metrics

Women account for only 29% of the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) labor force and 34.5% of STEM faculty at the nation’s colleges and universities. Women of color are even more underrepresented — making up 4.8% of the STEM workforce and 3.8% of STEM faculty. For decades, researchers have told us that “Girls and women are systematically tracked away from science and math throughout their educations, limiting their training and options to go into these fields as adults.” The challenge is how early do educators and parents need to start with girls in order to eliminate this gender gap.
Middle school student Sriya Tallapragada decided to take on this challenge. According to Sriya, “When the coronavirus pandemic shut down my school, I found myself stuck at home with nothing but my computer as company. Luckily, as a 14-year old STEM aficionado and introvert, this was all I needed. I found the large amounts of time on my hands to be the perfect opportunity to meet my goal of working to close the gender gap in STEM.”
Continue reading: https://www.forbes.com/sites/marybethgasman/2021/08/23/want-more-women-in-science-start-early-and-listen-to-girls/?sh=45e71dc77f85

For all of us who are in a certain way related in one way or another to technology, the term Internet of things is at least known, but not all of us know exactly what it means. That is why this blog tries to cover some basic concepts on this subject, as well as advantages and disadvantages of the IoT.
According to Wikipedia: IoT is a concept that refers to a digital interconnection of everyday objects with the internet. It is, in short, the internet connection more with objects than with people. It is also often known as the internet of all things or the internet in things.
In short, IoT is something connected to a network, such as the internet, or to other machines so that they work autonomously, without requiring human intervention. The other concepts describe things that are possible thanks to the Internet of Things. The terms of home, car or anything else connected refer to that, in some way, they are connected to a network.
Is it just this? Yes, it really is. Don't be put off by the new terminology. The IoT concept is that simple, at least for consumers.
There was a time when knowing, from a distance, how many bottles of Coke were left in a vending machine was revolutionary. This is how the Internet of Things (IoT) was born: when Carnegie Mellon University students, tired of walking to the machine without knowing if there would be soft drinks, connected it to an ARPANET network. Four decades later, that discreet milestone proved prescient. Today there are about 10 billion connected objects around the world. And it's only the beginning. There will come a day when we have a 100% connected life and can remotely control everything around us. The IoT consists of connecting objects to the internet so that they interact and share information.
Continue reading: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/iot-what-could-possibly-go-wrong-ignacio-chitnisky/?trk=articles_directory

Digital transformation has accelerated across the board. In a recent report, McKinsey referred to this technological “tipping point” as the quickening, suggesting the adoption of digital technologies has jumped forward by several years in the space of mere months. One of those technologies is edge computing, and it’s here for the long haul. From smart city infrastructure to in-hospital patient monitoring, edge computing’s potential is unfathomably immense. Yet, the technology is now becoming so accessible that the industry is exploring innovative applications a little closer to home. Could edge computing be the missing ingredient to keep children safe in the kitchen?
Gartner predicts that by 2025, more than three-quarters of all generated data will be “created and processed outside of a traditional centralized data center or cloud,” and that could now include your kitchen. The kitchen is the most complex room in any home. It’s the place where water, electricity, gas, heat, fire, and sharp objects are regularly thrown into the mix together. More than 300 children end up in hospital every day in the US alone, with burn injuries sustained in the kitchen and more than 55% of all accidents in India happen in the kitchen. It’s little wonder so many organizations continuously campaign to raise awareness about kitchen safety.
Living on the Edge
Smart technology and edge computing go hand-in-hand. As we discover bigger and better applications for artificial intelligence, augmented reality and machine learning, it follows that we also need more computing power wherever the action is happening. That’s what edge computing sets out to achieve, coupling each device with the processing power it needs to make rapid-fire calculations in near real-time, instead of having to depend on remote cloud processing. 
Continue reading: https://www.iotforall.com/careful-with-that-how-iot-is-keeping-children-safe-in-the-kitchen

Research conducted by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has shown that commonly available solar PV technology used indoors can power building IoT devices.
The study was aimed to test the ability of solar PV cells to absorb indoor light and opens the way for harvesting some of this light for low power devices with low capacity batteries such as smoke alarms, security cameras and temperature sensors.
The researchers tested three different materials, gallium indium phosphide (GaInP) and gallium arsenide (GaAs), which are geared toward white LED light, and silicon, a less efficient but more affordable and commonplace material.
The modules were tested with white LED light with a fixed intensity comparable to light levels in a well-lit room. For the silicon and GaAs PV modules, the indoor light proved less efficient than sunshine, but the GaInP module performed far better under the LED than sunlight.
Continue reading: https://www.powerengineeringint.com/news/solar-pv-can-power-indoor-iot-devices-study/