In this 28th issue I've changed the title of this newsletter to better-reflect its focus, as IoT is now so ubiquitous that the term has become almost meaningless.

EV charging

• The Future of EV Charging panel session proved to be a fascinating dive into its challenges and opportunities, with UK contributors from Bulb, Imperial College, Bloomberg, as well as from the US. We even achieved an epiphany!
• BP invests £5m in EV charging technology platform IoTechA.
• Mainstream EVs are hitting price-parity, at least for leasing.
• UK's DCC (smart meter clearing-house) is experimenting with EV charging.
• Zuhlke has built an app to help EV infrastructure investors to make decisions.
• Wireless Logic's webinar on connectivity for EV charging romped through plenty of relevant subjects, including ISO 15118 which was discussed on our panel, and I expect we'll be hearing more of over time.
• Reality stranger than fiction: Toddington Harper of GridServe (who bought UK en-route charging network Electric Highway) is named after the service station where he just announced their £100m programme.

Energy

• Read our recent pieces
  • See, Monitor, Manage – the journey to automating connected devices
  • Why Automated Service is vital for smart meters
• Interesting that Microsoft (alongside Apple, Facebook, Amazon,…) has concluded that reaching Net Zero (1.5C) requires carbon capture (e.g. biochar). Though this month a WEF paper showed that, counterintuitively, carbon avoidance beats carbon removal, ton for ton, because of non-linear effects in land and ocean.
• Innovate UK has a programme on Modernising Open Energy Access.
• A carbon pricing tax on petrol (gas) and gas (LPG) may launch in the UK as soon as next year.

• I had a laugh reading the answers to "what will we do with our national network of gas pipes?"

Other IoT news

• DevicePilot is pleased to have become a Pelion partner
• ARM provides more detail on how Confidential Compute will work
• EU almost doubles the spectrum available for WiFi
• 1cm accuracy? uBlox upgrades the firmware for its Zed-F9R sensor fusion GNSS.
• EveryNet announces a US-wide LoRAWAN network
• "module plus cloud" IoT vendors Pycom now bundle 1NCE global connectivity for $1/month.
• Scientists have managed to make backscatter work cheaply at high frequencies (potentially opening-up capability for low-power sensors to exist on high-performance networks such as 5G).
• Sometimes potential customers ask us if we can do AI/ML, though often it seems without a clear idea of why, or how. This picture helps clarify.
• After 27,000 units shipped (not a bad achievement IMHO) Pepper the robot is discontinued because it couldn’t recognise emotions
• Lots of financial activity:
  • As Kore prepares to float, Jersey Telecom sells its IoT business (10m SIMs) to private equity
  • Foundries raise $8m to secure IoT
  • Pod Group sells itself to Giesecke and Devrient
  • DevOps specialist JFrog acquires IoT security specialist VDoo for $300m.

And finally, another month on the Internet of Shit:

• A few million more IoT cameras found with security flaws.
• How a $4,295 treadmill can become worthless unless you pay the subscription.
• Users of WD "My Book" cloud-connected disk drives wake-up to find all their data gone.
• When Black Mirror comes to children's toys

Until next month,

-Pilgrim

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