Internet of Things News of the Week, September 25 2017

Here’s what caught our attention in IoT last week. Get this news summary in your inbox every Friday when you subscribe to our newsletter.

Nest’s new gear is a big deal: Yes, some people were underwhelmed by an expensive me-too security system, but there are two cool elements. The first is that the gear is a boost for Thread and Weave, two modern protocols for connected devices. Thread is a mesh-based wireless protocol while Weave is a way to communicate capabilities between devices. Second, is that after years of drama, the team at Nest seems to be working more closely with the Google folks, specifically the Google Home team. For anyone who wants a context-aware smart home, this is good news. Google has the machine learning and voice interface to excel while Nest has the physical products. (StaceyonIoT)

And yet, Google just signed a deal with HTC: Google acquired a team of product designers from HTC for $1.1 billion, which is not as much as it paid for Nest ($3.2 billion) but is still a lot of money. Google clearly realizes that the physical world is going to be an invaluable source of context and data, which means it needs to build those products. (Google)

New sensors are coming to your kitchen appliances: What if your fridge could tell you if your vegetables are going to be garden scraps if you don’t use them tonight? Or what if an oven could “sniff” your cookies to see if they contain peanuts or gluten? Appliance companies and retailers like Walmart and Amazon are looking at ways to use advanced chemical sensors to tell you more about what you’re cooking. Keep an eye on review providers like All Great Appliances to be the first to know when these products come to market and how impressive they really are. Regardless of the motives behind some of these developments, it can’t be argued that the future is coming to the kitchen. By the way, if kitchen tech is your jam, I’ll be at the Smart Kitchen Summit in October. You should come. (The Spoon, CBInsights)

Rethinking monopolies: There are dozens of ways to get at a piece of data, which means that even a startup can find a way to get useful information and build a product or service around it. But it’s also true that companies who have many products and services are sucking up huge amounts of information that make their products “stickier” and can help those companies beat the competition. Access to data can be a barrier to entry. And the more data a company has, the bigger that barrier is. So when does that barrier become a monopoly and worthy of regulatory concern? Should regulators weigh consumer power (such as the ability to control their data privacy) when looking at today’s tech companies? These are conversations Europe is beginning to have and ones we should have in the U.S. as well. (FT)

Plug into the Matrix: This is weird and sounds cooler than it is, but researchers have connected an Emotiv headset that measures EEG signals to a Raspberry Pi so those signals can be captured and uploaded to the cloud for later analysis. They call it the Brainternet, but it really just seems like an easier way to get EEG data online. Not that that’s a terrible thing.(Futurism)

HomeKit gets an NFC update: Check this out. To connect a HomeKit compatible device to the Home App you simply scan a picture of the HomeKit code on the gadget (or the box) with your iPhone. Now you can use NFC as well, and simply hold the iPhone next to the device you’d like to connect. At least you could if device-makers add NFC to their products. This makes it even easier to add HomeKit products to your network. (Ry Crist)

Insurance is embracing IoT to assess risk and prevent problems: I love this story, which describes how insurers are using data sources like in-car telematics to try to proactively prevent their customers from having problems. Such black boxes in cars aren’t new, but monitoring them in real-time and then using the data collected to change driver behavior is. It also dives into really exciting territory such as shipping giant Maersk which is working with Microsoft to build a pirate alert system using sensors and the blockchain. That ties into using the blockchain as a mechanism for determining what sensor data to trust. (Reuters)

MIT Researchers explain how computers learn: This paper is a deep dive into how a specific neural network learns to understand language. One challenge associated with neural networks is that researchers and companies don’t actually know how the resulting algorithms work. What do they prioritize? How will they react in specific situations? Understanding these things matters if we want to avoid bias and also in cases where we want to prioritize a specific reaction, as in the case of a self-driving car taking all steps to avoid hitting a person, but maybe reacting differently to avoid hitting a squirrel. Finding a way to see how these networks learn helps prevent mistakes when they are employed in the real world. (Inside HPC)

This is a decent overview of smart city efforts in the Middle East: Dubai, Qatar, the UAE and other countries in the Middle East have been investing in sustainable smart cities for a while. With two major events being held in that part of the world in 2020 and 2022, we’ll start seeing more cool tech from the region. (ZDNet)

The Internet of Things is preventing Malaria! This is an excellent example of how cheap access to fine-grained data can be turned into a valuable insight. Satellite data can be used to predict moisture levels in the soil. Combine that with details about houses and workers and it’s possible to predict the spread of mosquitos and of malaria. Proving that the data and even insights are useless without a plan of action, local governments can use these insights to focus on specific cities or neighborhoods when delivering mosquito netting or spraying pesticides. (Engadget)

Smart backpacks: creepy or cool? My colleague Kevin shared this story on Drexel University testing new Jansport backpacks that have a hidden barcode in the fabric. That barcode lets a student scan the backpack with their phone and see the social media profile of the person wearing the backpack. As a woman, this seems like a terrible idea. I’m can’t see the advantage of letting anybody who can see my backpack know exactly who I am and how to find me on the internet. (CBS Philly)