Internet Of Things News Flash: 08–29–2019

7 min readAug 29, 2019

The latest Internet of Things articles — algorithmically curated, ranked, and summarized just for you.

News Flash is a weekly publication that features the top news stories for a specific topic. The stories are algorithmically curated, evaluated for quality, and ranked so that you can stay on top of the most important developments. Additionally, the most important sentences for each story are extracted and displayed as highlights so you can get a sense of what each story is about. If you want more information for a particular story, just click on it to read the entire article.

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Vanderbilt Highlights Importance Of IoT Connected Devices

Highlights:

No longer are the cloud, Internet of Things (IoT) and smart cities foreign and distant concepts full of intrigue and promise.
The term ‘connected world’ is a derivative of the digital transformation, signifying the increasing reliance that we have on connectivity, smart devices and data-driven decision-making.
As the use of connected devices and big data continue to grow, we can expect to see the conversations regarding data privacy and security increase as well.
As more of these devices are developed and security protocols are developed at a similar pace, connected devices stand to benefit a variety of industries, such as smart cities.
Leveraging smart, connected devices can catapult organizations into a new level of situational awareness, but adopting protections and remaining vigilant continues to be a stalwart of technological innovation within the physical security market and into the connected world.

How Will 5G Networks Impact Smart Cities?

Highlights:

While 5G will not enhance every smart city application beyond what LTE currently provides, it will bring significant benefits to some and will enable a wider range of Internet of Things sensors and devices.
With an increasing number and type of IoT devices and advances in analytics and artificial intelligence, “5G will certainly inspire innovations and produce new solutions for cities at a scale not previously possible under earlier generations of mobile technology,” says Mark Zannoni, research director of smart cities and transportation at IDC Government Insights.
5G enables a much higher number of IoT endpoints that cities can connect and coordinate via smart city platforms for real-time, citywide analyses or automation, according to Zannoni.
In late July, Verizon deployed 5G to parts of Atlanta, Detroit, Indianapolis, and Washington, D.C., in addition to earlier launches in Chicago, Minneapolis, Denver and Providence, R.I. Verizon plans to hit 30 cities by the end of the year.
Sprint currently has 5G coverage in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Houston and Kansas City, Mo., with plans for coverage in nine cities by the end of the year.

Artificial Intelligence is Accelerating the Transformation of Smart Cities

Highlights:

Coupled with the Internet of Things (IoT), AI is transforming cities into smart ecosystems.
According to the Smart Cities Council, a smart city fulfils the need for city dwellers to exist in an environment which is clean and devoid of congestion.
According to a study, processing Big Data via AI contributes “to the urban fabric, sustainability and livability dimensions” of smart cities.
According to A.T. Kearney’s Global Cities Index, Chinese cities “have rapidly become relatively more competitive on a global scale”.
Like earlier mentioned, the concept of smart cities builds on IoT, which then relies on AI to work.

All About BTrDB: Berkeley’s Tree Database

Highlights:

This article studies and introduces the internal implementation details of BTrDB, an open-source time series database for Internet of Things (IoT) applications.
Because of the fixed frequency of the data sent from IoT devices, the space occupied by these leaf nodes is basically the same.
Although this tree is not a balanced tree, for IoT projects, the timeline life cycle and the frequency of data collection of the device are very stable.
These retained WAL files are only 16 MB in size, and the number of these files is linearly related to the number of abnormal IoT devices.
In BTrDB, the data structure is built for a single timeline, and a tree is built to store time series data based on the stability of IoT device data.

6 Criteria for Selecting the Best IoT Platform Partner

Highlights:

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a domain that is driven by volume, velocity and variety, so it helps to be very picky about the choices you make.
Chris McCann, in his blog “Internet of Things (IoT) Market Ecosystem Map,” mentions that today, there are more devices connected to the internet than humans, clearly indicating an upward trend.
IoT is being adopted within applications and thus being used in industries (IIoT), enterprises (smart cities and waste management), healthcare, etc.
While keeping up with the technological requirements of new devices, vendors should be able to offer useful insights from the data collated so far.
As per a study done by Strategy Analytics, 35 percent of enterprises that actively used IoT had less than 100 devices connected.

IoT connectivity — What does it mean for smart metering?

Highlights:

The Internet of Things (IoT) promises to make our environment — homes, offices, cities — smarter, more measurable and better connected to one another.
In 2015, Eau du Grand Lyon (France) implemented a smart water network using Birdz’s smart water sensors (meters and noise correlators) integrated with smart sensors.
Since implementing a smart connected solution into its smart gas metering solutions, Chinese utility provider Goldcard Smart Group Co., has seen a reduction of water leading to an estimated 25 percent savings.
By implementing a smart metering infrastructure comprised of IoT-enabled sensors and gateways embedded, cities are able to work with utility companies to collect data remotely and therefore streamline operations.
By understanding and embracing the impact of IoT on smart metering, cities will continue to be smarter and more efficient, while increasing productivity and driving down costs.

Will street lights spy us in the future? | Dark side of the IoT.

Highlights:

Three answers to these three questions will clearly outline the security breaches of IoTs by taking future street lights as an example.
Smart street light is the main component of the smart city which is placed among people.
This smart street light has the capability of recording videos, sounds and identify the objects around them.
The smart street lights are worked together by the network of thousands of IoT over the internet.
In election times, the party in the power could able to find the thoughts of people using the data from smart street lights.

Blockchain, The Internet of Things (IoT), and Digital Identity:

Highlights:

Bestowing machines with digital identities is known as the Identity of Things (IDoT), a vital component of the Internet of Things (IoT).
How blockchains and DLT (like the solutions from IOTA, IoTeX and MXC) can provide fast and secure communication between IoT devices.
For smart devices, having IDoT that is able to reliably, securely communicate and build complex systems of interaction is vital — a challenge that becomes even more pronounced when one considers that these products come from a multitude of manufacturers and brands.
This means that blockchain and distributed ledger technology has the potential to mitigate the single point-of-failure concerns of centralized IoT systems and devices.
IOTA recognizes that for IoT to securely scale, each connected device must have a unique, immutable and tamper-proof ‘identity information tag’.

Learning about LongFi

Highlights:

LongFi is a protocol purpose built for a peer-to-peer wireless network that needs to connect thousands of IoT devices to a single Hotspot or enable any device to connect to any compatible Hotspot.
These devices are trusted by all Hotspots on the network which brings us to the next capability which is also critical for this type of network.
This allows a device to connect and send data via a Hotspot no matter whether the Hotspot is in Anchorage, Alaska or Miami, Florida.
If the company wants the packet it sends payment via Data Credits to the Hotspot, and the Hotspot sends the complete packet (for more info about Data Credits go here).
At the end of the next mining period, the Hotspot owner receives Helium tokens depending on the amount of data the Hotspot transferred compared with other Hotspots that also transferred data during that period.