Orange Business Services, the enterprise services division of France-based carrier Orange, and De Beers Marine South Africa, part of diamond company De Beers, have developed and deployed a customised IoT solution to provide geofencing to maintain safe working distances for crew in offshore deep-sea diamond mining. The solution has been piloted on the world’s largest…
The European Commission has published the results of its Internet of Food and Farm (IoF2020) project, one of three large-scale pilots it has funded in the agricultural sector as part of its Digitising European Industry (DEI) policy. It has delivered hard returns, around interoperability and effectiveness of farm machinery, and stands as an early reference…
Brazilian mining firm Vale has said it will extend its private LTE rollout to the Serra Leste open pit iron ore mine in Pará, Brazil. The move is part of a $3.9 million (R$21 million) agreement with Telefônica Brazil’s Vivo business unit, which has seen the pair already work with Nokia to deploy private LTE…
The Hong Kong based port and shipping conglomerate China Merchants Port (CMP) Group has said its 5G-enabled port transformation project with Huawei, Alibaba and Tencent at the Haixing (Mawan) port at the mouth of the Pearl River in Shenzhen, in China, is in test mode, and “progressing as planned”. The work on the Mawan Smart…
Telefónica has purchased Valencia-based cybersecurity firm Govertis for an undisclosed fee, as part of a concerted buying spree. The company will be integrated into the Spain-based carrier’s digital-change unit, Telefónica Tech, and specifically its ElevenPaths cybersecurity sub-division. Telefónica said to expect more acquisitions in the “next months”. The deal was on the cards. ElevenPaths has…
UK based software company Aveva, majority owned by France based automation specialist Schneider Electric, has struck a deal to acquire US data management outfit OSIsoft for $5 billion. OSIsoft is backed by Japan-based tech firm Softbank. The pair said they will “service the largest digital transformation projects in history”, reaching across the wide Industry 4.0+…
The energy industry should consider the LTE family of cellular technologies, including NB-IoT, LTE-M, and 4G and 5G, to spur their longer-term Industry 4.0 ambitions, according to analyst house Guidehouse Insights. The energy market must start experimenting with cellular right away, it says, with or without participation from carriers, and make bets on private spectrum…
Finnish private networking and edge computing specialist Edzcom has signed a deal with Netherlands-based lighting company Signify to offer Li-Fi based solutions combining two-way wireless infrared and visible light connectivity for industrial IoT applications to its customers in the manufacturing, energy, oil and gas, ports and logistics, mining, and oil and gas industries. The arrangement…
Vehicle maker Ford, automotive supplier Bosch, and property developer Bedrock are combining on a demonstration project in Detroit, Michigan, to automated valet parking, so vehicles drive and park themselves in an enclosed garage. The project, at Bedrock’s Assembly Garage in Detroit, is billed as the first “infrastructure-based [sensor-based] solution” for automated parking in the US.…
Germany has issued 67 local spectrum licences for private LTE and 5G to enterprises since November 2019. What should we make of this number, and the run-rate so far for industrial-grade cellular in the home of Industrie 4.0? Because 67 does not sound like that many, on the face of it. Just Germany’s noisiest industrial…
