News

Facebook extends its platform through messaging and ‘things’

I am playing catch-up with the news from Facebook F8 developer conference, but looking at some of the (excellent) press reports, a couple of things stand out as being of interest as providing pointers as to where Facebook is heading. 1. Messaging as a Platform One of the announcements that got most coverage was the release of an API to allow third-parties to integrate their apps and experiences into Facebook. To the cynical (a grouping I sometimes find myself associated with), this … Read more…

Please welcome the Wireless IoT Forum

It is a new week (well, nearly) so it must be time for a new Internet of Things consortium or standards initiative. Please welcome the Wireless IOT Forum which is being established with William Webb, President of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) as its head. Wireless IoT Forum launches to drive Internet of Things development This blog has already addressed the multitude of standards in the Internet of Things space. In fairness this new grouping aims to bring … Read more…

IBM – $3billion in IoT and Weather Company tie-up

While there is nothing particularly exceptional about an Internet of Things – related announcement, this one is pretty big, at least in dollar terms. IBM has announced this morning that it will create a new Internet of Things business, consolidating its existing activities in its Smarter Planet and Smarter Cities initiatives. The numbers are quite striking – $4 billion to be invested over three years, and 2000 consultants, developers and researchers assigned to it. The key capabilities IBM will bring … Read more…

The battle for the mobile wallet heats up

It was easy to be distracted by the wondrous devices on display at the Mobile World Congress a couple of weeks ago, with smartphone vendors scrambling over each other with new device launches. However, some of the more significant announcements were not about phones or networks, but about the rapidly-shifting mobile payments landscape. Google shifts gear Google have made two major payments-announcements over the past month or so. First they bought Softcard (formerly called Isis) from AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon and … Read more…

ARM, IBM and Freescale in new IoT partnership

In the quest to get mindshare of the maker movement, ARM and IBM yesterday announced an Internet of Things starter kit based on an ARM Cortex M4 powered board, connected to the IBM BlueMix cloud service. ARM’s aim, similar to a previous initiative by Intel covered on this site is to help migrate the IoT enthusiasts who may be the founders of the next big thing away from Arduino towards ARM-based development platforms that can then be easily productised. Intel’s Edison-based development … Read more…

Amazon still king of the Cloud, though Microsoft is catching up

You can’t go far in reading the tech press before coming across the term ‘cloud’, a term that causes no end of confusion. In the enterprise IT world, the public cloud refers to the setup where IT applications and capabilities are provided to a company by an external provider via Internet connections on a shared infrastructure. This means that the company can benefit from shared economies of scale as other customers use the same infrastructure, and the same scale also provides the … Read more…

Samsung buys LoopPay. A tactical acquisition?

Yesterday, Samsung announced that it acquired LoopPay, a mobile payments technology company, in a move that was widely reported as allowing Samsung to “build a viable Apple Pay competitor”. Samsung takes aim at Apple Pay with LoopPay acquisition The key differentiating feature of LoopPay is that unlike Apple Pay it does not use Near Field Communication (NFC) technology to speak to the point of sale terminal, but instead relies on its own proprietary technology that emits a magnetic field to simulate … Read more…

British Gas acquires AlertMe – A smart home leader

AlertMe, the Cambridge-based company behind the technology that powers the Hive Active Heating system sold by British Gas has just been acquired by British Gas itself. Originally holding an investment of around 20%, British Gas has now bought the entire outfit for around $100m. As AlertMe only has two large customers, British Gas itself and Lowe, in the US, it is unclear whether British Gas aims to use the platform and technology for its own energy customer base. However in a press release, Mary … Read more…

UK gives go-ahead for use of White Space spectrum

Radio spectrum, the lifeblood of any wireless or cellular service is a scarce resource, the pressures on which continue to grow in line with our hunger for mobile data. It is therefore not surprising that carriers and regulators are seeking ways to squeeze out better usage out of the available airwaves. The most recent step forward is the UK communications regulator Ofcom to allow wireless communications in so-called White Space spectrum. This is “prime-site” spectrum in the 470-790MHz range which has excellent … Read more…

IoT Network Sigfox secures $115 additional funding

Sigfox, the low-power wide area network being deployed by Arqiva in the UK secured a new round of funding to drive its international expansion. As discussed in a previous post, Sigfox allows devices to remain in contact with a network for several years using normal AA-style batteries, and represents a much lower cost alternative to cellular networks for applications such as metering. This makes it quite interesting that NTT Docomo, Telefonica and SK Telecom are amongst its investors, clearing seeking to … Read more…

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