Edge computing is growing rapidly, driven by the need for low latency of many IoT applications, but Paessler vice president for Asia Pacific, Sebastian Krueger says complex edge computing  will require intelligent, predictive analytics to ensure optimal performance. In Australia, Telstra and Amazon Web Services (AWS) have recently joined forces on edge computing in order to take more Australian businesses to the cloud. AWS’s edge compute solutions provide the ability to deploy applications closer to end customers, which increases their resilience and performance, delivering a faster and m ..read more

The Australian Council of Learned Academies (ACOLA) has released a report: the Future of Agricultural Technologies. Its recognition of the potential of IoT puts similar Australian Government efforts to shame. IoT rates a mention on 16 of the report’s 116 pages, with statements such as: “The deployment of advanced technologies, such as robotics, coupled with artificial intelligence (AI) and IoT, has the potential to generate vast amounts of data that will be transformational for farming practices, complex decision making and environmental monitoring.”  “Data, AI and IoT, if properly harne ..read more

Ghian Oberholzer explains how artificial intelligence can help overcome the security challenges of industrial IoT IoT technology that enables the monitoring, control, and internet connection of physical devices of all kinds has had an enormous impact on the energy sector. High-profile examples of IoT applications include smart meters for electricity and water supplies that communicate usage back to the providers, and systems that remotely control energy consuming devices such as lighting and air-conditioning according to occupancy levels and environmental conditions. IoT has now grown to impa ..read more

A new Australian Government report into 5G has flagged it as a key enabling technology for Industry 4.0. So what’s next? “The fourth industrial revolution, or ‘Industry 4.0’, is coming.” That’s the opening statement from the report of an Australian Government enquiry: The Next Gen Future Inquiry into the deployment, adoption and application of 5G in Australia, tabled in Parliament on 12 May. The report, from the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Communications and the Arts, goes on to say that Industry 4.0 means: “Australians will experience a blurring of the lines between cyber ..read more

The IoT Security Foundation says vulnerability reporting is essential to keep consumer IoT products and services safe from intruders, and finds it to be woefully lacking. It has just released the results of a survey of vendors’ vulnerability reporting and disclosure practices saying: “An analysis of 330 consumer IoT device manufacturers has revealed five of every six companies (86.7 percent) don’t allow for vulnerability reporting.” Vulnerability reporting enables vendors to be alerted to, and fix, cyber security weaknesses that could be exploited by hackers. According to IoTSF, “It is widely ..read more

Neville Vincent says the combination of hyperconverged infrastructure, edge computing and AI is driving value and insights to new levels. While cloud has been a key component to AI’s exponential growth and its availability on nearly every technological device, the combination of hyperconverged infrastructure HCI), edge computing and AI provides the ideal environment to uncover patterns in data from multiple devices and predict future performance or issues. It is driving value and insights to new levels. The adoption of hybrid cloud — enabled by HCI and public cloud and combined with AI and da ..read more

The IoT Alliance Australia (IoTAA) is against mandating security for consumer IoT devices. The UK plans to do just that, with good reason. In November I reported that Australia’s Home Affairs minister, Peter Dutton, had released a for-comment draft of a code of practice that closely follows a voluntary code introduced by the UK Government in October 2018. The draft also aligned with ETSI TS 103 645 – Cyber Security for Consumer Internet of Things, which underpins the UK code. Submissions to the Australian draft code Securing the Internet of Things for Consumers closed on 1 March. They have no ..read more

Image © Ram Kuppaswamy, SimpliCity. A new report from the Economist Intelligence Unit identifies a “path to business value” for IoT. Here’s some guidance for that path. To journey without a destination is to wander aimlessly, and while it might have many serendipitous rewards, it rarely leads to an optimal outcome. The adoption of IoT is no exception, but with the concept being relatively new and evolving rapidly having a vision of an ultimate ‘destination’ can require an understanding of the possibilities, evolutionary pathways and potential synergies between multiple technologies that migh ..read more

Zscaler, a provider of cloud based security for enterprises, has released its second annual IoT report, evoking a strong sense of déjà vu: a decade or so ago, following the emergence of smartphones that could do much more than make calls, the bring-your-own device (BYOD) phenomenon where employees used these for work purposes caused many sleepless nights for IT staff. Industry was quick to respond: a number of startups emerged to deal with the problem by enabling such devices to be secured, quarantined and, if necessary, disabled. All were subsequently swallowed by larger players. BYOD is now ..read more

Image credit  www.iqlect.com/ Teradata CTO Stephen Brobst opened his presentation at Gartner’s Data & Analytics Summit in Sydney this week with a dire warning: companies must fully exploit data to survive. “We have a saying in Silicon Valley: in the 21st century all companies are data companies, will be data companies, or will be extinct. Those are the only three choices.” That seems somewhat extreme, but Brobst said it was rapidly becoming a reality in some industries, telecommunications in particular. “Telcos think of themselves as providing voice and data services and so on, but that ..read more