The Thread Group chose Elarm as the latest quarterly winner of its Innovation Enabler Program. The Elarm home monitoring system is based on specialized sensors placed around the home and uses Thread to create a mesh network that’s said to boost resiliency, security and energy efficiency for the battery-powered sensors, Elarm said. Under the program, Elarm will work with the Thread Group as an active contributor with the goal of its system becoming one of the first Thread-certified IoT products. The benefit of Thread is that it provides a standard way for IoT products to communicate, Elarm said.

Device intelligence framework provider Onstream announced $2 million in funding from Traynor Family Enterprise to develop its product line that it said is designed to help OEMs and solution providers push intelligence, responsive behavior and new product features to smart device networks. Onstream’s system activates the brain of each smart device, “creating intelligence close to the device,” said the company. The framework drives product behavior through a bidirectional communication loop that’s customizable by the OEM or solution provider. For companies wanting to do more than stream data to a distant database, Onstream “closes the loop on device intelligence,” and then automates and optimizes device behavior, it said. “The vast economic promise of device intelligence is still just unrealized potential for many of the companies best positioned to benefit from the Internet of Things,” said Onstream CEO Craig Macy. Onstream’s current applications are in fitness, mining and wine sectors, it said.

Verizon is helping utilities convert more of the nation’s 147 million electric meters into smart meters using technology that takes advantage of Verizon’s LTE network and the IoT, the company said Wednesday on its policy blog. Verizon said its Grid Wide Utility Solutions system allows electric utilities to upgrade without huge capital investments. “Verizon’s Grid Wide system allows companies to consume services as they need them by offering energy management solutions as-a-service,” the carrier said. “Certified smart meters installed at the customer’s home report individual power outages by sending a notice to the Grid Wide platform over Verizon’s 4G LTE network. Utilities then know exactly where the outage occurred, if it affects more than one person, how many crews they need to send out, and where to send them.” Utilities also can use the system to remotely connect and disconnect services without having to send out a truck and a crew to make the change manually, Verizon said. Only about a third of U.S. meters today are smart meters, Verizon said.

Delivery is slated for October for Bluesmart, a connected suitcase that has raised more than $2 million in an Indiegogo campaign. The Bluetooth- and GPS-equipped carry-on suitcase is controllable from a smartphone, enabling users to lock and unlock the suitcase from the phone, track its location, weigh it using the built-in digital scale and get notifications if it’s left behind, Bluesmart said. A built-in battery can charge a smartphone six times, the company said. The Bluesmart lock is Travel Sentry Approved, ensuring that it’s accepted by the TSA and security and customs agencies around the world, it said. Proximity sensors notify users when they’re separated from the suitcase, including a reminder of the last recorded location, and they can also indicate location with a proximity heat map, the company said. In the case of lost luggage, the Bluesmart network will help track the bag's location. As the network grows, tracking coverage will as well, Bluesmart said. The current $349 Indiegogo price is 20 percent off the expected selling price.

The House Judiciary Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet Subcommittee plans an “educational hearing to examine the policy and legislative implications for [IoT] technology and the potential effects on issues including privacy, security, standards, intellectual property protection, cloud computing, digital trade, wearable and mobile devices, and the Internet,” said House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., in a committee news release Monday. Wednesday’s hearing will be an opportunity for members to learn more about the benefits and challenges of IoT when 25 billion connected things are expected by 2020, said Subcommittee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif.: “While questions about privacy and data security are central to the development of IoT, it is critical that Congress’ goals focus on allowing the marketplace to flourish rather than take actions that could stifle innovation.” Witnesses for Wednesday’s hearing are Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers President Mitch Bainwol, Association for Competitive Technology Executive Director Morgan Reed, CEA President Gary Shapiro and Information Technology Industry Council President Dean Garfield, the release said.

The 2015 Intel Developer Forum will be Aug. 18-20 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. The forum will focus on five topics: digital security, gaming, IoT and big data, 5G innovation and the maker movement, Intel said. More than 160 technical sessions with industry and Intel experts will be offered during the three-day event, plus demonstrations by 180 technology companies, Intel said.

Silicon Labs announced a new release of its Simplicity Studio IoT development platform that enables concurrent microcontroller and wireless design. Silicon Labs is targeting the low-power platform to battery-powered IoT applications including wearables, personal medical devices, wireless sensor nodes and gas and water meters, it said. An energy-profiling tool includes a feature that enables developers to benchmark the energy efficiency of their systems and determine which design iterations provide the best score related to battery life, said the company. Silicon Labs said it will regularly update the Simplicity Studio platform with new and enhanced features and support. Before releasing new platform versions, the company plans to beta test key features with selected customers in Silicon Labs’ embedded developer community, it said. The latest Simplicity Studio download is available to developers at no charge.

Most mobile operators believe mobile broadband capacity and IoT are the primary drivers behind 5G development, said a Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) 5G white paper released Monday. TIA also said 71 percent of mobile operators surveyed think Asia will lead 5G development, and one-third of operators responding to the survey expect their companies to launch commercial 5G service by 2021. The remaining two-thirds don't expect to have full commercial service available until after 2022, TIA said.

Rémy Martin tapped Selinko's integrated near field communications platform to bring to market what it called the first bottle connected through "high-security NFC technology." The Club Connected Bottle will be available in nightclubs in China this fall, using a "tamper-proof" NFC tag that can be used to prove "genuine provenance," to detect a previously opened bottle and to give the Rémy brand a way to connect to its audience after purchase, said Rémy Martin. The NFC chip works with asymmetric encryption to detect the opening of the bottle and remains active thereafter, said the company. When a consumer taps the top of a bottle using an Android phone with the Rémy Martin app, the app appears and shows whether the bottle is sealed or has been resealed, said the company. Once the consumer has opened a bottle, the integrated NFC tag emits a different signal indicating the bottle has shifted from "sealed" to "opened," it said. Tapping the bottle a second time brings up recipes and interactive games through which consumers can accrue loyalty points, a company spokeswoman told us. Rémy Martin intends to extend the program to iPhone users when the iPhone's NFC chip becomes available to third-party developers, she said. The technology is certified to EAL4+ graded (on a one to seven scale) evaluation assurance levels, according to global security standards originating in Europe, said the company. The program will roll out to other markets after the China launch, said the company.

CEA and LonMark International announced two new standards available for home and building automation. The standards give multiple parties -- users, developers, vendors, integrators and specifiers of open building control systems -- a way to develop and deliver a higher level of device-to-device interoperability using any open control networking communication platform, said CEA. The intent of the standards is “to offer to the market a very proven, well adopted approach to solving the Internet of Things (IoT) interoperability issue,” said Ron Bernstein, chief ambassador, LonMark. “These profiles can be decoupled from the core ANSI/CEA-709.1 control network protocol and be implemented on any transport, providing a unique opportunity for other standards development bodies to jumpstart their interoperability efforts,” said Bernstein. CEA-709.5 Implementation Guidelines defines the application layer requirements for interoperable devices and how they share key information, status and data across an open control network, said CEA. The application elements, typically deployed on an ANSI/CEA-709.1 LonWorks protocol network, define how to interact with disparate devices from multiple vendors in the same system, improving installation time and integration by “defining units, range and resolution, configuration, and enumeration requirements along with device self-documentation information within the standard,” they said. The new standard enables other transports the option of adopting a common application layer element description library, they said. CEA-709.6 Application Elements built upon the .5 Implementation Guidelines by providing a catalog of more than 100 common device profiles, with more than 380 specific implementation options. The profiles define the mandatory and optional design requirements for standard data variables, standard configuration properties, enumeration types and standard interface file requirements, they said. The library of device profiles includes definitions for HVAC, lighting, security, access, metering, energy management, fire and smoke control, gateways, commercial and industrial I/O, gas detection, generators, room automation, renewable energy, utility, automated food service, semiconductor fabrication, transportation and home and appliances.