The Week in Review: IoT

Finance
Robert Bosch Venture Capital has purchased a significant number of IOTA tokens from the IOTA Foundation, making a cryptocurrency investment in blockchain technology and the Internet of Things. IOTA provides distributed ledger technology, enabling secure machine-to-machine transactions in data and money, with the foundation charging a micro fee for the service.

Riot Blockchain reports raising $37 million in the sale of restricted common stock and warrants. The company will use the money to expand its Bitcoin mining operations, and for general working capital and strategic investments.

M&A
Gemalto has agreed to be acquired by Thales Group for about $5.43 billion, with Thales offering €51 in cash for each Gemalto share. The deal came after Gemalto this month rebuffed an offer by Atos to buy the company for €46 per share, valuing Gemalto at around $5.1 billion. Gemalto specializes in government and enterprise security, along with Industrial IoT technology. Thales will combine its digital assets with Gemalto, creating a new global business unit within Thales. The companies expect to close the transaction during the second half of 2018, after receiving regulatory approvals.

Qualcomm once again extended its tender offer for shares of NXP Semiconductors to Friday, January 12, 2018.

R&D
The Lilly Endowment is providing $39 million to the Wabash Heartland Innovation Network to fund research into agricultural IoT applications, using farmland in Indiana. WHIN will give the money to Purdue University, which will conduct the research at its Birck Nanotechnology Center.

Products/Services
Chirp Microsystems this week unveiled its CH-101 and CH-201 time-of-flight sensors. The tiny, ultra-low-power devices will serve as rangefinders in automotive and industrial applications. They will also go into drones and robotics. Measuring 3.5 millimeters by 3.5 mm, the components are based upon microelectromechanical system devices.

IAR Systems will provide tool support for the microcontroller-based LPC54018 IoT module from NXP Semiconductors. The module includes support for Amazon FreeRTOS and has a seamless Wi-Fi connection to Amazon Web Services.

Pareteum says it won a three-year cloud services contract worth $4 million from a European global provider of IoT security to network providers and SIM cards directly embedded in IoT devices. The company this month has added more than $13 million to its 36-month contractual revenue backlog.

Analysis
The Harvard Business Review takes a look at the IoT and finds its security precautions lacking. Armis CEO Yevgeny Dibrov writes that IoT devices need an intelligent cybersecurity system, rather than relying on human supervision.

Certifications
Sequans Communications reports its Monarch LTE Cat 1/NB1 Platform has come through AT&T’s ADAPT chipset validation program and can now support module certifications. The Monarch single chip combines baseband, radio frequency, power amplifiers, and memory. It complies with the 3GPP Release 13/14 standard.

Conferences
NXP Semiconductors will collaborate with Accenture, Amazon Web Services, Au-Zone, ClearBlade, and Google Cloud during the upcoming CES 2018 conference, January 9-12 in Las Vegas, Nevada, to showcase artificial intelligence, edge computing, and IoT technologies.

Digi International is also headed next month to CES 2018, where it will exhibit its IoT connectivity products and services, along with machine-to-machine products, in the IoT Infrastructure Pavilion @CES.

Cybersecurity
The Trusted IoT Alliance will work with Qtum on blockchain-based security for connected devices. The Qtum Foundation awarded about $250,000 to the alliance for proposals on ways to use the Qtum protocol in IoT security. Alliance members and the general public can submit proposals.

A developer, using the name Khaos Tian, says he alerted Apple to a vulnerability in the HomeKit home automation platform. The security flaw would allow outsiders to infiltrate HomeKit to open garage doors and other tasks, it was said. Frustrated with the lack of apparent response to the issue, the developer publicized the case on Medium and with 9to5Mac. Apple finally fixed the vulnerability in iOS 11.12.1 on December 13, six weeks after the developer had brought it up with the Apple Product Security team.