No doubt about it: The Internet of Things is going to have an impact on our lives and economy. But digital transformation is and will be a challenge for many businesses out there. How will the market develop? How much are companies going to spend on IoT technologies, how many devices will be connected in the not too distant future? The opinions vary partly drastically. We did some research and brought all the numbers from different studies together.
Are inaudible Voice Commands, so called “Dolphin Attacks”, a serious threat for voice controlled smart devices? A team of Chinese researchers published a paper explaining how they used ultrasonic commands, inaudible for the human ear, to take over the control of popular devices such as Amazon Alexa, Google Now or Siri from Apple.
If you’re into developing products for the Internet of Things, the term OTA Update (OTAU) might have crossed your path. It’s a feature to remotely deliver updated software to your products without having physical access to it. It comes in handy to keep your customer devices up-to-date or to upsell new services later on. To support Tesla owners in Florida to flee from Hurricane Irma, the carmaker temporarily has unlocked the full capacity of its batteries.
Imagine an industrial environment: a large production hall, where complex machines work around the clock, interact with each other, depend on each other. Now, imagine an IIoT ecosystem whose task it is to monitor every single detail within the production process: positions, speed, temperature, pressure, energy consumption, filling levels – all the metrics that play a crucial role for an efficient process. To reduce idling, prevent failure or simply save resources, hundreds, if not thousands of sensors are needed. The more the better. But with only a centralized intelligence, Industrial IoT (IIoT) could quickly become a bumpy ride.
In a recent tweet, researcher Ankit Anubhav, specialized in IoT security, drew attention on a list circling the internet, containing thousands of IP addresses of IoT devices including their login data. Many of the devices are still accessible via Telnet, some of them already have been taken over by botnets. What baffles is that despite the many incidents related to poorly secured IoT devices and constant warnings from security professionals, most of the logins couldn’t been easier to guess: When “admin:admin” or “root:123456” grants access to a device, calling it “hacking” to take control already sounds like an insult. My plea: Think of security first, when you think of the IoT!
Microprocessors getting faster, cheaper and more energy efficient thus enabling more and more smaller devices to be equipped with smart technologies. As if that is not enough, experts now say, the classic battery has to vanish. Besides the question of how to power those devices, we’re facing another challenge: what software would work on such low-energy devices?
A serious security issue relating fully automated car washes made the headlines this week: Researches found a way to manipulate internet-connected drive-through car washes that could physically attack vehicles and their passengers. The problem: configuration of the machines could be changed online. A decentralized system could have avoided that.
With new ideas, new technologies and new smart products emerging every year, one big challenge for devices in the Internet of Things remains: How can we make them understand each other? A huge number of manufacturers and products using different protocols plus a wide range of platforms with non-interoperable networking technologies are making the IoT too complicated to handle.
Energy efficiency and optimal production processes are key success factors especially for small and medium-sized companies. However, unlike IT-systems, industrial machines cannot be exchanged every few years to keep up with state of the art production. At many companies, these machines are often decades old. 20 or 30 year equipment is not uncommon. So how can they keep up with today’s need for increased efficiency? What can companies do, to identify and eradicate problems, thus making the output more efficient? “Retrofitting” is the term summing up the answer. Equipping old machines with new sensors. However, that’s easier said than done.
Berlin’s annual conference “re:publica” has finally grown out of its infancy. What started as a blogger-event with a high nerd factor has finally become a serious annual gathering of, let’s say, a variegated tech society. Founders, inventors, politicians, activists and journalists met to present, network and discuss. While this year’s motto “Love out Loud” focused on the rise of internet hate speech, the spreading of fake news and how to deal with it, other tracks like “business & work” and the “global innovation gathering” brought together makers, hub managers and entrepreneurs from around the world.
