IoT
At CES, companies slowly start to realize that privacy matters
Every year, Consumer Electronics Show attendees receive a branded backpack, but this year’s edition was special; made out of transparent plastic, the bag’s contents were visible without the wearer needing…
Nodle, which is competing in the TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin Startup Battlefield this week, is based on a simple premise: What if you could crowdsource the connectivity of smart sensors by…
Ockam raises $4.9 million in seed funding to make it easier for developers to secure and scale their IoT apps
Ockam, a two-year-old, Bay Area-based company that’s selling tools to developers so they can establish an “architecture for trust” within their connected device applications, has raised $4.9 million in seed…
Brava, a smart oven maker with big names attached, just sold to an industrial equipment company
Brava had a lot of things working in its favor, as startups go. It was founded in 2015 by serial executive John Pleasants, whose past stints have included being co-president…
Small satellite startup Kepler opens sign-ups for its IoT developer kits
Kepler Communications, the Toronto-based startup that’s focused on developing and deploying shoebox-sized satellites to provide telecommunications services, is opening up registration for those interested in getting their first developer kits.…
We’re still in the hunt for innovative early-stage hardware startup founders. And by that, we mean boundary-pushers, exceptional disrupters and all-around game-changers. If that sounds like you, you still have…
Elk, a blockchain dev board for decentralized IoT, launches on Kickstarter
Hardware developers toying with the idea of building physical stuff that can plug into the decentralized world of blockchain should point their eyes at Elk: A dev board in the…
Helium launches $51M-funded ‘LongFi’ IoT alternative to cellular
With 200X the range of Wi-Fi at 1/1000th of the cost of a cellular modem, Helium’s “LongFi” wireless network debuts today. Its transmitters can help track stolen scooters, find missing…
Tibbits are colorful pre-programmed modules for building IoT devices
At first glance, Tibbits look like building blocks, but each one is a module or a connector that makes it easier to build connected devices and systems. Tibbits were created…
One major — and somewhat unexpected — theme at Microsoft’s Build developer conference this week is autonomous robots. After acquiring AI startup Bonsai, which specialized in reinforcement learning for autonomous…
Awair raises $10M to help customers like WeWork monitor their office environments
Monitoring a space is about a lot more than security cameras. Awair is trying to help businesses and consumers more deeply understand the environments in which they live and work.…
VDOO secures $32M for a platform that uses AI to detect and fix vulnerabilities on IoT devices
Our universe of connected things is expanding by the day: the number of objects with embedded processors now exceeds the number of smartphones globally and is projected to reach some 18…
Microsoft delves deeper into IoT with Express Logic acquisition
Microsoft has never been shy about being acquisitive, and today it announced it’s buying Express Logic, a San Diego company that has developed a real-time operating system (RTOS) aimed at…
Researchers at Princeton University have built a web app that lets you (and them) spy on your smart home devices to see what they’re up to. The open source tool,…
Amazon has confirmed it has retired physical stick-on Dash buttons from sale — in favor of virtual alternatives that let Prime Members tap a digital button to reorder a staple…
NYC launches partnership network, ‘The Grid,’ to help grow urban tech ecosystem
The New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) and CIV:LAB — a nonprofit dedicated to connecting urban tech leaders — have announced the launch of The Grid, a member-based partnership network…
Lowe’s is killing off and bricking its Iris smart home products at the end of March
If you’ve got any gear from Lowe’s Iris line of smart home products, it’s time to start looking for alternatives. Lowe’s has announced that the line is toast, with plans…
IBM and Vodafone form cloud, 5G and AI business venture and ink $550M service deal
IBM is one of the world’s biggest system integrators, but to get closer to where enterprises are actually doing their work, it’s been inking partnerships with companies that build devices…
Wrest control from a snooping smart speaker with this teachable ‘parasite’
What do you get when you put one internet-connected device on top of another? A little more control than you otherwise would in the case of Alias the “teachable ‘parasite’”…
Comcast debuts a subscription service to protect against threats to smart home devices
Comcast is putting AI to work to protect its customers’ home networks. At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the company announced Xfinity xFi Advanced Security, an AI-powered service…
Meural shows off a newer, smaller version of its smart art display
When Electric Objects was bought by Giphy, the company soon shutdown the hardware team and got rid of the subscription fees for existing content. While Meural actually bumped up its…
A look back at the Israeli cybersecurity industry in 2018
2018 saw a spate of major cyber attacks including the hacks of British Airways, Facebook and Marriott. Despite growing emphasis on and awareness of cyber threats, large organizations continue experiencing…
Bumblebees bearing high-tech backpacks act as a living data collection platform
There’s lots of research going into tiny drones, but one of the many hard parts is keeping them in the air for any real amount of time. Why not hitch…
Featured Article
How cities can fix tourism hell
A steep and rapid rise in tourism has left behind a wake of economic and environmental damage in cities around the globe. In response, governments have been responding with policies that attempt to limit the number of visitors who come in. We’ve decided to spare you from any more Amazon HQ2 talk and instead focus…
TrackR is rebranding to Adero as it looks beyond small devices to track lost items
When TrackR raised $50 million from investors that included Amazon a year ago, the Santa Barbara startup made a big splash in the growing market for small connected dongles that you could…
Twilio launches a new SIM card and narrowband dev kit for IoT developers
Twilio is hosting its Signal developer conference in San Francisco this week. Yesterday was all about bots and taking payments over the phone; today is all about IoT. The company…
Microsoft Azure bets big on IoT
At its Ignite conference in Orlando, Florida, Microsoft today announced a plethora of new Internet of Things-focused updates to its Azure cloud computing platform. It’s no secret that the amount…
Munich Re buys IoT middleware startup, relayr, in deal worth $300M
Berlin based Internet of Things (IoT) startup relayr, whose middleware platform is geared towards helping industrial companies unlock data insights from their existing machinery and production line kit by linking…
Arm acquires data management service Treasure Data to bolster its IoT platform
Arm, the semiconductor firm you probably still remember as ARM, today announced that it has acquired Treasure Data, a data management platform for large enterprise customers. The companies didn’t announce…
Siemens, the giant German technology company, today announced that it has acquired Mendix, the popular low-code application development platform, for €0.6 billion (or about $700 million). Mendix, which was founded…
