IoT news of the week for June 7, 2019

Got $249 and need a new thermostat? Our favorite smart thermostat got an upgrade. Ecobee launched its newest thermostat this week with a brighter, touch-sensitive screen, a better speaker, and a newly designed companion sensor. As an added bonus, the thermostat acts as a smart Alexa-based speaker and can play songs from Spotify and Pandora. Most thermostats are located in awkward places for music playback, but if this is a thing you want, then go for it. The Ecobee will cost $249 and can be controlled via Alexa, Google Assistant, and HomeKit. (Ecobee)

CyberX has new security integration for industrial IoT: CyberX, which provides industrial IoT security, has announced a new network monitoring option integrated into services from a variety of IT service providers such as Splunk and ServiceNow. Instead of focusing on securing the devices individually, CyberX software monitors the network for wayward traffic and badly behaving devices. This is a fairly common approach by companies including DarkTrace, Armis, and others. (CyberX)

Cisco snaps up industrial security firm: Cisco Systems said it would buy Sentryo, a French company that provides visibility and security for industrial devices. This is a classic IT meets OT deal, with Cisco trying to broaden its offerings for the operations tech crowd that has to handle hardware such as programmable logic controllers and other devices that are not connected to the internet, but which are getting connected. Usually they are connected behind a gateway that talks to the internet. It’s another move that signals the maturity of IT firms that are trying to offer complete IoT portfolios to industrial clients. (CRN)

Infineon is buying Cypress: German chipmaker Infineon said this week that it will pay $10 billion to buy Cypress Semiconductor. For IoT watchers, this deal would give Infineon a huge automotive sensor and chip business as well as the Cypress Wi-Fi business. In the last five years or so chip companies have been merging in an effort to combat pricing pressure and show Wall Street continued growth. (Reuters)

Apple focuses on privacy and security in the smart home: At Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference this week, the company announced a number of cool features for smart homeowners, including HomeKit-enabled routers that could create a separate network for IoT devices, and a video service integration for privacy-focused individuals. Kevin tells us all about it. (StaceyonIoT)

Amazon wants in on apartments and hotels: Amazon wants to put Alexa in hotels and apartments, according to the WSJ, which details how a dedicated group at Amazon is trying to sell Alexa into new markets with discounted hardware, customizations, and the promise of shared data. Lennar, for example, now sells some new homes with Alexa already installed, and several hotels have built Alexa-capable rooms. However, some property managers aren’t sure the smart gear is worth the hassle and expense, so Amazon needs to convince them. Meanwhile, there are plenty of potential residents or current residents who don’t want Alexa listening in. My bet is that this market evolves a bit differently, with smart speakers acting less like a hub and more like an add-on device. (Wall Street Journal)

How IoT can help construction: One of the growth industries for IoT is the construction business, which is highly variable, people-dependent, and generally not very automated. But I believe that will soon change, as I explain in my monthly column over at IEEE Spectrum. (IEEE Spectrum)

Alexa, Siri, and Google’s Assistant have a giant carbon footprint: Researchers at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, have calculated the carbon footprint associated with training a neural network to recognize language, and it’s enormous. Read the article for the full details and to understand exactly how the researchers measured the carbon use. It also offers some perspective on why training at the edge is still a ways off, while at the same time making clear how researchers might tweak the training process to make edge training feasible. (MIT Technology Review)

Universal Studios gives LoRa a try: Comcast-owned Universal Studios, home of Harry Potter World, will give a LoRa WAN network operated by Comcast-owned MachineQ a try. Universal will implement some type of smart locker near one of its water rides and will also use it for food and beverage use cases. It is also going to test out other options and configurations as time goes by. Disney has done amazing work both with its FastPass and around creating other customized experiences using IoT, so it’s no surprise that Universal Studios is getting on this bandwagon. It’s also no surprise it picked Comcast-owned MachineQ for its trial. I believe we call these “synergies.” (Comcast)

Washington gets serious about tech competition: This week The Department of Justice (DOJ), the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the House Judiciary Committee all announced investigations in tech monopolies at Amazon, Facebook, Google and Apple. While regulation is needed, it’s unclear how the DoJ, for example, can measure the harms of monopolies by those four companies under the current standards for judging anti-competitive behavior. There’s also concern over how to break up companies if that’s the right course of action. Finally, governments face a somewhat existential question about their ability to regulate tech given the government’s general slowness in enacting laws compared with the speed tech innovates around said laws. For some good overviews of the issues facing regulators and possible solutions try these articles. (WSJ, MIT Technology Review)