SMART IoT Act Moves Forward

Moving closer to passing legislation that would create a sort of who’s who of the IoT ecosystem, the House of Representatives passed the SMART IoT Act (State of Modern Application, Research and Trends of IoT Act). The bill would prompt the creation of the first compendium of essentially who is doing what in the IoT space. It calls on the Secretary of Commerce to conduct a study and submit a report to Congress on “the state of the internet connected devices industry in the United States.” That report would provide a comprehensive list of industry sectors that develop and use IoT devices, related public-private partnerships and standards bodies, and federal agencies with jurisdiction over them. It would also list all standards, policies and regulations, with a key aim of avoiding inconsistent, restrictive or duplicative regulation in the IoT space.

AWS Aims at the Edge

AWS debuted new edge computing capabilities for collecting, processing and monitoring IoT data, as well as building industrial IoT applications. AWS IoT SiteWise is a managed service that collects, structures and labels plant floor data to generate real-time KPIs, and AWS IoT Events finding anomalies and alerting stakeholders in real-time. AWS also debuted low-code capabilities and connectors to make it easier to build IoT applications. With AWS IoT Things Graph, users can create applications using a drag-and-drop interface. AWS IoT Greengrass Connectors give developers the ability to connect third-party applications like ServiceNow for service management, on-premises software like Splunk for log analytics, and AWS services like Amazon Kinesis for data ingest via common cloud Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), according to a press release.

Salesforce.com Marries IoT data with Field Services Software

Salesforce.com has made IoT data available for field service professionals to use within the context of their Salesforce.com Field Service Lightning mobile app, debuting a  “packaged implementation of IoT connectors and workflow that presents IoT data in a context that’s useful for customer service and support agents or field technicians,” according to coverage on Diginomica. IoT signals show up directly within the Service Cloud and Field Service Lightning mobile app consoles alongside CRM data. By marrying the real-time IoT data with data on the customer, the software can enable use cases spanning remote diagnostics to automating the creation of a work order to fix a potential issue.

Rockwell Automation Backs OPC UA

Rockwell Automation is joining an OPC Foundation initiative to extend the OPC UA protocol to field-level industrial communications, according to a press release.  “Rockwell Automation has always supported the development and use of open standards,” said Paul Brooks, business development manager, Rockwell Automation. “Extending the OPC UA protocol to the field level or shop floor can help simplify system development and accelerate a company’s journey to a Connected Enterprise.”

IoT Skills Are in

IoT-related skills are increasing in importance, as evidenced by an additional component used in this year’s ranking of the most effectively managed companies by Management Top 250 – the number of cutting edge tech jobs posted, according to coverage in the Wall Street Journal. These include roles in blockchain, artificial intelligence, augmented reality and IoT.