Four ‘Things’ For Friday 19th August

1.Intel Woos IoT Developers with Joule2.Voice Control Becoming Key User

Interface3.Security Startup Dojo-Labs Acquired4.McDonald’s Withdraws Happy Meal

Wearable

1.Intel Woos IoT Developers with Joule

Intel claim that the platform will allow people to take a concept into a prototype and then into production at a fraction of the time and development cost.

Intel introduced its new Joule computing module this week in a bid to help developers working on both consumer and industrial IoT solutions. The Joule platform is, “a high performance system-on-module (SOM) in a tiny, low-power package thus making it ideal for computer vision, robotics, drones, industrial IoT, VR, AR, micro-servers and other applications that require high-end edge computing.”

2. Voice Control Becoming Key User Interface

ABI Research is forecasting that more than 120 million voice-enabled devices will ship annually by 2021, suggesting that voice control will quickly become the key user interface within the smart home.

In the coming years cameras, doorbells and other microphone-enhanced products should extend the ability to hear voice commands throughout a smart home environment, something Google is working on with Nest.

Of course this brings its own challenge of incorporating multiple voice controlled devices into one coherent smart home system with one voice control. Currently the big players in the space, such as Apple and Amazon, are all using their own technologies.

3. Security Startup Dojo-Labs Acquired

UK antivirus maker BullGuard is acquiring Israeli startup Dojo-Labs in a bid to increase its IoT security offering. Dojo is a pebble-shaped security device designed to monitor network traffic and flag and block abnormal behavior by connected devices in a home’s network.Dojo-Labs previously planned to ship pre-orders in March this year, however that deadline slipped. The company now hopes that this acquisition will allow them to go to market by the end of the year.

4. McDonald’s Withdraws Happy Meal Toy

In the past few weeks McDonalds has been giving away a wearable activity tracker with its Happy Meals in a bid to get kids moving. However, due to safety concerns, the devices have now been withdrawn. It was claimed they were causing skin irritation - a not-uncommon problem with some wearables.

The wearable was designed to measure the wearer's movement and used blinking lights to indicate how quickly or slowly the person was moving. Tieing into their Olympic Games partnership, McDonalds was hoping to improve the image of the fast-food chain.

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@SBCIoT_DevicesSee you next week...