Dec 09, 2016Swift Sensors' Cloud-based Wireless Sensor System
Swift Sensors, an Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) company, provides a cloud-based wireless sensor system for industrial and commercial applications. The company's products are designed to replace manual processes and disparate sensors with a unified sensor system built to provide real-time actionable data and improve business process efficiency and reliability. Swift Sensors' offerings are designed to monitor temperature, humidity, vibration, motion, activity, location, electric voltage and current levels, and the firm recently released a cloud-based wireless sensor system, following 18 months of development and deployment with various customers, including Kraft Heinz Co., Sysco and McDonald's.
"Businesses are frequently limited in their ability to efficiently monitor critical equipment and processes because of expensive, highly manual traditional systems. Swift Sensors extends the reach and efficiency of sensor monitoring, while offering new opportunities to enhance performance using analytics and optimization," said Sam Cece, Swift Sensors' CEO, in a prepared statement. "Our low-cost, instant deployment allows businesses to rapidly adapt to regulatory compliance initiatives and commence predictive maintenance programs."
"We deployed hundreds of wireless sensors from Swift Sensors to upgrade our existing sensors and automate our manual monitoring processes," said William Thacker, Kraft Heinz Co.'s engineering supervisor, in the prepared statement. "My team now focuses their time on important daily tasks rather than manually checking temperatures or equipment status. We've saved hundreds of hours in productivity over the past year and improved our operations."
Swift Sensors' cloud-based wireless sensor system includes customizable real-time monitoring, analytics and alerts, to improve business efficiency and reliability by making actionable data and analytics globally accessible. Industrial, commercial and service businesses can integrate the scalable sensor system with their own sensor data across multiple areas. Sample sectors include food chain, transportation, restaurants, industrial, IT data centers, research and development, and power.
The solution is available immediately. Individual sensor and bridge appliance pricing starts at $79 and $349, respectively, with a monthly cloud subscription fee for access to Swift Sensors' dashboard by an unlimited number of users.
NFC Forum Innovation Awards Open for Submissions
The NFC Forum has announced a call for entries for its NFC Forum Innovation Awards, to recognize innovative Near Field Communication (NFC) products, services and applications worldwide.
Companies and developers using NFC technology in new, disruptive and innovative ways can submit award entries showcasing their work, for the chance to win in one of three award categories and participate in the NFC Forum's Members Meeting Awards Reception, to be held on Mar. 14, 2017, in Las Vegas. Finalists will receive a two-night paid hotel room in Las Vegas, an award trophy, global recognition and networking opportunities. There is no cost to enter the competition, and the deadline for award submissions is Jan. 11.
Examples of NFC innovation areas include, but are not limited to, the Internet of Things, connected home, smart health, smart consumer, automotive, "NFC for good," gaming, connected retail and transportation. Award submissions should feature NFC modes, including host card emulation and peer-to-peer use cases, as well as read-write use cases based on NFC Forum tags. Award categories are: Most Innovative NFC Product, Service or Implementation; Best Mobile App Using NFC; and Best NFC Startup.
According to the NFC Forum, entrants benefit from global media coverage, interest from industry leaders and venture capitalists, and the opportunity to share ideas and forge relationships with industry luminaries from leading mobile device, semiconductor, payment device and consumer electronics manufacturers, as well as solution providers, including Apple, DNP, Google, MasterCard, NXP Semiconductors, Samsung, Sony, STMicroelectronics, Qualcomm and VISA. More information is available at nfcforum.secure-platform.com/a.
An independent group of global industry professionals will review and judge all entries and then select the winners. Finalists and winners will receive their awards at a reception at the NFC Forum Members meeting on Mar. 14, to be held at the Green Valley Ranch in Las Vegas.
PTC Achieves AWS IoT Competency Status
PTC has announced that it has achieved Amazon Web Services (AWS) IoT Competency status. This designation recognizes PTC's ThingWorx Internet of Things platform, which enables organizations to create IoT applications and generate business value for a variety of use cases, including intelligent factories, smart cities, energy, automotive, transportation, health care and more.
Achieving AWS IoT Competency status, the company reports, differentiates PTC as an AWS Partner Network (APN) member that has demonstrated relevant technical proficiency and proven customer success, delivering solutions seamlessly in the AWS Cloud environment. To receive the designation, APN Partners must demonstrate deep expertise in the AWS platform and undergo an assessment of the security, performance and reliability of their solutions.
"PTC is proud to be one of the first APN partners to achieve AWS IoT Competency status," said Kevin O'Brien, PTC's VP of IoT partner sales, in a prepared statement. "The combined offering from ThingWorx and AWS delivers world-class ThingWorx IoT rapid application development, machine learning and augmented reality with AWS IoT cloud services, global scale and enhanced security. This enables customers to reduce the time, skill and investment needed to create IoT applications and generate business value."
The AWS Cloud enables scalable, flexible and cost-effective solutions from startups to global enterprises. To support the seamless integration and deployment of these solutions, AWS established the IoT Partner Competency Program to help customers identify consulting and technology APN Partners with industry experience and expertise.
ThingWorx, part of PTC's Internet of Things technology portfolio, comprises a rapid application-development platform, connectivity, machine-learning capabilities, augmented reality and integration with leading device clouds, such as AWS. According to the company, these capabilities provide an IoT technology stack that enables companies to securely connect assets and quickly create applications.
Avnet Expands Internet of Things Portfolio With Relayr Solutions
Avnet, a global technology distributor, has announced an agreement with relayr to provide Internet of Things solutions in the United States and Canada. Under the terms of this agreement, partners will have access to relayr's enterprise middleware platform, as well as tools to enable the development of new solutions, equipment and services for the IoT. Partners will be able to leverage relayr's technologies and starter kit to help develop IoT solutions for their customers, from prototype to rollout, along with end-to-end support.
"Relayr addresses one of the central challenges of IoT with a truly comprehensive enterprise middleware platform that can turn our partners into IoT solution developers," said Colin Blair, Avnet's VP of data analytics and IoT solutions for the Americas, in a prepared statement. "Our partners will be able to use relayr's offerings to create IoT solutions that can easily be integrated with their customers' existing technologies. Working together, Avnet and relayr will empower partners to help their customers create IoT solutions that span a wide range of devices and offer solutions from simple experimentation kits to industrial hardware, supporting their customers' digital transformation processes."
Now available through Avnet, the cloud-based enterprise middleware platform allows communication from any service, software, platform and sensor, the company reports. Additionally, Avnet will provide its partners with relayr's open-source software development kits and industrial-grade sensor kits for rapid customer prototyping. For example, relayr's Cisco IoT starter kit is designed to provide partners with a quick and affordable proof-of-concept, to allow their customers to experience the advantages of IoT fog software for industrial deployments.
Partners in the manufacturing, smart-building, retail, government, health-care and energy sectors, among others, will have access to relayr's solutions, which provide a full-service stack with an open application programming interface (API), streaming services and open-source libraries for both hardware and software, facilitated by a step-by-step acceleration method. Additionally, partners can leverage relayr's middleware toolset, consulting services, connections capabilities to devices from different manufacturers, and abilities to provision software for building new sensor-based retrofitting solutions across any device or object.
Avnet will provide partners with a range of resources from the edge to the enterprise, enabling them to develop IoT solutions that gather information, connect to the internet, and securely manage and analyze data. The company will also provide sales enablement and hands-on training for partners regarding relayr's Cisco gateway product offering, relayr middleware, and consumer-grade and industrial sensors.
OE-A to Demonstrate Printed Electronics at CES 2017
Among the fastest-growing application areas for printed electronics are the Internet of Things, wearables and the automotive sector. Smart labels, smart watches, intelligent clothing and dashboards are just a few examples of end-use products into which printed electronics can be integrated. The many application and implementation possibilities show organic and printed electronics to be an important growth industry.
To expand the industry's market position in consumer electronics, the OE-A (a working group within VDMA) will present the topic of printed electronics at CES 2017, a consumer electronics trade fair. In association with the conference, the OE-A is offering a series of talks with the theme "Printed Electronics: Enabling the Future."
The presentations, to be offered on Jan. 6, 2017, in Las Vegas, will provide an overview of the application possibilities and advantages of this technology. The focus will be on printed electronics as a key enabler of the Internet of Things; the car of the future, with flexible displays and sensors; and the next generation of wearables for health care and sports.
"Nowadays, printed electronics is already being implemented on a large production scale, with many products already on the market. However, this is just the beginning of the impact we will see from printed electronics applications," said Stan Farnsworth, NovaCentrix's chief marketing officer and the OE-A's vice-chair for North America, in a prepared statement. "CES is the ideal platform to inform the manufacturers of consumer electronics about the latest possibilities of organic and printed electronics. Here, we unite end users and suppliers to encourage cooperation."
Libelium Releases Internet of Things Video
Libelium has released a new video explaining how the Internet of Things is helping businesses to meet important challenges. The company presents projects developed in a variety of applications, such as smart cities, water management, environmental care, parking, logistics, retail, industry, e-health and precision agriculture.
The video summarizes some of the most important IoT projects worldwide, including measuring radiation levels in Fukushima, Japan; preventing plagues in vineyards in Slovenia; monitoring traffic and environment in smart cities, such as in Hoboken, N.J.; reducing manufacturing costs in smart factories in Spain; ensuring water quality at fish farms in Vietnam; preventing volcanic activity in Nicaragua; and combating climate change in the rain forests of Peru.
The video is available for viewing at YouTube.