IoT news of the week for April 22, 2022

This week’s news was compiled and written by Kevin C. Tofel

Carbon dioxide could deliver smart home privacy: Chalk up another interesting project from MIT’s Media Lab. The latest is a new approach to getting more privacy in the smart home. It uses a pair of sensors. One is for infrared, which isn’t novel, while the other is for carbon dioxide, which is something we haven’t seen before. Well, we can’t see CO2, but you know what I mean. Data from the two sensors is combined to determine if people are in a room, how many people are there, and even what types of activity those people are engaging in. The latter comes from machine learning models over time. Best of all, since this is all non-camera-based, no personally identifiable data is captured. Breathe easy, privacy peeps! (IEEE Spectrum)

Cisco powers wireless connectivity over the speed limit: Apparently, we all either drive too fast or 4G LTE isn’t as capable as we might have thought. Cisco and General Motors this week announced a solution to slow wireless connectivity for in-car sensor data. There’s no word from either of them on the speeding problem, though. The two companies are working together on the future of car connectivity using Cisco’s wireless backhaul solutions. This enables real-time data over stable connections even with a test car traveling 100 mph. That backhaul can deliver up to 500 Mbps, which helps solve the issues caused by slower, current connectivity. And it allows GM to make test vehicle changes quicker as that sensor data floods in. (Cisco)

IP for loan collateral in the wearable space: This is interesting. Blue Spark raised $40 million in funding this week. The company created the TempTraq, a small patch that’s stuck under an armpit for continuous body temperature monitoring. Surprisingly, those aren’t even the most interesting parts of this news. Blue Spark got the funding from biotech-focused hedge fund Ghost Tree Partners by putting up its intellectual property as collateral. I suppose that’s better than putting up smelly old wearable tech. (FierceBiotech)

Digital Twins are people too! Speaking of funding, Unlearn.AI raised $50 million this week in a Series B round. But what really caught my eye is what Unlean.AI offers. The company created digital twins of people for medical research. That’s a new twist on the digital twin concept, which up to now has been mostly for creating virtual copies of workplaces, environments, and systems. By using characteristics from prior medical research, Unlearn.AI says its twins can be used for medical trials. That can vastly cut down the patient risk in trials since the patients are just bits and bytes. (TechCrunch)

SoftBank Robotics vacuums will clean up quicker: As much as I love my Roomba robotic vacuum, I really want a floor cleaner from SoftBank Robotics. Why? The company has a new partnership with IoT provider UnaBiz, so the messy floor won’t be messy for long. Using sensor data from UnaBiz, SoftBank’s vacuums can be triggered for automated AI-enabled autonomous cleaning. That’s in addition to the regularly scheduled vacuuming — such as that from my beloved Roomba. Unfortunately for me, this partnership is aimed at large-scale holistic building management. Am I a bad person for wanting to find one of those buildings, pour some dirt in the lobby, and see how quickly a robotic vacuum shows up? (Enterprise IoT Insights)

The FDA reminds doctors that AI is for triage: I don’t know how often the FDA sends out advisories on artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning in health care, but it did so earlier this month. The notice stresses that doctors should use such systems for triage purposes, not for patient diagnostics, and specifically mentions the role of technology in imaging software for patients with a potential large vessel occlusion (LVO) of the brain. I’m not a doctor, but one in this story, Dr. Bansal, might have scans for 40 patients to review for LVO in a single day. And he makes a valid point: “[I]f AI tools are saying ‘Hey, look at this one next,’ whether it is a potential large vessel occlusion or brain bleed, that is very helpful.” The FDA doesn’t disagree, but wants to ensure that actual human doctors are making these important diagnoses. (Diagnostic Imaging)

A new use for Apple’s FindMy network: troop movements: It wasn’t long ago we discussed the bad situation of unwanted AirTags being used to track people without their knowledge. Perhaps there’s a silver lining in this Apple cloud service, though. As Russian troops barreled through the Ukraine town of Irpin, one soldier decided to loot someone’s AirPods. You can imagine what happened next. Yup, that Russian soldier’s movements are available, plain as day, on Apple’s FindMy network. Maybe leaving connected devices with trackers for the enemy to take home should be a strategy going forward. (Twitter)

Ecobee getting in on the air quality market? Recent code for Ecobee devices suggests that the company is planning to add an air quality sensor to its upcoming new products. That makes sense to me, given that smart thermostats have been around for nearly a decade and don’t do all that much more than they did 10 years ago. I appreciate the temperature monitoring and automatic HVAC controls, but it’s time for the smart thermostat to get smarter. Adding more sensors to manage a whole-house air system would be a breath of fresh air. (MacRumors)

UnaBiz has won the Sigfox assets: After weeks of negotiating, UnaBiz has acquired Sigfox SA and Sigfox France SAS, the Sigfox network operator subsidiary in France. This brings the French low power wide area network company out of the French equivalent of bankruptcy court, and allows UnaBiz to keep many of the employees. UnaBiz has acquired the assets for around $25 million and its co-founder and co-CEO says the plan will be to “strive towards the convergence of LPWAN” with this deal. I am hoping that means Sigfox can move from its proprietary tech to LoRaWAN. (Enterprise IoT Technology) — Stacey Higginbotham