Week In Review: Auto, Security, Pervasive Computing

BEVs; Apple car?; safer, quicker battery charge; solar cars; cyberattack cost; IoT asset tracking market.

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Automotive and mobility

Seventeen U.S. states must decide whether or not to follow California’s new law that mandates that all new cars, pickups and SUVs be electric or hydrogen-powered by 2035. The Clean Air Act dictates that states must follow federal guidelines unless they follow certain components of California’s rules.

A research firm says consumers are most passionate about a high-tech vehicle that doesn’t exist. According to a Strategic Vision survey, respondents ranked a theoretical Apple car highly in terms of perception of quality and said they would “definitely consider” such a vehicle in the future. Apple has made no announcements about a car, but speculation abounds in light of the company’s recently-revealed CarPlay update, legal action involving an employee accused of stealing trade secrets, and multiple auto-related patents.

Apple, meanwhile, certainly is expanding its reach. The company’s new iPhone 14 features Emergency SOS via satellite and crash detection, with a dual-core accelerometer capable of detecting G-force measurements of up to 256Gs. Other features include A15 Bionic chip with a 5-core GPU and improved battery life.

StoreDot began shipping EV cell samples of its silicon-dominant lithium-ion cell ‘100in5’ battery technology that features “100 miles of range in just 5 minutes consistently and without compromising battery’s health.

Sono Motors received more than 20,000 reservations for its Sion solar-electric passenger car (SEV).
 
GM unveiled a $30,000 electric SUV, one of the cheapest available. Jeep will roll out three new all-electric SUVS over the next few years. And Mercedes-Benz and Rivian struck a deal to  jointly build electric commercial vans
 
Snow Lake Lithium expects to produce enough lithium at its Manitoba, Canada, operations to manufacture 5 million electric car batteries in the North American market over the next decade.

Security

An IBM data breach report estimates that each cyberattack on a U.S. public sector costs the government an average of $2.07 million per incident. That includes costs associated with lost business, detection and escalation, notification, and post-breach response. According to the report, government data breaches occur every month and racked up a total of $13.7 billion in associated costs in 2018 alone.

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highways Safety Administration released a new report, Cybersecurity Best Practices for the Safety of Modern Vehicles,an update to its 2016 edition. It describes best practices for developing a risk-based approach to cybersecurity issues.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s director, Jen Easterly, urged the tech industry to add more security into its products at the design stage. Defining a security development lifecycle is a good starting point.

Researchers at Columbia University, Adobe Research and the University of Toronto presented “Can one hear the shape of a neural network?: Snooping the GPU via Magnetic Side Channel” at the recent USENIX Security Symposium. The report details the potential accuracy of this side channel attack and presents countermeasures. Find more security research here.

Pervasive computing and IoT

The market for IoT-based asset tracking and monitoring is expected to reach $6.6 billion by 2027, according to a new report. Among the main applications for this type of technology: livestock monitoring, automotive, railways, aviation, manufacturing, and cold chain monitoring. Cold chain devices, which are used to monitor products that must be kept at a specific temperature during transportation, are expected to maintain about one-fifth of the market share over the next few years.

The Internet of Things is changing everything, including American football. The National Football League began incorporating IoT technology into the game in 2019 and its usage increases each year. Current examples include microchips embedded into footballs, smart safety devices, and AI-powered security screening.

Investments in 5G have been underway for the better part of a decade, and the technology is considered the next huge growth opportunity. The challenges involved in this rollout are significant, though. And despite some initial successes and technology improvements, those challenges still aren’t completely solved.

Upcoming events

Sep. 11-16, International Conference on Silicon Carbide and Related Materials (ICSCRM), Davos, Switzerland.

Sep. 13, Women in Semiconductor Hardware (WISH) Conference, Santa Clara, CA.

Sep. 13-14, Edge AI Summit, Santa Clara, CA.

Sep. 13-15, AI Hardware Summit, Santa Clara, CA.

Sep. 14-15, CadenceLIVE India, Bengaluru, India.

Sep. 20-22, MIPI DevCon, virtual.

Sep. 21, SPIE Photonics Industry Summit, Washington D.C.

Find more chip industry events here.

In case you missed it

Check out the Auto, Security & Pervasive Computing newsletter for these highlights and more:

  • Driver Monitoring Raises Complexity, Adds Privacy Concerns
  • Design For Security Now Essential For Chips, Systems
  • How Accurate Are New Gas Sensors?
  • L5 Adoption Hinges On 5G/6G
  • Challenges Mount In New Autos

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