News
Apple, GE collaborate on
Industrial IoT app
Apple (Cupertino, CA) and General Electric
(Boston, MA) have announced that
they plan to bring GE’s
Predix Industrial Internet of
Things (IoT) software platform
to Apple’s iDevices.
GE’s cloud-based
Predix platform-as-aservice
lets users “deploy
processing and analytics
power to control assets at the edge
or analyze machine data in the cloud”
using the software’s secure connectivity
and execution framework. Now, the
two companies have unveiled a Predix
software development kit (SDK) for iOS,
enabling developers to create industrial
IoT apps for Apple devices.
“The partnership between Apple and
GE is providing developers with the tools
to make their own powerful industrial IoT
apps,” says John Flannery, GE’s new
Chairman and CEO. “Our customers increasingly
need to arm their workforces
through mobility. Working together, GE
and Apple are giving industrial companies
access to powerful apps that help
them tap into the predictive data and
analytics of Predix right
on their iPhone or iPad.”
GE, in collaboration
with Apple, is also developing
other apps for
both internal use and its
customers. For example,
its Asset Performance
Management Cases app is designed
to help industrial businesses increase
machine reliability and availability while
reducing maintenance costs and managing
operations risks.
GE says it will standardize on iPhone
and iPad for mobile devices and also
promote the Apple Mac computing system
as a choice for its global workforce
of more than 330,000 employees. Apple
in turn will promote GE’s Predix as the
industrial IoT analytics platform of choice
to its customers and developers.
www.ge.com
www.apple.com
Smart tracking tag from
Samsung uses NB-IoT
Samsung Electronics (Suwon, South
Korea) has introduced a cellular IoT
mobile device for multi-purpose location
tracking.
The Samsung Connect Tag is offered
as “a new way to keep track of the loved
ones, valuables and all the matters in
life.” According to the company, it is the
world’s first consumer mobile product to
use narrowband network technology (NBIoT,
Cat.M1) – a communication standard
specifically designed for small data utilization,
low power consumption, and the
ability to securely connect to the internet
for optimal location services.
The device will work with GPS, Wi-
Fi-based positioning (WPS), and Cell ID
for accurate location information both
indoors and outdoors. Measuring 4.21 cm
wide and 1.19 cm thick, the device comes
with a ring designed to allow easy attachment
to objects such as a child’s backpack,
a dog’s collar, or a set of keys.
The tag is IP68 water and dustproof
rated. Its battery can last for up to seven
days on a single charge.
www.samsung.com
Deutsche Telekom tests first live
5G network in Europe
Deutsche Telekom has four radio cells
in its mobile network that are the first
in Europe to transmit live and in a real
environment over 5G. With a preliminary
standard version of 5G New Radio (5G
NR), the future mobile radio component
of 5G, the network in Berlin-Schöneberg
achieves transmission rates of 2 Gbits/s
on a single terminal and a latency of
3 milliseconds.
What so far has only worked under
complex laboratory conditions is now
being tested as a live environment in a
city. Deutsche Telekom expects to have
standardized the 5G technology by 2020
so that it can be rolled out commercially.
5G users benefit from high transfer
rates, flexible configuration options and
low latency, particularly for applications
running on the Internet of Things.
“In the first place, the manufacturing
industry will benefit from 5G as a powerful
enabler for a large number of applications,”
says Claudia Nemat, responsible
for Technology & Innovation in Deutsche
Telekom’s Board of Management.
In the network in Berlin, users can
experience the first 5G application ideas,
including Augmented Reality (AR) and
Virtual Reality (VR) applications. These
applications benefit from the ability to
transport large amounts of data, exchange
information in real time, and the high reliability
of 5G. Another example application
is the streaming of ultra-high resolution
video data over 5G NR. The network in
Berlin uses the frequency spectrum at 3.7
GHz. The equipment for the four base stations
has been provided by Huawei.
Although the 5G pre-standard used
in Berlin will probably not be included
in the final standard version, Deutsche
Telekom’s specifications are “very closely”
aligned with the current global 3GPP draft
for 5G New Radio, the company says. The
final specifications of the system used
are expected to be officially published by
3GPP in December 2017.
MediaTek conducts
NB-IoT interoperability
tests with SoftBank
MediaTek and SoftBank Corp., a subsidiary
of SoftBank Group will conduct a
series of interoperability tests of NarrowBand
IoT connectivity (NB-IoT) in
the first quarter of 2018 to pave the way
for development of NB-IoT commercial
applications in Japan.
This interoperability test will further
efforts to advance MediaTek’s NB-IoT
technology and ready the connectivity
standard for global deployment.
MediaTek has played a pivotal role in
the formulation and implementation of
the 3GPP LPWA specification for NB-IoT.
The company recently unveiled its highly
integrated and ultra-low-power MT2625
NB-IoT System-on-Chip (SoC) to meet
the requirements of cost-sensitive and
small IoT devices and announced its collaboration
with China Mobile to build the
world’s smallest NB-IoT module (16- x
18-mm) around the chipset.
www.mediatek.com
www.mwee.com November - December 2017 MW 7
