Security, therefore, will ultimately be the limiting factor on how much IoT technology is deployed. With security, the traditional trade-off is either “easy to use” or “secure”— but not both. We often consider a third tradeoff, as well, features; in most cases, operators are not willing to trade off features, but it is certainly part of the equation. An operator striving for an Industrial IoT (IIoT) network must look at SCADA security, the convergence of Operations Technology (OT) and Information Technology (IT), and make a thorough assessment of what will allow them to achieve a secure data communications network and where they want to be in this triangle.

Source: Security Considerations for IIoT Challenge | SCADA, IT, OT and Beyond

Over-the-Air vehicle updates and cyber-security for connected cars are two closely intertwined, red-hot issues in Detroit. Rambus is diving into the field–presumably at an opportune moment in partnership with Movimento, a leader in automotive reflash services.

Source: Cyber-security vexes automakers | Embedded

Massive interest in development for the Internet of Things (IoT) has raised the volume of conversation about system security for embedded devices (see figure). This is great news, as the industry is moving rapidly from thinking about security as an afterthought and now considering security strategies as part of the design process. Embedded designers can look at experience in similar networked systems to shorten their learning curve.

Source: What’s the Difference Between Software and Hardware for Embedded Device Security? | IoT content from Electronic Design

The rising complexity in the products we use today from smartphones to the cars we drive is in large part due to the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT). It seamlessly brings the physical and online worlds together, resulting in the proliferation of connected devices. Gartner, Inc. forecasts that 6.4 billion connected things will be in use worldwide in 2016, up 30 percent from 2015, and that the number will reach 20.8 billion by 2020. No industry is likely to be left untouched by the smart product revolution. These include autonomous cars, wearable devices on patients for tracking their health, unmanned vehicles designed for space travel, and electronically invisible surveillance. With the potential economic impact estimated to be more than $10 trillion per year, it is clear that IoT is living up to its promise of being the next big technology mega-trend..

Source: Why engineering will be the key to successful IoT products – Tech2

The gap between Tesla’s deployment of Autopilot and meaningful federal oversight lays bare NHTSA’s limitations in policing emerging safety technology. U.S. officials are virtually powerless to stop auto makers from adopting such technologies unless they clearly run afoul of existing regulations that address car steering wheels, brakes and seat belts designed for human operators. Unlike the Federal Aviation Administration, which requires exhaustive certifications for most aircraft, auto regulators are often reactive.

Source: Scant Oversight of Self-Driving Technology – WSJ

The computer vision technology uses facial, emotion, vehicle, and crowd analysis to track real-time engagement with advertising campaigns, analyze store layout and customer flow for optimized point-of-sale (POS) efficiency, and gather business intelligence (BI) data. Saccoman said the start-up’s experience with hardware product development and open-source software through AdBeacon helped prepare AdMobilize to design MATRIX for business applicability and with a developer-focused mindset. He described AdBeacons as “Google Analytics for the physical world.”

Source: MATRIX is Building an Internet of Things That Actually Works | PCMag.com

No matter which market forecast you read, the commonly held view is that nearly every product and service will be connected over the next decade. And these connections wouldn’t be of much value unless there is software in place to determine what data points should be captured and what actions should be taken in response to the information being collected.

As I’ve stated in a previous Datamation commentary, there are three primary reasons to pursue an IoT initiative – to react faster when a problem arises, to better predict potential problems before they occur, and to identify new market opportunities. In essence, these can be translated into the ability to improve the quality of products and services, increase the efficiency of business operations, and gain a competitive advantage.

Source: Rethinking Software Development in IoT – Datamation

The revolution that will see billions of connected devices is increasingly driven by industry, and not just the tech companies that once led the way. Andrew Wade reports

The Internet of Things (IoT) is one of those mind-boggling concepts, the scale and implications of which can be difficult to comprehend. At its core, it will involve billions of connected devices and sensors, all sharing data, supposedly making our lives better. Exactly how this will happen is still a matter of debate though, and there are several concerns over how the technology will be delivered, as well as how to make sense of the torrents of data these devices will produce.

Source: The total network: how the internet of things is reshaping our world | The Engineer

‘As technology continues to advance and become increasingly data-centric, many business processes that were once manual and arduous are now fully automated to the extent that they have become transparent and assumed. This emergence of fluid, algorithmic machine-to-machine interaction is fundamentally changing the IT landscape, forcing the business and IT to collaborate more closely and is becoming a primary source of competitive advantage (Gartner predicts by 2018, over half of large organizations globally will compete using advanced analytics and proprietary algorithms).

The lure of achieving even the slightest, crucial competitive edge has propelled certain industries, such as high frequency electronic trading, into leading the charge toward this algorithmic, machine-to-machine future. But the road ahead is not so clearly delineated, and we are still learning about the risks and uncovering the “unknown unknowns.”’

Source: A Peek Into The Future: Tackling Algorithmic Attackers In A M2M World

“The Internet of Things (IoT) has become the internet of hacks. More and more devices are becoming internet-enabled. While this makes many aspects of our lives easier, it opens us up to a wide range of cybersecurity problems. From direct control of devices to lost of personal private data to actual control of the networks and computers in our homes and offices, the IoT is creating security risks at a faster rate than it’s fixing them.”

Source: Is “IoT Security” a Contradiction in Terms? – DZone IoT