Internet of Things

Some people, and I count myself among them, are so scatterbrained and disorganized that they should never be put in charge of another living being. If that's you, then welcome to the future! Come get your six-hundred-dollar automated pot plant.

Researchers at Cornell University have been working on a one-size-fits-all solution for smart home energy tracking, developing a vibration-sensing device that can keep tabs on appliance usage through machine learning and lasers.

Scientists at Purdue University are putting forward another interesting proposition in the realm of home automation, developing a cheap sensor that can detect when a person enters a room via carbon dioxide levels in the air.

Everything needs to be online nowadays, from vending machines to smart speakers, but that costs in terms of bulk and energy use. Now researchers have come up with a chip that gets devices connected with 5,000 times less power draw than normal.

Nowadays you could kit out your entire house with smart devices – but that bill would stack up pretty quickly. Fingerbot is essentially a remote-controlled finger that can press buttons and flip switches on demand, making existing devices smarter.

In the Internet of Things age, everything will talk to everything else, and your car tires will be no different. Pirelli's new smart tires can feed information back to your car, other cars and V2X roadside infrastructure through 5G connectivity.

Engineers at MIT are developing a way to turn the humble RFID tag into a light-powered sensor for the internet of things.

The OmniFob is designed to be the last fob you'll ever need. A universal remote of sorts for your keychain. This teachable, versatile device is more than just a key-tracker that can open your garage door or send an SOS, it can integrate with your Smart Home systems and even start and lock your car.

​Israel's CompuLab has launched the third generation of its fanless, rugged Airtop mini-PC, with more memory capacity, more connectivity options and Intel's 9th gen Core CPU running the show.​

​Essentially cheap, battery-less, sticker-type devices, RFID tags transmit a signal when temporarily powered up by the electromagnetic signal from a reader device. Now, thanks to experimental new technology, they could be used to bring "smart" functionality to plain ol' analog objects.

Never get caught short on coffee again. A Y Combinator startup is preparing to roll out a Wi-Fi-connected scale that sits under your coffee jar and orders freshly roasted beans to arrive just as your supply runs out.

Samsung has unveiled the latest Family Hub fridges at CES 2019, with the main new addition being a Family Board screen dedicated to posting photos and messages, and support for the latest version of the Bixby voice assistant.