The many webs of things

Two recent posts dealt with the activities of Samsung and Google in the area of the physical web, otherwise known as the Web of Things. Given the announcements of these two heavyweights within a few weeks of each other, it is worth exploring what it means for the rest of us. For starters, what is the Web of Things? Put succinctly, it is the allocation of URLs or web addresses to physical objects, allowing apps, web interfaces, and cloud services … Read more…

What are Gogoro up to?

Gogoro, a well-funded Taiwanese start-up founded by big-hitting former HTC-execs with a name plucked out of the Tech industry’s random name generator has hit the headlines this week for raising a further $100m over an initial $50m in April 2011. Its broad aim, in rather fluffy terms is to “utilize the power of mobile connectivity and data analytics to transform energy distribution and management in the world’s cities.” Additionally, it is participating in the creation of a “more intelligent and … Read more…

Samsung invests in EVRYTHNG

 

EvrythngYou may have heard of EVRYTHNG, the vocalically-challenged IoT platform technology company. Well, today they announced that Samsung Ventures has provided investment funding on top of that already received from Cisco and other companies in April. With two these two behemoths behind them, EVRYTHNG stands a decent chance on their mission to become the leading player in the ‘Web of Things’, a world whereby physical objects, be they simple or complex are associated their own individual web presence, with EVRYTHNG’s platform providing the glue (and APIs) between the physical and the virtual world. What is not clear yet is how ‘open’ this framework will be – on one hand, the Web of Things aims to be open as the Web, while on the other hand, EVRYTHNG has stated that it wishes to be the Facebook of Things.

Qualcomm set to acquire CSR

Today Qualcomm announced its planned purchase of CSR, formerly Cambridge Silicon radio. Key observation is that Qualcomm is making a dual-technology strategy for personal area and local area networking, namely Bluetooth and WiFi, the latter building on its previous Atheros acquisition. This surely must raise questions for the current home-automation protocols such as Zigbee and Z-Wave, who cannot compete for scale of deployment with Bluetooth and WiFi, which are implemented in practically every Smartphone and Tablet sold. As Qualcomm buys CSR, … Read more…

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