IoT news of the week for March 2, 2018

CyberX raises $18M for industrial IoT security:  CyberX, an IIoT and industrial control system security company, has closed $18 million in Series B funding. So far it has raised $30 million from investors which include Norwest Venture Partners, Glilot Capital Partners, Flint Capital, ff Venture Capital, and OurCrowd. CyberX was founded by Israeli security experts and has seen its sales grow 3x in the last year as more companies pay attention to the risks involved with bringing their factories and industrial operations online. The company monitors network traffic to understand risks and says it can detect them in less than an hour. (CyberX)

Silicon Labs gets into Wi-Fi: For the first time in its history, chipmaker Silicon Labs is offering a Wi-Fi chip. The company says this chip is specifically designed for internet of things devices as opposed to PCs or smartphones. As such, it offers lower power consumption, the ability to work in congested environments with many other devices and radios, and a reduction in the transmission of data when such transmission is not necessary. To date, Silicon Labs has been focused on other IoT radios, so this news means that Wi-Fi has apparently finally made the cut for Silicon Labs’ customers.

How to think about AI: With the massive amounts of new and old data available thanks to the internet of things, companies are rapidly deploying machine learning to make inferences from that data. This article by my friend Alistair Croll explains how those AI models work and why it’s essential to understand the machine’s objective before we start allocating more tasks to artificial intelligence. This is an especially good read for someone trying to grasp the basics of the technology behind all of those ethics in AI conversations. (Medium)

Give 15,000 hacked thermostats four days and…hackers can generate $1,000 by using the spare computing power to mine cryptocurrencies. According to a presentation by security firm Avast, hackers can get into poorly secured connected devices and use their compute power for mining. What this ignores is that many connected devices have such little processing power that the benefits of compromising an individual’s home are low. Instead, look for hackers to go first for higher-value targets such as older routers, smart cameras, and perhaps TVs. (Fortune)

Medicine meets Microsoft’s Hololens for a space age doctor visit: This profile of Nomadeec, a French startup that is building an app for Microsoft’s Hololens, shows how the worlds of augmented and mixed reality could change the practice of medicine. Like some of the industrial IoT applications for Hololens that help guide factory workers through complex tasks, this app uses mixed reality to provide detailed patient information in a scannable format for doctors. While I think the consumer AR and MR apps, like placing a stormtrooper in your picture, are silly, these have real value. (Medgadget)

Gartner called and it wants its buzzwords back: This week a company called Zededa launched with $3 million in funding so it could create a “completely new technology stack that creates a service fabric essential to achieving the hyperscale that will be required in edge computing.” That sounds really interesting, but that’s as close as the release gets to telling me what the “distinguished roster of industry veterans”  from “legendary companies” plans to actually do. And while I agree that edge computing is a “new paradigm,” I’d want a bit more detail from a company launch. All I have today is a mishmash of buzzwords, including machine learning, AI, edge computing, “OT leveraging IT,” and more. If anyone signs up and wants to explain what the heck this is about, I’d love to hear from them. (Zededa)

Who’s job is security? There are dozens of reasons IoT security is hard, but this transcribed conversation between experts covers a lot of them. Going deeper than the platitude that companies have to design with security in mind, the discussion covers the role of insurance companies in pushing companies to further secure their products, how to ensure security throughout your supply chain, and why security is a never-ending job. (SemiEngineering)

The Internet of lunar things: Vodaphone and Nokia are going to build a 4G cellular network on the moon, and while I have my doubts about it, I love thinking about networks in space. the initial lunar network will provide connectivity to two rovers , but is imagined as a stepping stone to communications for missions further out in the solar system. (Space.com)

Amazon to buy Ring: This week’s big news in the smart home was Amazon spending more than a reported $1.2 billion to buy Ring, the purveyor of about 1.2 million video doorbells. I discuss what the deal signals and why Amazon bought it over on the site. (StaceyonIoT)

Correction: Last week, we incorrectly gave the date the Lighthouse intelligent cameras would ship. It is available now, not in September. 

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