During the show, we met with Connect Tech Inc. who introduced us to two of their latest Xtreme PCIe/104 products, including the Xtreme/GPU product that can be ordered either with an AMD Radeon E6760 or an NVIDIA GeForce GT 740M. These modules can provide support for up to four displays, which is a lot of capability in a 3.77” x 3.55” form factor. If the solution needs Ethernet capability, the Xtreme/GbE packs 8 ports of Gigabit Ethernet connectivity into that same space. The conversation with Connect Tech took an interesting turn to a discussion about problems which may arise when... Continue reading

In this blog we will continue to provide a few more highlights from the suppliers we spoke to at the 2013 DESIGN WEST / Embedded Systems Conference that was held last week in San Jose. Small Form Factor Motherboards: At the VersaLogic booth we were shown several of their new small form factor motherboards, including the EBX format Copperhead that is powered by an Intel i7 processor and can support up to 3 independent displays. We also saw their COM Express Mini format Falcon and EPIC format Iguana that are powered by Intel Atom processors. The Iguana boards have a... Continue reading

During a recent conversation at VDC, the topic turned to a problem often seen by users of travel and restaurant advisor sites. It is often difficult to determine legitimate user ratings from those that were created by employees or competitors of the venue in question. We believe that Google, Apple, or another industry participant could mitigate this problem by using an M2M architecture solution. Here is how it would work: The persons who would want to be authenticated reviewers of hospitality venues would register at a cloud-based site. The mobile devices they carry would be linked to their profile. The... Continue reading

Last week, while attending the 2013 DESIGN West/Embedded Systems Conference in San Jose we presented the VDC Research Embeddy Award for the best new embedded hardware product. As part of the selection process the VDC Embedded Hardware team met with more than 30 companies to discuss product announcements and a variety of industry trends impacting the embedded hardware market today. Before we get to the award winner, we will start with a few highlights from some of the suppliers we spoke to at the show. Connectivity enhanced Microcontrollers: Microchip usually makes several significant embedded hardware announcements at DW/ESC shows and... Continue reading

The VDC embedded hardware team received a very interesting briefing from RFMicron (Austin, Texas) on an IC component aimed at solving a problem seen with passive RFID tags. In addition to increasing the performance of the RFID tag, the new chip (called Magnus) actually allows the tag to perform additional functions and, as a result, we believe that this product has many potential M2M applications. Here is a bit of background. Passive RFID tags do not contain any power source of their own. When stimulated by the correct RF signal, they chirp back data that is stored on or measured... Continue reading

An interesting opportunity for embedded hardware suppliers caught the attention of the VDC M2M Embedded Platform team. The opportunity was highlighted in a Boston Globe article this week about a local police department that equipped a cruiser with a $28K Automatic License Plate Reader (ALPR) unit. There were a number of eye-popping statistics starting with the fact that the unit apparently paid for itself in the first 11 days it was deployed. The ROI was accomplished from revenues generated by identifying vehicles and drivers with expired licenses, registrations, inspections, or other unpaid fines and fees. ALPRs can also be used... Continue reading

This morning, we saw a blog about how Danfoss was integrating an M2M application into their solar panel inverter products. What are these particular inverters? Before we begin, it’s worth taking a quick look at what an inverter does. First, a solar panel outputs DC power, at voltages that vary with the applied load. To be able to use this power at the residence and/or output it to the grid, it must be converted to a set AC voltage and frequency. This means that the DC output from the solar installation must be changed to the correct frequency (50 or... Continue reading

Last week, Samsung unveiled its latest Galaxy S4 Smartphone. The first wave of news indicated that it would be powered by Samsung’s new 8-core Exynos 5 octa processor. This is exciting to us because it represents one of the first commercial rollouts of the ARM big.LITTLE technology. Samsung intends to sell the Exynos 5 to other device makers as well. These types of processors although targeted for use in high-end mobile devices, may find M2M and embedded market traction as well because of the many functions that are included and the technology that balances processor speed and power consumption. The... Continue reading

Based on my experience, there is a point to Marissa Meyer’s new policy at Yahoo. Collaboration can indeed happen when people work in a same physical area. When I worked as a product support engineer back in the late 90’s, our team would take calls from field engineers as the second tier of customer support. There was countless times where the team members would overhear a conversation from a person on a call and offer assistance because they had a good idea about what the problem was. If anything, the challenge back then was proving to people that collaboration could... Continue reading

Supplier interviews for VDC’s 2013 Embedded Hardware Service for Embedded Products are currently underway. As a result of a recent SGET (Standardization Group for Embedded Technologies) announcement, we will now be including SMARC as a separate form factor in VDC’s embedded COMs report. SMARC, formerly known as ULP-COM, comprises a Kontron-proposed SGET standard for ultra low power COMs. In 2013, Kontron has announced the release of 3 new SMARC products utilizing one of Freescale, TI, or NVidia ARM-based processors. Somewhat similar in appearance to the DIMM-PC COM form factor which originated with JUMPtec (acquired by Kontron in 2002), SMARC modules... Continue reading

This week, Sony announced some details for the next generation of the Playstation 3 (PS 3) game system. The new product will be called the Playstation 4 (PS 4) which makes sense because once you build a brand, you do not want to create confusion or disruptions with your customer base. From a technical perspective brand continuity is not as easily accomplished while making significant architecture changes between platform models. This is precisely the issue that Sony could have with the PS 4 because of the changes in embedded processing. The PS 4 will now be using an x86 64-bit... Continue reading

VDC Research Group will be joining the embedded world 2013 exhibition and conference. Last year’s conference was a fantastic event, with numerous exhibitions and great presentations of embedded hardware. This year's event looks to be no different with well over 700 exhibitor booths listed. VDC’s Embedded Hardware Team will be arriving February 26th and will be at the conference through February 28th. During that time, we welcome the opportunity to connect with attending vendors. We look forward to explaining VDC’s research methodology, learning about your latest product releases, and discussing your market research and strategic needs. If you would like... Continue reading

This is not to say that embedded computing products are not already found in the typical home. To be quite clear, embedded microcontrollers are used in almost every new appliance that has any type of display, or has features beyond the lowest cost bare-bones models. Embedded computing modules and integrated systems, however, are generally not found in the home, as they are much more expensive than functionally-comparable consumer products. Furthermore, embedded computing products are usually designed with ruggedized, but aesthetically plain, enclosures. Lastly, embedded computers usually have the minimum hardware required for a given application and offer few, if any,... Continue reading

We just saw a review about Huawei’s new Ascend Mate SmartPhone that features a 6.1” touchscreen, and it was far from positive. In summary, CNN Money’s Adrian Covert found the Huawei product’s market placement to be in the less than ideal “Phablet” zone between phone and tablet. We agree with Adrian in one area, it is probably not an ideal size for a phone. But, at the same time, we believe this class of mobile product can possibly experience the same type of success as 3M’s well known Post-It product. Here’s a quick summary in case you did not know... Continue reading

In the last two days, I have written about two situational awareness applications for embedded hardware products. The first was toward the creepy side and the second much more acceptable on multiple fronts. I think you will find this somewhat in the middle. As the New Year’s Eve approaches, you might find this application provides you with actionable intelligence that you can really use. In Wednesday’s Boston Globe I read a story about a company called SceneTap and they provide a downloadable application that can give you current population and demographic information from local bars or hangouts that you might... Continue reading

In yesterday’s blog we looked at some pretty creepy applications for situational awareness technology. Now, let’s look to how these systems can be employed in a much more socially acceptable manner. In the wake of the Sandy Hook School and Aurora Theatre tragedies, President Obama has made a governmental call to action with a task force being formed to examine every possible solution. Gun control will be considered as well as the NRA’s plan to use more armed guards. Neither extreme is likely to be a good standalone solution. Embedded computing could be part of a more optimal solution. Situational... Continue reading

This blog related to a Verizon patent application is a follow-up to a previous VDC embedded hardware blog talked about the embedded computing capability being added to signage. The Verizon patent application is for similar applications/technology related to set-top boxes. If the Verizon technology described in the patent is deployed, that same type of technology mentioned in the previous blog on signage might one day apply in your living room. The Verizon technology would monitor the TV viewing area using microphones, cameras and or sensors. These sensors could be located in the set-top box, TV, and/or mobile device. Verizon’s overall... Continue reading

While doing some research on small form factor embedded computers for our M2M reports, I ran across something I thought was very interesting, and I think you will find it interesting as well. I saw that a recently released Kontron embedded computer targeted at the digital signage market was pre-validated for use with Intel’s AIM Suite software. I thought that it couldn’t be AOL’s Instant Messenger so I wondered what it was. As it turns out, AIM stands for Audience Impression Metric and it uses video from outward facing cameras in the digital signage. By using the AIM software, the... Continue reading

I was pretty impressed when I read about the Israeli Iron Dome missile defense system and how effective it has been during the latest conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. At first, I believed that it was a derivative of the Raytheon Patriot missile system and, although they share the same mission, there are some key differences related to embedded processing that make perfect sense when you consider them. A single Patriot missile costs somewhere in the area of $2-3 Million and, in some tactical situations using one would be in many ways like trying to kill hornets with... Continue reading

I was reading the paper today and saw a story in the Boston Globe about people being shocked to find out that their Facebook account has them liking Mitt Romney, Jay-Z, Danica Patrick, and Grey Goose Vodka. Now this could be the result of having too much Grey Goose and not remembering that late night Facebook session, I have another possible explanation related to my Halloween blog post. What if, people using using sniffer applications on public Wi-Fi networks were selling the session cookies they stole? I am not sure whether they can be re-used in all cases but, if... Continue reading

Last week's M2M post looking at the risks that have to be overcome for embedded defibrillators was pretty scary. Now, I have something M2M related that might be pretty scary even if you don’t have an implanted medical device. I have been pretty impressed with some advertisements about how users can connect with home DVRs and possibly other accessories from their mobile devices. In one advertisement I saw, a mother is able to view cameras, unlock the front door for her daughter, and turn off lights when the daughter forgets. The scary part is if she was doing this from... Continue reading

As we continue our VDC FastForward report on the Internet of Things (IoT), security continues to be a major focus point for all of the market ecosystem participants. This week, I saw an interesting article that highlights the challenges of securing mobile equipment that needs to be connected to each other and/or the cloud. Implanted medical devices need to be connected wirelessly in order to be monitored and adjusted but, need to be protected against being hacked. The worst case a hacker or rogue organization could broadcast signals causing implanted medical devices to go haywire to the detriment of the... Continue reading

This week there were several interesting developments related to M2M and cloud services. The first was the announcement of an agreement between IBM and AT&T that effectively provides a comprehensive connectivity and cloud services package. Why is this deal significant? The primary answer is security. If there is one main barrier to M2M adoption, it is the concept of moving sensitive data through the internet. The other related barrier is about exposing a machine or thing to outside access through that same path. One example of security loopholes would be a “man in the middle” access and this is highlighted... Continue reading

With the start of the 4th quarter of 2012 VDC’s Embedded Hardware Practice is kicking off the project to produce the 3rd exciting volume in the FastForward: Insight for Leaders series. We look forward to your participation as we look to profile several dynamic companies that are active in the ecosystem that is driving the Internet of Things (IoT) revolution. Does your company have an interesting success story that involves some of these elements? Solving problems through M2M connectivity Monetizing data that had been stove-piped in embedded systems Partnerships between your organization and others to provide advanced product packages that... Continue reading

On Monday through Wednesday of this week, VDC attended the Design East ESC show at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston. In yesterday's blog we talked about the embeddy. In today's blog we will look at some of our experiences at the show. At this year’s show, we noted several themes: safety & regulation, security, connectivity as well as the usual performance, power, and price trends. Connectivity Trends: A few years ago, the VDC perception while attending ESC Boston and Freescale’s Technology Forum, was that many members of the embedded community had significant uncertainty around what communications standards would become... Continue reading