Tag: Smart Internet of Things

With the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence and IoT technologies, global digital transformation has entered a new phase of competition for smart environments and cross-domain talent. Cisco and Jintai Technology officially launched the "Asia Bay AIoT Ecosystem Development Base and R&D Center" in Kaohsiung, integrating local and international innovation capabilities to promote the implementation of smart harbor applications. With cybersecurity, AIoT, and data governance at its core, it aims to become a key base for Taiwan's transformation into a major smart industry hub in the Asia-Pacific region. ▲Cisco and Jintai Technology launch Asia Bay AIoT Ecosystem Development Base and R&D Center in Kaohsiung. This project focuses on three major innovation platforms: a smart data platform, an AI decision-making platform, and a global maintenance support system. It connects 25 technology partners and 21 local companies, initially launching 12 smart application verifications at Kaohsiung Port Pier 70, covering scenarios such as personnel safety, ESG carbon emission monitoring, and hazardous gas detection. Through AI image analysis and digital twin technology, it aims to create replicable and exportable smart harbor module solutions. Cisco's Global Chief Innovation Officer, Guy Diedrich, stated, "Taiwan has demonstrated strong capabilities in digital economic development, and Kaohsiung, as the starting point of a smart hub, will leverage its AIoT ecosystem to drive industrial innovation, digital transformation, and sustainable development, consolidating its strategic position in the Asia-Pacific smart industry." ▲Cisco currently provides numerous application technologies in the AIoT field, ensuring the safe and stable operation of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). In addition to industrial implementation, the base has simultaneously launched a talent development program, aiming to train 5000 AIoT professionals within two years and assist 1500 technical personnel in obtaining Cisco international certifications. Furthermore, by combining local universities, vocational training institutions, and international curriculum resources, Kaohsiung will be promoted as a hub for smart industry and cybersecurity talent in the Asia-Pacific region. Future efforts will also include overseas visits and the introduction of international instructors to broaden the global perspective of local talent. Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chi-mai pointed out, "This is a significant milestone for Kaohsiung as it transforms from an industrial city into a smart technology hub. Through collaboration with Cisco and Jintai Technology, the Kaohsiung Smart Harbor Project has gradually yielded results. In the future, we will continue to strengthen our strategic layout in AIoT, ecosystem, and talent to cultivate momentum for industrial upgrading." Jintai Technology Chairman Wu Hsing-ho emphasized, "The Asia Bay Base is not only a technology research and development site, but also the starting point for verifying, replicating, and promoting smart harbor solutions. We hope to export Kaohsiung's successful experience to other international ports and smart industry scenarios, allowing Taiwan's AIoT solutions to go global." ▲ Combining AIoT technology applications allows real-time display of container throughput data in the Kaohsiung Port area, facilitating management personnel to monitor and understand the port's container handling operations. Currently, this project has attracted over NT$100 million in investment. In the future, Kaohsiung will serve as a demonstration node to promote the expansion of modular AIoT applications to other industries and international markets, strengthening Taiwan's global competitiveness in digital transformation and smart industries. With the official launch of the Asia Bay AIoT Ecosystem Development Base and R&D Center, Cisco, Jintai Technology, and local industry partners will continue to deepen their cooperation, from smart harbors and smart manufacturing to cross-domain cybersecurity and sustainable applications, comprehensively promoting the innovative implementation of smart industries and driving the new development of Kaohsiung's smart city. In the future, this model will be replicated in more fields, with Splunk becoming an important application technology asset. In a post-event interview, Cisco Taiwan General Manager Lin Yue-tian stated that the Asia Bay AIoT Ecosystem Development Base and R&D Center project had been in discussions with the Kaohsiung City Government for three years, and had also communicated with the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, the Ministry of Economic Affairs, and other agencies. This initiative aims to bring Cisco's numerous end-to-end AIoT technologies to practical application scenarios, and has chosen Kaohsiung Port's Container Terminal 70 (Hongming Terminal) for actual industry verification. This will improve the operational management efficiency of traditional ports through wireless paging and personnel monitoring, and enhance personnel safety and port utilization efficiency. ▲In addition to establishing the Asia Bay AIoT Ecosystem Development Base and R&D Center, Cisco Taiwan General Manager Lin Yue-tian has also implemented practical technology applications at Kaohsiung Port. Lin stated that Cisco had previously worked on a similar case in Rotterdam, Netherlands, and plans to replicate the same model in more areas of Taiwan, applying Cisco technology to traditional manufacturing, semiconductors, assembly, smart transportation, and even smart healthcare. Regarding the acquisition of Splunk, a visualization data business company, last year, Lin explained that the related technologies will become Cisco's main application assets, thereby driving the growth of cybersecurity, digitalization, and artificial intelligence applications.

In late February, Qualcomm launched a new brand, "Dragonwing," for its industrial IoT application portfolio. This new brand aims to add more innovation to the Snapdragon brand, helping more companies improve operational efficiency and accelerate time-to-market. In Taiwan, Qualcomm announced the availability of Traditional Chinese interface resources for the developer community, allowing local developers to create applications using the Qualcomm AI Hub interface and related technical resources. ▲ Qualcomm Vice President and President of Taiwan, Southeast Asia, and Australia/New Zealand, Liu Si-tai, emphasized that Qualcomm is committed to promoting artificial intelligence on devices and creating a world of intelligent connectivity. On another front, Qualcomm also announced the integration of the TAIDE large-scale natural language model into the Qualcomm AI Hub interface. This model, based on Llama 3 and developed under the guidance of Taiwan's National Science Council and with investment from the National Applied Research Laboratories, aims to enable developers to create more responsible AI applications that are tailored to Taiwanese language, customs, and culture. ▲The Qualcomm AI Hub interface incorporates the TAIDE large-scale natural language processing model, based on Llama 3, guided by the National Science Council of Taiwan, and developed by the National Applied Research Laboratories. This model boasts the ability for developers to create more responsible AI applications that align with Taiwanese language, customs, and culture. In its deep collaboration with the Taiwanese market, Qualcomm also explained its partnerships with numerous local supply chains to promote smart IoT applications. Furthermore, Qualcomm plans to showcase solutions using the Dragonwing platform at the upcoming AI EXPO event, in collaboration with companies such as Advantech, Aetina, AVerMedia, Axiomtek, CipherLab, CRI, DFI, IBASE, Innodisk, Lite-On, MiTwell, PEGATRON, Sysgration, Wistron, and WNC. ...

Besides revealing that Apple will launch its second-generation AirTag tracking device in the first half of 2025, Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman also claimed that Apple internally discussed the possibility of manufacturing its own branded television products. The report indicates that Apple internally discussed the possibility of launching its own branded television product between 2009 and 2011, but it was ultimately canceled due to the inability to clearly differentiate it from other brands in the industry. However, given Apple's current massive product ecosystem, it may reconsider this product design. However, Apple already has a presence in the television market with Apple TV, and is also venturing into streaming video services, allowing iPhones, iPads, and Macs to connect to Apple TV. Users can even use Apple Fitness+ with their Apple Watch, using the large screen of Apple TV for workouts. It can also connect to HomeKit smart home appliances, making a separate branded television product seem unnecessary. Recent reports suggest Apple may launch a smart device that integrates HomePod and iPad, serving as a central hub for HomeKit-connected smart home appliances. This device would also support music playback, video streaming, and online video calls, and could interact with the Siri digital assistant. Meanwhile, Apple appears to be developing a wall-mounted display device that could function as a control center for connected home devices, also supporting Siri and video interaction. It would resemble a "square iPad." This device is expected to be officially unveiled around March 2025, likely at Apple's upcoming spring event. Overall, Apple may be further strengthening its HomeKit connectivity and expanding its smart IoT applications to create a more seamless product chain, resulting in a more intuitive user experience and attracting more users to Apple products.

At Embedded World 2024, Arm announced the Ethos-U85 NPU and the Corstone-320 IoT reference design platform, aiming to accelerate the market entry of more IoT devices incorporating artificial intelligence applications. The Ethos-U85 NPU is Arm's most powerful and least power-consuming Ethos NPU design to date, offering a 4x performance improvement and a 20% reduction in power consumption compared to its predecessor. It also expands the MAC addressing capability from 128 to 2048 addresses and can operate at 1 GHz to deliver up to 4 TOPs of computing power. It is primarily intended for factory automation, commercial applications, or smart home camera devices, and supports open-source AI frameworks such as TensorFlow Lite and PyTorch. In addition, the Ethos-U85 NPU also supports Transformer networks and Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) for artificial intelligence inference, enabling various visual or automatically generated AI applications. This enhances video content analysis and understanding, allowing for content completion, classification, and object recognition. It can be applied to industrial machine vision, robotics, and wearable devices, and can be used with Cortex-A CPUs that support the Armv9 instruction set. Currently, over 20 partners, including Alif and Infineon, have adopted the Ethos-U85 NPU to build application products. The new IoT reference design platform, Corstone-320, integrates a high-performance Cortex-M85 CPU and Mali-C55 GPU, paired with the newly launched Ethos-U85 NPU and the CoreLink DMA-350 connectivity system. This enables the design of edge AI devices primarily focused on voice, audio, and visual recognition, such as real-time image classification, object recognition, or providing digital assistant services with natural language translation capabilities in smart speakers. This reference design platform includes software, tools, and related technical resources such as Arm virtual hardware, allowing developers to verify the execution results through software simulation before the actual manufacturing of the chip. This accelerates the time to market for products and shortens the time required to launch increasingly complex edge AI devices.

Arm has introduced a new Cortex-M52 processor design to meet the design needs of IoT devices. This processor integrates Arm's Helium technology, developed for the Cortex-M series processors, and enables the deployment of intensive machine learning capabilities on-device, allowing enterprises to build smart IoT applications at a lower cost. The Cortex-M52 processor can be used in smaller, lower-power product designs. By enhancing digital signal processing capabilities and machine learning application performance, it provides intensive machine learning capabilities without the need for a dedicated NPU component, enabling AI to run at lower power consumption. This reduces reliance on cloud computing for AI operations while ensuring data privacy and computational reliability. Through the Helium technology's Vector Extensions (MVE) solution, the Cortex-M52 can integrate with the Cortex-M33 and Cortex-M4 to simplify the computation path, enabling richer user interfaces, voice and visual experiences on IoT devices. It can also be used in vehicle and industrial automation control, as well as predictive maintenance and wearable device sensing integration. Because it eliminates the need for a separate NPU component, the Cortex-M52 processor can be designed in a smaller area, allowing for more flexible application in smaller devices and reducing design costs. Compared to previous generations of Cortex-M processors, it offers 5.6 times the machine learning performance and 2.7 times the digital signal processing performance. In terms of security, the Cortex-M52 also supports Arm v8.1-M instruction set security technologies, including PACBTI for identifying and eliminating program errors used to launch attacks, and Arm TrustZone security technology. Furthermore, the Cortex-M52 accelerates the development of PSA-certified Level 2 chips and ensures secure performance in automotive and industrial control applications. Arm emphasizes that the Cortex-M52 processor simplifies the design of smart IoT devices, and its software is compatible with existing Cortex-M55 and Cortex-M85 processors. This allows for the reuse of existing software designs and databases, thereby accelerating the time-to-market for more smart IoT devices.

Following its earlier announcement at the beginning of the year of smart lighting products supporting the Matter connectivity standard, Qingdao Yeelink unveiled updates to its Yeelight Fun, Yeelight Pro, and Yeelight Home series at IFA 2023, highlighting the integration of artificial intelligence technology to create diverse interactive lighting experiences. The updated Yeelight Fun series all support the Matter protocol, including the Beam RGBIC and Obsid RGBIC strip lights suitable for desktop setups, and can connect with the previously released Yeelight Cube Smart Lamp. The Yeelight Pro series introduces the Nightingale Rooflight, which simulates natural light diffusion for a more natural lighting experience. It also supports the Matter protocol and allows for customized lighting effects via the Galaxy smart system. The Yeelight Home series targets home lighting applications, offering users a more economical and convenient way to quickly and easily experience comfortable smart lighting. In addition to continuing to expand its presence in the lighting market with the three main product lines mentioned above, Yeelight will also combine Bluetooth and other connectivity technologies with a software-as-a-service approach, and integrate artificial intelligence technologies to provide a smarter and more engaging lighting experience.

The first version of the HCA interface specification, announced by the Home Connectivity Alliance at CES 2023 earlier this year and using a C2C cloud-based interface as its official standard, has been confirmed to be adopted by partners starting in the fourth quarter of this year and will continue to be promoted in 2024. The Alliance also aims to encourage more appliance manufacturers to join. The Home Connectivity Alliance stated that the HCA interface specification will drive more advantages in interconnected home appliances and lay the foundation for smart home energy management. Previously, due to differences in the functions and underlying network platforms of the apps corresponding to connected home appliances from different brands, only simple commands could be used to turn appliances on or off, but less precise functions such as adjusting the temperature, setting the fan oscillation angle, or turning on a specific TV channel were possible. This time, the C2C cloud-based interface connects the cloud platforms behind the apps of different brands of connected home appliances, allowing users to define the functions of different apps through software, thereby achieving cross-brand interconnection of specific functions. This allows users to control all connected home appliances that support the Home Connectivity Alliance (HCA) protocol through a single app. Users no longer need to worry about whether different brands of connected appliances require separate apps, or be limited to purchasing only one brand due to the constraints of a single app, thus affecting usability and choice. It also makes it easier for developers to create application services. The HCA interface specification version 1.0 emphasizes cloud-based connectivity, so supported smart appliances will not require additional hub accessories. Users can control all compliant smart appliances simply by updating their existing smart appliance app or using the app on their existing HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) equipment. However, the actual app update time will vary depending on the smart appliance brand and different market development strategies.

Following its announcement at CES 2023 earlier this year of expanding its smart home brand Tapo's product line, TP-Link today (August 14th) launched the Tapo smart home series in Taiwan, including a smart video doorbell, motion sensors, smart contact sensors, two smart temperature and humidity sensors, two smart buttons, and a smart gateway. Among them, the TP-Link D230S1 smart video doorbell features a 163° field-of-view camera lens, capable of capturing visitors or situations within 1 meter, and even boasts full-color night vision and 2K resolution video recording. It can automatically identify people, objects, or vehicle movements through artificial intelligence algorithms and can connect to mobile calls via an app. Battery-powered and requiring no external wiring, it features IP64 waterproof design. If the lens is damaged or obstructed, an alarm will sound via the built-in bell, and the activity will be simultaneously synced to the app for notification. When paired with the Tapo H200 smart gateway, the camera's footage can be saved, ensuring that the video doorbell's recordings are preserved even if the doorbell is damaged. The smart home devices introduced to the Taiwan market this time also include the Tapo T100 motion sensor and the T110 smart contact sensor, allowing users to automatically link with gateways and other smart home devices. For example, they can automatically turn on lights by recognizing people walking around, or determine whether doors and windows are properly closed. When used with the Tapo T310 and T315 smart temperature and humidity sensors, they can automatically turn on fans, dehumidifiers, and air conditioners based on temperature and humidity changes. The T315 uses an e-ink screen to reduce power consumption, offering up to two years of battery life. The Tapo S200B and Tapo S200D smart buttons offer single-press, double-press, and left/right rotary operation modes to accommodate different lighting control and dimming needs. They can also be used as emergency alarms with the gateway and app. The Tapo H200 smart gateway itself can connect to 64 smart home devices and can additionally connect to 4 cameras or video doorbells. TP-Link plans to further introduce smart door lock products to Taiwan by the end of this year or early next year. However, the smart home devices introduced to the Taiwanese market this time do not yet support the universal IoT protocol Matter. Regarding suggested retail prices, the Tapo D230S1 smart doorbell (including the Tapo H200 gateway) will be sold for NT$4399; the Tapo T100 motion sensor for NT$699; the Tapo T110 smart contact sensor for NT$499; the Tapo T310 smart temperature and humidity sensor for NT$699; the Tapo T315 smart temperature and humidity sensor (electronic ink panel) for NT$899; the Tapo S200B smart button for NT$499; the Tapo S200D smart button (with back panel) for NT$599; and the Tapo H200 smart gateway separately for NT$899.

Qualcomm announced a new Product Longevity Program for its select IoT solutions, initially encompassing 16 Qualcomm IoT System-on-a-Chip (SoC) products to extend the lifecycle of customer product designs. The SoCs added to the program are designed to meet diverse industrial and enterprise needs, with corresponding lifecycle designs for applications such as motion-sensing streetlights, building security, drones, and warehouse management, with lifecycles ranging from 7 to 15 years. As new SoCs are released and previously released SoCs reach the end of their lifecycles, Qualcomm stated it will continue to update this product catalog and add more SoCs to the Longevity Program, thereby expanding its IoT portfolio. The Longevity Program aims to help manufacturing and enterprise customers obtain more reliable and durable SoCs, extending the lifecycle of their applications and fulfilling Qualcomm's commitment to providing long-term technical support and needs fulfillment, enabling their IoT product portfolio solutions to withstand longer usage periods. Dev Singh, Vice President of Business Development and Head of Construction, Enterprise and Industrial Automation at Qualcomm Technologies, stated, "As customer needs continue to evolve, reliable products with long lifecycles are becoming increasingly important. Long-term product plans ensure the reliability and functionality of Qualcomm Technologies' products over a longer period."

Infineon, in partnership with Flying Bird Automotive Electronics and the Taiwan Guardians Alliance Social Welfare Association, has joined the "Love in Safe Living" social welfare project. Infineon is providing environmental detectors, millimeter-wave radar sensors, and related equipment and installation costs to help the Leshan Rehabilitation Center in Bali District, New Taipei City, improve its ability to assess environmental emergencies. This aims to improve the living environment safety for vulnerable groups, elderly people living alone, or those residing in nursing homes. Because older adults have a relatively lower capacity to recognize environmental changes, their reaction and judgment in the event of a fire can be slow, and their slower mobility can delay evacuation. Furthermore, older adults spend more time indoors, and high carbon dioxide levels can easily cause symptoms such as lethargy, headaches, dizziness, and drowsiness, and even increase the risk of respiratory viral infections. Therefore, maintaining good indoor air quality through smart technology, and even providing real-time notifications in the event of an accident, will improve the safety of seniors' home life. The smart detection system donated by Infineon includes its 60GHz millimeter-wave radar sensor, which can perform precise micro-motion detection, making it easy for families or nursing homes to monitor the elderly's condition, and an environmental detector with built-in carbon dioxide sensing function. Both can transmit the detection data to the cloud in real time through Infineon's microcontroller and wireless networking technology, allowing users to remotely check the data via a mobile app or make emergency reports in conjunction with the sensor linkage function, enabling fire and ambulance units to provide rescue and corresponding assistance resources more quickly. Infineon Taiwan General Manager Chen Tien-Chun stated, "As a global leader in semiconductor technology and IoT solutions, Infineon has been deeply rooted in Taiwan for nearly 25 years. Upholding our vision of making our communities better, we are delighted to give back to society with our expertise. This time, together with our partners, Feibiao Automotive and the Guardians Alliance, we will improve the home safety of vulnerable groups and the elderly through an AIoT system built on Infineon's sensing and IoT technologies, creating a more convenient and safer life." Guardians Alliance Chairman Yu Tzu-Lien stated, "We thank Infineon for their strong support of the 'Love in Safe Living' public welfare project. These smart detection devices will be combined with the Guardians Alliance's multi-domain automatic reporting system to improve the safety of the living environment for vulnerable elderly groups. In the future, we also look forward to more partners joining us to work together to protect Taiwanese society." In addition to initially installing related application equipment at the Leshan Rehabilitation Center, Infineon stated that, based on the Guardians Alliance's suggestions, it will also assist in installing assistive devices in more suitable homes for vulnerable groups in the future.