Digital twin technology has the potential to revolutionize urban development in a future striving for greener technologies and more efficient energy use. Although the concept has been around since the early 2000s, the practical application of digital twin technology has just begun to sprout in the real world. A digital twin is a simulation of a real life product, service, or process. Learn more

VDC recently had the opportunity to attend a 5G-oriented Verizon customer event; Nokia, (one of Verizon's 5G partners) also participated. 5G's role in augmenting public safety, transportation and smart cities were key themes, with both Verizon and Nokia... Learn more

Police officers in the field have a wide and critical range of mobile computing needs. Officers’ traditional mobile computing setup – a fixed, rugged in-vehicle laptop mounted on a swing arm – is not without its limitations as it relates to those needs. Learn more

Honeywell, a longstanding giant of the warehousing technology market, has recently disclosed its plans to take the supply chain’s evolving demands head-on. On October 24th of this year the company unveiled Honeywell Robotics, a robotics innovation hub and center of excellence to be built in Pittsburgh. Learn more

VDC attended MWC Americas recently, the third instantiation of the regional MWC event that saw over 22,000 attendees converge in downtown Los Angeles for the three-day show. Keynotes Included LA Mayor Eric Garcetti, FCC Chariman Ajit Pai, and Director General of the GSMA Mats Granryd, among other key individuals within the telecom space. Learn more

The global market for process level measurement instrumentation is well-established, yet diverse and still evolving. While many of the older, mechanical-style devices maintain extensive installed bases, newer technologies such as laser and radar have been the target of continued innovation from some of the world’s largest industrial automation suppliers. Learn more

Daqri, a leading smart glasses company founded in 2010, recently announced that it would shut down its headquarters by the end of September. The augmented reality (AR) company focused on producing smart glasses along with its complementary software, Worksense, intending to integrate these solutions into the industrial workforce. Learn more

Last week, Xilinx hosted its 2nd Xilinx Developer Forum (XDF) Silicon Valley event in San Jose and it featured some important news announcements, a wide variety of different breakout sessions and hands-on developer labs, and insightful presentations from industry veterans. Learn more

Change is afoot and the pressures facing retailers are driving them to re-evaluate their infrastructure, especially with their point-of-sale (POS) solutions. Taking stock of their operations, many retailers are moving towards administering new types of code onto their consumer products. Read more

Sensors Expo & Conference 2019, an event focused exclusively on sensors and sensor-integrated systems, took place from June 25th through June 27th at the McEnery Convention Center in San Jose, CA. Learn more

Siemens welcomed more than 700 attendees to this year’s Automation Summit, an annual event held last week at the Gaylord Rockies Resort and Convention Center in Denver, Colorado. Siemens’ objective for the conference is to inspire, enable, and support its customers’ automation initiatives by fostering collaboration among users, third-party solution partners, and Siemens experts. Learn more

Android’s footprint in the enterprise is a substantial and fast-growing one. VDC Research reports that in fiscal year 2019, shipments of rugged handheld computers running Android will surpass the sum shipment volume of all other operating systems for this small form factor. Learn more

Apple’s annual World Wide Developer’s Conference went down this past Monday, where they revealed what users and developers could expect in iOS13. Naturally, we focused on the changes specific to Apple’s desires to expand iOS device usage in corporate settings. Learn more

After a brief lull in semiconductor M&A, Infineon Technologies has announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquired Cypress Semiconductor for an enterprise value of €9.0 billion (~$10B). Infineon has increased its market share in the embedded microcontroller (MCU) market by nearly 40% through the merger while at the same time establishing a foothold in the marketplace for system-on-chips (SoCs). Read more

TensorFlow is among the most popular open source frameworks for machine learning (ML) but its leadership is under siege. Produced by Google, TensorFlow has been adopted by numerous companies including Airbnb, Arm, Intel, Lenovo, Qualcomm, and Twitter. The platform is known for its easy model building, flexibility to provide models individually or together, and live training for customers, among other features. Read more

VDC attended IoT World 2019 in Santa Clara, a four-day event attended by a diverse mix of startups and established embedded players in the IoT ecosystem. The event hosted 12,000 participants with keynote speakers including Bask Iyer (CIO of VMWare/Dell), Michael Sherwood (Director of Innovation for City of Las Vegas), and Greg Kahn (CEO of the IoT Consortium). Read more

Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., RealWear, and UROS announced plans to provide 10,000 RealWear HMT-1 and HMT-1Z1 devices to front line industrial workers in Kazakhstan. UROS, a Finnish technology company focusing on connectivity solutions across industrial, natural resource and smart city segments. Per the agreement, UROS, will deploy RealWear HMT-1 and HMT 1Z1 devices to workers in Kazakhstan. Learn more

On April 18th, Microsoft announced the acquisition of Express Logic, a San Diego-based embedded software company, for an undisclosed sum. Read more

The embedded processor landscape is undergoing a dramatic transformation that is redefining the bounds of discrete processing. While the global markets for discrete embedded MPUs, GPUs, DSPs, and FPGAs push on, other processing solutions are absorbing the majority of new socket opportunities. Read more

The RISC-V Roadshow made its way to the Boston area yesterday, featuring a number of live demonstrations and presentations from RISC-V Foundation members. A variety of companies are participating in the North America leg of the trip, including Andes Technology, Antmicro, Dover Microsystems, Hex Five, Imperas Software, Microchip Technology, SiFive, and Western Digital. Read more

Dragos, Inc., a provider of industrial cybersecurity software and services, announced on Monday its acquisition of NexDefense, the provider of an asset discovery and identification tool for industrial control system (ICS) networks. Upon announcing this acquisition, Dragos revealed that the NexDefense tool, Integrity, would be packaged with another Dragos tool, CyberLens, and offered free of charge as part of Dragos Community Tools. Learn more

At this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, IoT products and services were less prominent than in recent years, as the spotlights this time shone primarily on 5G networks, and to a lesser extent on Microsoft’s second generation Hololens glasses for augmented reality. Nevertheless, IoT was ever-present, blending in like an accepted member of the wireless family. Read more

Every year, Nuremberg, Germany becomes the epicenter for embedded technology with all of the industry’s most influential players coming together to roll out new products, announce game-changing collaborations, and show off innovative solutions. Last week’s conference featured more than 1,100 exhibitors from 52 countries and many use Embedded World as a platform to communicate new critical developments for their businesses to the 32,000+ trade visitors and 2,200 conference participants. Read more

ServiceMax, one of the most prominent companies in field service management, has just acquired Zinc, an enterprise communications company focused on deskless workers. This comes hot on the heels of Silver Lake’s acquisition of ServiceMax from GE. However, ServiceMax’s acquisition of Zinc proves that Silver Lake is interested in growing ServiceMax and gives ServiceMax a powerful new suite of capabilities unmatched by any other field service management provider. Learn more

VDC recently concluded its latest survey of the industrial automation community, receiving more than 215 web-based responses from a worldwide panel of industrial professionals in engineering, logistics, R&D, and executive leadership roles. Learn more

Early this week, VMware announced the intent to acquire AetherPal, a mobile device management solution focused on enhancing remote support. This acquisition will follow a multi-year business relationship between the two companies and reflects VMware’s growing efforts to enhance their remote support capabilities to increase the efficiency, flexibility, and quality of their mobile device management system. Learn more

Zebra Technologies announced its intent to acquire privately held Temptime Corporation for an undisclosed sum. Temptime is an industry leader in the development of remote temperature monitoring solutions, with a particular focus in the healthcare industry. Read more

ODG and Meta, top players in the smart glasses and augmented reality (AR) space, are closing down. This is sobering news: both companies had received over $50M in funding, and ODG had been a darling among smart glasses manufacturers as recently as 2017. These companies had developed innovative and meaningfully differentiating technology, but it ultimately was not enough for them to succeed. Learn more

Chicago-based Motorola Solutions, a leading provider of technological products for government, public safety and first responder agencies, has acquired VaaS International Holdings for $445 million. VaaS (video analysis-as-a-service) is a global forerunner in AI-driven image capture and data analysis technology best known for its automated license place recognition (ALPR) technology. The company also focuses on facial recognition, ballistic analysis, firearm mapping, body camera technology, and vehicle location data services. Learn more

Cybersecurity is particularly critical for industrial systems due to the potentially life-threatening consequences of system failures as compared to other classes of connected systems. Combined with the financial and operational implications of stopped manufacturing lines—lost production, scheduling delays, scrap, overhead—the consequences of even a temporary disruption can be disastrous. Learn more

Despite its vast potential, the IIoT is still in its infancy. According to results from our 2018 survey of the industrial automation community, just 40% of respondents indicated their organization is currently deploying IIoT capabilities, as shown in the graphic below, with another 19% expecting to begin deploying such capabilities within the next year. However, approximately 80% of respondents believe their organizations will be utilizing IIoT-related functionality within three years at the latest. Learn more