A green city is a smarter city

Europe 2020 will foster some of the smartest and most sustainable cities in the world. The sustainable growth of urban areas will be possible greatly due to smart urban technologies which willstrengthen the continent from its financial crisis.
The ever-increasing population in cities, combined with the current economic crisis, requires European cities to be more efficient in terms of infrastructures and services to ensure an improved quality of life. In July of 2012, the European Commission launched the Smart Cities and Communities European Innovation Partnership, with the aim to converge progress in energy, transport and ICT, and build towards a low carbon and resource efficient economy.
 Each year, a city is appointed as European Green Capital by the European Commission. Nantes’urban policies won over the jury this year, and reigns as European Green Capital 2013. Its victory was greatly due to its ambitious climate plan which aims to halve CO2 emissions by 2025, as well as its mobility and its sound water policy and management of natural areas.
According to the climate strategist Boyd Cohen, in his ranking of top 10 smartest European cities,Copenhagen is the hardest working to become the most advanced urban landscape followed by Stockholm. It comes as no surprise that the latter has recently decided uponmodernizing its image in an attempt to reinforce itself as a role model city for civic management.

Both Scandinavian cities ranked highly in Smart Environment, where Copenhagen boasts world-class green credentials. Denmark’s capital aspires to become the first carbon-neutral capital. There’s no doubt its 20,000 cyclists contribute enormously to reach such a bold target. The Copenhagen Wheel Project is a good example of smart mobility. The wheel is equipped with sensors which allows cyclists to use their smartphones and share information about the levels of air pollution, traffic or noise as well as allowing the cyclists to control their bikes, lock them and measure their physical effort.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=S7y3qIQu3Gc
However, it takes more than bikes to be the smartest city in Europe. As well as creating more bicycle lanes, Copenhagen intends on replacing coal with biomass, adding more wind and solar electricity to the grid and cooling buildings with seawater.
In turn, Stockholm’s upgraded image reflects a city which also aims high in terms of environmental issues and intends on becoming fossil-fuel free by 2050. One of its most notable measures was the road charging system, introduced back in 2007. This consists of cameras, sensors and laser beams which identifies cars that pass different check-points during peak times of the day and therefore enables the city to charge a tax on these vehicles.
80% of the population is expected to live in urban areas by 2030. As these urban habitats grow, cities have to be built to improve their service delivery capabilities by making their transport, public safety, government services, education and health “smarter”.
Read more: smarter city

What do Brazil or UK think about M2M modem ?

A recent survey conducted by Harris Interactive for SAP among hundreds of IT Decision Makers (ITDMs) shows very interesting responses regarding M2M technologies.
Considering the results, Brazil, China, Germany and India are the most favorable countries for M2M technologies in Smart Cities. In particular, Integrated Technology and Device Manufacturers (ITDMs) from Brazil were the ones who considered Smart Cities as the best outcome (35%). This response doesn’t come as a surprise: Smart Cities technologies are having an excellent deployment and response in the country, from Rio de Janeiro and its ‘NASA alike’ operations center to Curitiba, that now benefits from an awarded Smart Transport solution provided by Ericsson and Four-Faith.      
Besides, almost all the ITDMs viewed M2M as the “natural evolution of consumerization of IT”, thanks to concepts like Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD). China and India were the countries that most embraced these ideas (92% of its ITDMs viewed so) but UK and Brazil were also very receptive.
With regards to the opportunities that M2M  modem can provide in the workplace, results by country were clearly influenced by socio-economical factors. For example, M2M for increasing productivity for employees was the top selection in China (69%). It makes total sense: its workforce and productivity have been the main core of a huge economic boom in these last decades but now its productivity growth is falling. On the other hand, in Brazil, the biggest opportunity of M2M for the workplace is the increase in efficiency.
In general, all ITDMs see undeniable benefits to M2M but they also detect some barriers: lack of offerings, management, security and big data issues were mentioned. M2M market growth proves that M2M opportunities will finally overcome these barriers but these are still a challenge, which need to be taken up. To face it and take advantage of the huge opportunities of M2M, ITDMs can find more trust in the vision and capabilities of a global company. 

Five Amazing things that M2M industrial wireless router technology has made reality

When talking about M2M we usually forget that these technologies can also be used to connect people and help them with their day to day tasks. This is why our selection for the fourth post of the series “Five Amazing things that M2M technology has made reality” focuses on social uses of M2M industrial wireless router devices that help people at home.
The first one is aimed at kids or their parents, depending on how you look at it. A startup called MessagePetz, Inc has created a Wi-Fi-enabled teddy bear that allows parents to text their children and also notifies them when the bear receives a hug:
https://d2pq0u4uni88oo.cloudfront.net/projects/498145/video-240770-h264_high.mp4

There’s no doubt that this next one has been created for adults. Durex has developed Fundawear, a  vibrating underwear that can be connected to a smartphone and activated remotely to stimulate the wearer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=qb7DN3kpl2o
So maybe you’re not good at keeping track of your diet or you never quite know what you actually have in your fridge... Then you should probably start letting the fridge take care of that! The Smart Fridge, presented at the Internet of Things Day 2013 in Trento does this and more. It can even lock your fridge during customized time slots to prevent you from raiding the fridge for midnight snacks!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=1RzGV9ZnVSs
The technologist Tom Coates is very active on Twitter, but do you know who else is also very active on this social network? His home in San Francisco! It tweets a lot of funny stuff that you can actually understand, and not the kind of sensor reading jibber-jabber you usually get from devices connected to the Internet.

Finally, If you have an hydroponic garden, you might find Bitponics very useful: it is an IoT hydroponics gardening manager which includes sensors to hook up to your hydroponic plants, an electronic device that connects to the cloud and a web app to manage all the information presented. This way, users receive helpful reminders when it's time to take care of their plants.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=At8_-Aq5t6U

Elevating M2M wireless zigbee module to a higher level

You can hate elevators for many reasons. It takes a momentary dimming of the lights and an abrupt jolt to become overwhelmed with an odd anxiety which accompanies many of us when we get into one. However, could M2M (wireless zigbee module )technology possibly put an end to our aversion to them?

The moment you step into the confined space of an elevator you probably want to feel the reassurance that if anything were to happen you would be able to get out of there in the shortest possible time. Getting stuck in the lift needn’t be such a nightmare with the aid of machine to machine technology.

Lifts and escalators are used one billion times per day across Europe alone, so it comes as no surprise that safety and reliability are manufacturers’ and maintenance operators’ top priorities. All it takes is a sensor which operates around the clock to remotely monitor and collect information on the elevator.

Facts have it that 45% of all elevators in Europe are more than 20 years old which gives M2M an important role to play in the upgrade of existing systems. This smartened-up elevator would respond in real time to any failure you may have the misfortune of encountering, as well as sending an emergency warning and triggering an alarm.

As well as looking out for our safety, M2M-enabled elevators cut down on maintenance costs where technical alarms substitute for maintenance and routine personal testing of the emergency call system. Also, the possibility of integrating the maintenance and telecommunication in an all-in-on contract is extremely cost effective.

The European directive EN81-28 instructs all elevator manufacturers and operators to equip them with an emergency call and diagnostics system. This obviously requires voice and data connectivity which depend upon technical availability when using a fixed network communications infrastructure via cable. However, wireless communications fulfill legal requirements whilst reducing installation and connectivity costs.

Smart grids = smart development in Latam

Efficiency, reduction in energy losses and sustainability are some of the characteristics of any Smart Grid. Furthermore, deploying them to developing countries brings some other advantages. For instance, they are key to providing an accurate and reliable electricity supply which is essential for supporting an expanding economy.

This is the idea supported by Michele De Nigris and Manlio F. Coviello in their report Smart grids in Latin America and the Caribbean. They analyze the current infrastructure in the region with a deep study into Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Mexico and Jamaica. “Smart grids can be instrumental in enhancing the sustainability of the energy system in the region, contributing to the long term security of supply and to the global system competitiveness”, they conclude.

The authors also make a decalogue with the challenges that the smart grid development has:

• Develop regional and national road maps for smart grids
• Develop a policy framework to promote smart grids
• Adapt the energy regulation to promote smart grids
• Create, collect and disseminate business cases
• Develop and demonstrate smart grids technologies
• Demonstrate distribution automation and smart meters
• Share best practices and know how
• Promote standardization
• Engage public awareness
• Build up on regional skills and excellence

Smart grids’ deployment in the region would bring opportunities in three fields. There are economic ones, such as reduction of direct and indirect labor costs or fraud prevention; environmental ones, such as reducing carbon emissions and finally social advantages, such as the integration of users in managing their energy.

The report assures that “the development and roll-out of smart grids technologies is not a goal per se but a means to achieve the objectives of an accessible, reliable and sustainable electricity supply”.

However there are obviously some handicaps to implanting smart grids in Latin America and the Caribbean. Beyond the economic cost of deploying new grids, the authors point out another difficulty: the electrical engineering studies in the region do not yet address smart grid application. Nevertheless, they trust in the “natural skill of local engineers to address problems and projects using a very pragmatic approach and setting up solutions”.

Actually, there are already some projects to deploy smart grids in some of these countries, such as Chile, Brazil and Panama, where governments are realizing the importance of this technology and they are starting to build the future of their countries.

read more: Smart grids

How M2M will be making your day to day easier before you know it

If you’re here, it’s more than likely you know a fair amount about M2M. However, ask anyone outside of the industry what machine-to-machine actually is and they may have no idea, let alone know that this technology has already made its way into their everyday lives. If this is your case, here’s a look at how M2M will be making your day to day easier before you know it.

Let’s start the M2M adventure on your daily commute to work on public transport. Your everyday bus stop is a smart object integrated in an infrastructure of many other smart objects, which provide your city with intelligence. How else would it be possible to know the estimated time of arrival of your next bus whilst waiting at the stop? In some cities, information is shared between bus and subway systems enabling transport authorities to react efficiently to overcrowding. 

Perhaps you are victim of rush hour traffic. You’ll be happy to know that some traffic control centers already have sensors buried under main roads to measure the volume of traffic in real time and get that information to you before you decide on taking the same route to work.
Your car itself will be enhanced by M2M (industrial router) technology. For instance, eCall will be deployed in every new car by 2015. This device will automatically dial 112 in the event of a serious traffic accident as well as wirelessly sending airbag deployment, impact sensor information and GPS coordinates to the local emergency centre.

M2M has also enabled insurance companies to develop tailored policies for each of their clients by monitoring their driving performance. Keeping in mind you are a good driver, this could benefit you by paying for how you drive and not for other drivers’ risks. On a very unfortunate day, you may find your car isn’t where you swear to have parked it. Insurance telematics will surely brighten up your day by locating your vehicle in case of theft. 

Throughout the day, you’ll be getting your wallet out to pay for all sorts of different products and services, be it a taxi fare, your morning coffee, or an evening meal. However, thick and heavy wallets will be a thing of the past as soon as the mobile banking frenzy settles down into our day to day norm. Mobile applications can hold our payment and loyalty card details which transform our phones into digital wallets. This allows us to pay with our credit cards just by swiping our mobiles at the NFC machine.

M2M will also be able to put your mind at rest from worrying about your elderly loved ones. The number of elderly people is steadily increasing, but emerging tracking solutions are suitable for protecting the elderly and people with health problems. This includes remotely checking their health condition and sending an alarm signal in case of any sudden health scare.

As you can see, machine to machine technology is certainly taking off more than you may have expected. The Internet of Things is a revolution which has already commenced and will form part of your not so distant future.

90% of new cars will be connected by 2020

“The Connected Car is one of the most exciting innovations we have seen in over a century of automotive development” writes Carlos Morales, M2M Director, Four-Faith Digital,  in the Connected Car Report 2013. It will open “incredible opportunities for the consumer, the automotive industry and the mobile industry alike”. The event Connected Car 13, that starts tomorrow in Amsterdam, will be a great occasion to discover  what is happening in the sector

More than 30 keynotes and discussions will discuss business models, how the industry is engaging with the app developer community, the connection of smartphones to cars, the payment for infotainment, how the user will control his vehicle through apps and the safety on the road that the connected car brings.

Mark Dawson, senior conference researcher for Informa Telecoms explains that the industry debate is focusing on unearthing the business models and monetizing strategies that will guarantee the financial success of the Connected Car. “With contributions from leading Auto-OEMs, innovative connectivity and infotainment providers and the whole connected car ecosystem, Connected Cars is where you need to be to identify you future connected car monetisation strategy”, assures Dawson.

Four-Faith  will provide a valuable document to be discussed coinciding with the event. The Connected Car Report, launched on June 20th, offers detailed information about what the challenges of the industry are, how it’s facing them and how the future of vehicles will be thanks to machine-to-machine technology.

According to the prediction that Machina Research makes in the report, we will see connectivity become the norm in vehicles in the next 10 years: “Today, this market comprises primarily aftermarket devices. However, the next few years will fact, we predict that by 2020, 90% of new cars will feature such a platform, growing from less than 10% today”.

We will keep you updated on everything that’s happening around the event on our web（wireless industrial router ） and on our Social Media channels (Twitter, LinkedIn, Google +).