IoT news of the week for March 12, 2021

Savigent acquired by Symphony IndustrialAI: Symphony IndustrialAI, a company that has provided software and sensors for industrial customers for 50 years, has acquired Savigent. Savigent makes workflow orchestration software that helps customers track operations across OT and IT systems. As digital transformation efforts speed up post-pandemic, expect more of these deals designed to place higher-level functions on top of existing industrial automation systems. The price of the deal was undisclosed, but Savigent last reported revenue, in 2019, of $12.8 million. (Symphony Industrial AI)

Delivery robots get legal rights in some states: A few months back, I wrote a column arguing that we should create registries for public-facing robots so when things go wrong, we can figure out who is responsible. It appears that delivery robots are getting some legal rights in some states. They’re acquiring the rights of a pedestrian on local sidewalks in Pennsylvania, for example. But there’s been no progress when it comes to creating registries. To be sure, I’d love to get my Amazon packages that much faster, but I already have to dodge kids on bikes, trash cans, and poorly place street furniture on my walks. I don’t want to have to avoid a 550-pound robot that can travel at 12 miles per hour, too. (Axios)

This news is for all the sensor geeks: Researchers at the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) have developed a new, lightweight accelerometer that uses a laser to measure acceleration as opposed to measuring mechanical strain. The resulting sensor is lighter and thinner than existing sensors, and it doesn’t have to undergo periodic recalibrations. For more on the sensor and a program called NIST on a Chip, which collects NIST’s measurement science technology and expertise and attempts to package it for external users in commerce, medicine, defense, and academia, check out the article. (NIST)

Thinking up a data defense: Consumers and even corporations are concerned about all of the data that’s sucked up by the big tech firms. But there’s not much they can do, especially consumers. However, a new paper by student researchers proposes three ways the public can poison their data to foul up algorithms and fight back against data overreach. The three mechanisms are data strikes, data poisoning, and conscious data contribution. Data strikes will work if the action is collective, and if many people opt out of using a platform because they find the data collection practices objectionable. Data poisoning is an effort to submit incorrect data to platforms, while conscious data contribution is essentially telling people to share their data with platforms they deem ethical, rewarding good behavior. Unfortunately, these all sound like a lot of work for the average Joe. (MIT Technology Review)

Researchers use sonar to track people’s heartbeats: Researchers at the University of Washington have shown how a sonar transmitter plus AI could turn a smart speaker into a heartbeat tracker. Basically, it involves a sonar transmitter that can interpret signals bouncing back from a person’s chest wall to track their heartbeats. The AI takes the sonar data and translates it into intelligible heartbeat data. It’s a similar principle to research from the same university that tracks disruptions in the RF field from Wi-Fi signals to interpret what might be happening in a room. What it boils down is that with better AI, we’re now able to use a lot of new signals to interpret what’s happening in the world around us. The issues going forward will likely focus on the cost of the transmitter used, the ease of building good models to interpret the signals, and the limitations of how the signal works (for example, how far it can travel, how granular the readings are, etc). (The Washington Post)

Fascinating research into peer-to-peer botnets: Most botnets attack through a router or networked device and either co-opt that device to join the network or use the router to inject malware into devices on that network. If you stop the centralized server directing the botnet, you destroy it. But with more and more smart devices networked to each other using peer-to-peer connections, there’s no need for a centralized server, and killing the botnet means cleaning malware from each device. Research from TrendMicro details the trend in IoT P2P botnets and explains how a path to easy monetization might lead to a nightmare of infected IoT devices. (TrendMicro)

Only one in 10 patients were terrified to find Boston Dynamics’ robotic dog would be their doctor: The headline is a bit of a joke, but this article is great because it looks at how patients responded during a telemedicine experience inside a hospital when that telemedicine experience was delivered via a tablet mounted to Boston Dynamics’ robotic dog. The study only looked at the responses of 41 patients who had agreed to a telemedicine encounter, but of those who conducted their visit via robotic dog, 90% were satisfied with the experience. (MIT)

FreeRTOS has a new security certification: Amazon keeps expanding the qualifications of the FreeRTOS real-time operating system. Earlier this month, it said FreeRTOS had achieved the Security Evaluation Standard for IoT Platforms (SESIP) Assurance Level 2. That means embedded developers writing FreeRTOS-based applications can achieve SESIP certification for their own applications more quickly because the underlying libraries have been tested for compliance. There are five levels of SESIP assurances, with the most stringent being Level 5. (AWS)

Kevin has fallen in love with a doorbell: Kevin tested the Logitech Circle View doorbell that uses Apple’s HomeKit Secure Video and couldn’t stop gushing over how easy it was to get the device connected to his network. For all I know, he’s still talking about how easy it was three days later. (Stacey on IoT)