COVID-19 is an excellent IoT sales pitch: COVID-19 has helped create the end-use case for the Internet of Things, and companies are not shy about bringing these use cases to the forefront in an effort to sell their services. Whether it is an organization that makes software to track the health of machines and presents itself as a way to share factory data with remote workers; a telephone trying to sell communications networks in a factory, on the road or in the middle of nowhere; an organization that has sensors and a cold chain monitoring system; or one simply focused on telemedicine, COVID made IoT necessary and convincing. The latest example comes from AT&T, which presents its network and software as necessary tools for tracking vaccines. (AT&T)

IBM signs agreement with Foghorn Systems: Foghorn, which provides edge computing software and has an agreement with Google to connect customer production data back to the Google cloud, has signed a similar agreement with IBM to bring back analytics and edge data from the site. customer in the IBM cloud. The idea is that Foghorn will provide data analysis and integration of devices coming from machines and the plant's OT network, while IBM will provide the infrastructure needed to analyze data in the cloud. (Foghorn)

It is time to digitize the railway industry: Since I'm in the US, I don't spend much time thinking about the railroad, even though it's clearly an integral part of global travel and an even bigger component of freight movement around the globe. That's why I was so excited to find this deep immersion in what matters to companies trying to connect different parts of the rail industry. We learned that railways need explosion-proof devices, it was introduced to the components of railway operators are interested in monitoring and we got an overview of several organizations trying to set standards and protocols throughout the industry. If you want to sell a sensor or software to railway operators, read this first. Yes, it is written by the founder of a company that is trying to build hardware and software to digitize rail operations, but offers a lot of knowledge to those of us who are not familiar with this opportunity. (Age of Railways)

Google is filing a number of patents for things we've talked about forever: I know that with patents, the devil is in the details, but the patent filings in this story are for things that don't seem new enough to deserve one. These include a system of sensors from Google that shares information on how a senior moves through their house, issuing alerts if the person in question does not move in the morning, etc. However, I'm excited to see Google thinking about how to create adaptive sensors that could stick to clothes, toys, or anything else. That being said, we've seen variations of these types of sensor tags connected since 2008, when Alcatel-Lucent (whoa, a blast from the past) shared a similar view. Surely I saw something similar in the first things, at the IBM smart home lab. (Protocol)

Are you thinking of getting ML models? This article, which is based on a Microsoft presentation, addresses the need for companies to start thinking about how to secure their machine learning models. The idea is not so great that a hacker can enter inaccurate training data into a model and thus confuse or harm them, but rather that companies should understand all the potential ways in which outsiders could alter their operations. (Register)

Uptake buys ShookIOT: I haven't heard much from Uptake in a few years, but it's still trucked and just bought a Canadian startup called ShookIOT, which specializes in machine data ingestion. Uptake was one of the first companies involved in industrial IoT, building software that helped extract data from machines and build cloud connectors. (Absorption)

Amazon Alexa's new talent shares songs with friends: This is a little stylish trick from Alexa. You can now send a song to Alexa to someone if it's on your Alexa contact list. This feels nice and somewhat random, although music is a great way to connect with a distant friend or show support to a family member. But Amazon says this feature was "just the beginning" for this feature, which leads me to think about how Alexa could become the goalkeeper of closest friends and family in a voice-centered social network. (Amazon)

Kevin goes to HomeKit to protect his privacy: My colleague Kevin has been in tears for the past few months, giving up services that absorb his data, but do not offer enough consent or value. As such, he is now testing the HomeKit ecosystem by replacing some of his Google devices and downloading Homebridge to link his Apple stuff to its non-HomeKit products. (StaceyonIoT)

This is how robots put dogs on their side: This research is somewhat fun, but it also shows the great lengths that companies and researchers need to do to train artificial intelligence systems to recognize basic movements. In the experiment, researchers learned a computer how to understand whether a dog is sitting, lying down or standing. When the computer has identified that the dog has performed the required task correctly, it will deliver a delicacy. The researchers also said they could use the algorithm for a future dog training product. I don't know about you, but I don't want my dog ​​to work with Spot when the robots decide to take over. (VentureBeat)

Related