News & Reviews:   Internet of Things

If you thought Digi Telecommunications Sdn Bhd (Digi) has nothing to do with automotive businesses, well, Digi has announced today that they are in a strategic partnership with CSE Group (CSE). It's not that they're going to manufacture a car or something, but rather delivering a wide range of automotive and insurance telematics solutions including a comprehensive fleet management system to help businesses handle their vehicles more effectively, with easy, real-time access to diagnostic information on their smartphones.

Today, Maxis has made an announcement about their collaboration with Vodafone to implement Internet of Things (IoT) services into Malaysia. The agreement between the two parties will allow Maxis to offer enterprises best in class IoT solutions to optimise costs, improve operational efficiency, create more value and ultimately deliver a better customer experience.

What would you do if you had an idea for a device but couldn't find it being sold anywhere? While you could try and prototype it or make it, previously it wasn't easy to put together a working computer platform designed specifically for those who like to tinker and make things. However, in this day and age, those who make things or 'Makers' now have access to system-on-chip boards and platforms designed to be modular for easy attachment of sensors and servos. The maker movement in Malaysia is quickly picking up steam, with more makers of every age appearing with bright ideas about devices you cannot find on the shelf but are nonetheless useful. The Intel Galileo board is Intel's solution for Makers and we were privilaged enough to get our hands-on with an Intel Galileo set which you can see in the video in this article.

Huawei recently announced it's Agile Network 3.0 Architecture at the Huawei Network congress 2015. As part of this architecture, Huawei introduced the Agile Internet of Things (IoT) solution which consists of the Agile IoT gateway, Agile Controller and LiteOS which is a lightweight IoT operating system (OS). This LiteOS is only 10KB in size (1MB = 1000KB) and offers basic OS functions like configuration, auto-discovery and auto-networking. Designed for smart homes, wearables, connected vehicles and more, LiteOS will be be opened to all developers soon but there are no specific Malaysia release dates, pricing details or information on which devices may be using it. Here's what they had to say about it:

“Huawei believes that standardizing ICT infrastructure will foster the development of Internet applications, including IoT applications. To address this, Huawei is launching our IoT OS, LiteOS. Mr. William Xu, Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer, Huawei

“BDII requires close business collaboration and joint innovation efforts between Huawei and our partners. We have been involved in industry alliances, worked with standard organizations in the area of IoT, and established innovative research centers, open labs, and development communities to foster industry development.” Yan Lida, President of Huawei Enterprise Business Group

“Over the last three years, Huawei has been involved in a number of in-depth technological collaborations with our global industry partners in IoT. We have developed a series of IoT solutions that have already been applied to buildings, electricity meters, vehicles, gymnasiums, factories, retail outlets, and street lights. In line with our approach to provide BDII, Huawei will continue to work with more partners to launch solutions based on our Agile Network architecture for different vertical industries.” Liu Shaowei, President, Switch and Enterprise Communication Product Line, Huawei

Our collaboration with KL Gadget Guy and Nasi Lemak Tech continues with episode 5 of our Tech Kakis discussion group. This time around we talk about the Internet of Things which basically means every device is connected to the Internet. While this may seem like a fad, it does mean that eventually you would be able to remote control your everything or in turn get notified of everything. For example your Internet linked refrigerator could let you know if the stuff you bought has expired or what stuff you may have in cooler. We talk about other connected devices like the Samsung Gear S, the Philips smart LED light bulb and so forth. Check out the full video below: