The Week In Review: IoT

Connectivity
Sigfox this week held the first annual Sigfox World IoT Expo in Prague, Czech Republic, bringing together network operators, business partners, and industry professionals. The company announced a number of new services for its users, including the Admiral Ivory connectivity service, which promises to make any short-range wireless device into a long-range Internet of Things device, at a minimal cost. The announcements add up to the launching of an “IoT-network-as-a-service” offering, the company said.

Cloud Services
The Google Cloud IoT Core service went into public beta this week. It is a fully managed service hosted on the Google Cloud Platform. The service can be integrated with Google Cloud Dataflow, Google BigQuery, and other online Google analytics services.

Reorganization
Hitachi formed the wholly-owned Hitachi Vantara subsidiary, combining personnel from Hitachi Data Systems, Hitachi Insight Group, and Pentaho into one organization based in Santa Clara, Calif. Hitachi Vantara, a $4 billion unit with about 7,000 employees, will be responsible for the Japanese conglomerate’s IoT operations around the world.

Finance
Bastille Networks raised $27 million in its Series B round of private funding, bringing its total funding to $40 million. Participating in the new round are Bessemer Venture Partners, Spinnaker VC, Comcast, Keel Funds, Ballentine Partners, and individual investors. Bastille offers software-defined radio technology to detect cyberattacks on enterprises, providing visibility to an enterprise’s IoT, mobile, and wireless devices.

Conferences
The third annual Insurance IoT USA Summit will be held on November 30 and December 1 at the Radisson Blu Aqua Hotel in Chicago. The conference is put on by Insurance Nexus, a division of FC Business Intelligence.

Events
San Jose State University and the Electronic System Design Alliance are sponsoring Jim Hogan Presents – Preparing for the Cognitive Era: Education, Occupation, and You, on Wednesday, October 18, at the university’s Student Union Theater, starting at 6:30 p.m. with networking and refreshments. Vishal Kapoor, founding principal of three legged stool, a consulting firm, is the scheduled speaker. The event is free, and on-campus parking is complimentary.

Products
Cypress Semiconductor introduced the CYW43012 combination chip, offering ultra-low-power Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity. The combo chip, fabricated with a 28-nanometer process, is said to extend battery life for smart home products, portable audio applications, and wearable electronics. It is supported by the chip company’s WICED Studio IoT development platform. Cypress also announced the release of the PSoC 6 BLE Pioneer Kit and version 4.2 of the PSoC Creator Integrated Design Environment software, supporting the company’s PSoC 6 microcontroller line for IoT applications.

San Francisco-based Rubicon Labs introduced the Rubicon Secure Identity Platform, which has two components: the Rubicon Identity Agent and the cloud-based Rubicon Identity Service. The platform is said to make provisioning of secure identities for IoT devices simpler. The company will demonstrate the platform next week at the IoT Solutions World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, October 3-4-5.

The Comodo IoT Security Platform from, naturally, Comodo offers the capability to issue and manage PKI and SSL certificates for private ecosystems. The new platform is said to provide third-party, trusted, mutual authentication of devices to networks.

BioHiTech says its cloud-based Industrial IoT data analytics platform will be installed on trash compactors operated by BINPAK Compactors, a subsidiary of Modern Waste Products.

Market Research
Navigant Research has a report looking at the market for air quality monitoring and management in smart cities, focusing on sensor networks. A free executive summary is available here.

Research and Markets has a new report, Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and Connected Manufacturing: Analysis of Key IIoT Technologies, Applications, Solutions, Market Outlook and Forecast.