Chinese manufacturers will soon market their own 8K high-definition televisions, regardless of a dearth of content at this moment available for the next-generation technology. Haier will put its 8K TVs on the market in China by the end of this year, next in Europe and various other regions opening as soon as next year. Hisense will also roll out 8K models in Europe as early as next year, and TCL said it will release its own offering that same year.

Hyundai Motor Group announced on Wednesday new passenger car releases will be built with self-developed center side airbag to divide the space between driver and passenger and stop head injuries.

Swedish-Swiss engineering group ABB has initiated construction of a $150 million plant here to build automation equipment, eyeing the sector's growth opportunity in China and the rest of Asia. The 67,000-sq.-meter facility, when completed in 2021, will substitute a site that is one of the group's three global production factories. ABB outlined its new plant in Shanghai as the 'factory of the future where robots will make robots.'

The Internet of Things — exclusively in an industrial capacity — is reaching a primary tipping point in terms of accessibility, capabilities and usefulness.

Since its origin in 2013, Slack’s collaboration platform has turned business communication, with more than 10 million daily active users. Adoption has been confined basically to office workers, but Slack can also help manufacturers expedite problem resolution on the shop floor, support continuous improvement activities, and even improve customer relationships.

Universal Robots, undoubtedly the dominant force in collaborative robots, is warming up its muscles in an effort to further expand its reach in the cobots market. The Danish company is introducing today the UR16e, its strongest robotic arm yet, with a payload capability of 16 kilograms (35.3 lbs), reach of 900 millimeters, and repeatability of +/- 0.05 mm.

With the appeal of AI flourishing in the last few years, so too have the volume of conferences either dedicated to machine learning and artificial intelligence or at least discussing the topics as a major portion of the agenda. Nevertheless, the inaugural AI Hardware Summit stood out from the crowd last year. At the conference, not just did attendees hear from the major technology players, some start-ups like Habana emerged from stealth mode with innovative solutions. The second annual AI Hardware Summit presented by Kisaco Research assures more of the same.

It turns out that something most humans take for granted — the ability to see, process and then act on visual input — is immensely hard to replicate in machines. That is specifically what computer vision (CV) aims to do. While perhaps not as advanced as human sight, computer vision has advanced to the point it is very useful in business today. Here’s more about what computer vision is and how it is used in business.

Industry 4.0 and the digital age were induced by an avalanche of technological advances, such as for example the Internet of Things (IoT), the Cloud, and Artificial Intelligence (AI). These technological advances are welcoming in the emergence of a new type of workforce that leverages the availability of new tools, devices and gadgets. 

Like many technologies in the industrial automation sphere, networking technologies are generally installed for the long haul. In essence, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
 
But with the advance of Industry 4.0 and Industrial Internet of Things initiatives bringing IT and OT (operational technologies) closer together, a move toward more regular upgrades of industrial network technologies looks to be underway - at least in some verticals.
 
According to Schaffer, the frequency of network upgrades across industries does, of course, tend to deviate - due to “the nature of the work in a particular vertical and the amount of capex involved. On the low end, it tends to be every five years, but typically ranges from 10-20 years. In the IT space, where I’ve spent much of my career, the standard is to upgrade every 3-5 years to keep up with technology changes.”
 
Speaking about upgrade practices in particular industry verticals, Schaffer said the water/wastewater and electric power industries tend to have longest intervals between upgrades cycles. In these industries, going “20 years between upgrades is not uncommon due to specialized network design” and the relevant attitude around NTAR, i.e., never touch a running system.
 
On the contrary, the oil and gas industry refreshes a lot more regularly, particularly over the past a few years with the upsurge in this industry’s profits. “They’re also embracing a much more data centric model of operation,” said Schaffer. “To get access to that data, they need to upgrade more frequently. They’ve also seen crippling effects of cybersecurity attacks - like the one impacting Saudi Aramco (in 2012), which is making them much more proactive. On the discrete side of industry, automotive is leading the charge because they’ve been actively embedding IT into their OT ranks. So, they have more of that three- to five-year upgrade mentality.”
 
Beyond the technological benefits, Schaffer said one of the biggest business advantages of a network upgrade is that it provides the perfect excuse to update, validate, and clean up documentation. “Too many times I’ve been in plants asking about what devices are connected to the network and what they’re connected to on the network only to find that the documentation is out of date. No one knows the answer—so it’s difficult to manage the network from an operational and cybersecurity vantage point. I’m a big believer in knowing your network. Whenever you do an update, it gives you the perfect opportunity to re-acquaint yourself with the infrastructure that makes your plant tick.”
 
The biggest impacts to be obtained from a network upgrade will take place on the higher end, where IT and OT meet, said Schaffer. “The closer you are to the high end of network - where data is going to edge or cloud - that’s where you see a change in the mindset in the past couple of years. If you want to take advantage of these new capabilities, you need to upgrade regularly here.”
 
Schaffer also suggests taking security into account as part of your network upgrade. He suggests three best practices here:
 

• Follow the principle of least privilege (or least authority). A device should only be allowed to communicate with what it needs to communicate with. Give it the connections and access rights it needs and nothing more.
• Proactive defense in depth.Layer your defenses with different and various techniques and technologies. Having just one firewall with no defenses behind it is not ideal.
• Know your network. Logging, auditing, monitoring, performing baselines, and understanding what your network should look like normally is a huge benefit when something goes wrong. For example, if your network normally sees 7 mbps traffic levels and you see it spike to 27 mpbs, you can focus on the devices generating the extra traffic.

 
When it's about answering the reader question about how often industrial networks should be upgraded, Schaffer noted that, “while mileage may vary, I suggest patching once per year at least, with once per quarter being best, and doing a full technology refresh every 5-7 years.”
 
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As a manufacturer, you don’t necessarily need to be an expert on the technology behind IIoT. You are most concerned with precisely how the technology will probably enable you to deliver quality products on time, keep costs contained, and improve productivity. It helps to be as informed as possible so you know enough to be an informed consumer of this technology.
 
With that in mind, here are key Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) terms that will be helpful for you:
 
Data Terms
 
The majority of Industrial IoT terminology revolves around data - mainly, the massive amounts of data that it generates:
 

• Big data. A very large data set that can be analyzed for patterns and trends.
• Streaming data. Data that is continuously generated by different sources.
• Sensor data. The output of a device that detects and responds to some type of input from the physical environment. The output may be used to provide information or input to another system, or to guide a process.
• Time-series data. Data that collectively represents how a system, process, or behavior changes over time.

 
Business Process Terms
 
You’ll also hear significant amounts of terminology that defines special business processes:
 

• Predictive maintenance. Techniques that are designed to help determine the condition of in-service equipment to predict when maintenance should be performed. This approach promises cost savings over routine or time-based preventive maintenance because tasks are performed only when warranted.
• Operational intelligence. A category of real-time, dynamic business analytics that delivers visibility and insight into data, streaming events, and business operations.
• Overall equipment effectiveness (OEE). A measure of how well a manufacturing operation is utilized (facilities, time, and material) compared to its full potential, during the periods when it is scheduled to run.
• Asset monitoring. The process of monitoring all activity associated with a particular machine. Including but not limited to production, performance, quality, health, etc.

 
Technical Terms
 
This is where the terms get somewhat technical so it’s good to educate yourself on these:
 

• Application Programming Interface (API). A set of functions or procedures that allow one application to access / interact with the features or data of another application or service
• Programmable Logic Controller (PLC). An industrial digital computer that continuously monitors the state of input devices to make decisions (to control manufacturing processes and equipment) based on pre-programmed logic. 
• Radio Frequency Identification (RFID). A wireless communication technology that uses radio frequency to power passive tags (small circuit antenna) to uniquely identify people or objects.
• Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA). A control system architecture that uses computers and networked data communications to monitor and control factory floor equipment.

 
Security and Standards Terms
 
When your data is being stored in the cloud, security comes to be so very important. That’s why it is good to familiarize yourself with these terms:
 

• Identity and Access Management (IAM). A framework of business processes, policies, and technologies that manage digital identities (for e.g. used for authentication and access management)
• Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT). A messaging protocol that works on top of TCP/IP. Designed for use cases with a low code footprint or limited network bandwidth.
• Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP). The language used to access the Internet.
• Ethernet IP. One of the manufacturing communication protocols used for transmitting information between electronic devices. Ethernet IP was originally developed by Rockwell Automation.
• Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP). The underlying protocol used by the World Wide Web. HTTP defines how messages are formatted and transmitted, and what actions Web servers and browsers should take in response to various commands.

 
With an understanding of these terms, you are well prepared to keep researching and determining your options.
 
TRONSERVE

Artificial intelligence is the most transformative business trend in the world today. Hold on, you say — AI is not a new idea. In the 1940s the great mathematician and code breaker Alan Turing predicted that digital computers in the future would be capable of logical reasoning. Commercial interest in AI began in the 1960s and waxed and waned over the next several decades.

Japan and the U.S. will agree not to require technology companies to divulge software secrets under their bilateral trade deal, except in cases of possible antitrust law violations, Nikkei learned Thursday. The in-principle ban on forced disclosures, part of the section of the draft agreement pertaining to digital trade, shows an endeavor to hit a balance between high-tech competition and government's role in intervening to stop data from becoming concentrated in the hands of a few companies.

Samsung Electronics Co. Wednesday introduced its mass production of 5G-intergrated mobile processor Exynos 980 powering 5G modem and intelligent processing performance in a single chip. The Exynos 980 is Samsung Electronics’ first artificial intelligence (AI) mobile processor with an integrated 5G modem. Rather than being coupled with a separate 5G modem, the new mobile processor not only helps lessen power consumption but also enhances the space efficiency within a device.

Artificial Intelligence is certainly the most complex and astounding creations of humanity yet. And that is disregarding the fact that the field stays largely undiscovered, which means that every amazing AI application that we see today shows purely the tip of the AI iceberg, as it were. While this fact may have been stated and restated numerous times, it is still hard to adequately gain perspective on the potential impact of AI in the future. The reason for this is the revolutionary impact that AI is having on society, even at such a relatively early stage in its evolution.

Viettel Group, Vietnam's largest mobile carrier, has decided not to use Huawei Technologies equipment for its 5G wireless network, citing security concerns with the Chinese company. The military-run telecom will depend largely on hardware supplied by Finland's Nokia and Sweden's Ericsson, according to local media reports.

Each day, the world produces some 5.5 million tons of waste. During the period of a year, that adds up to more than 2 billion tons of solid municipal waste, much of it taking up space in landfills and producing carbon emissions as it rots away. By 2050, the World Bank estimates that the problem will be even worse, reaching 3.4 billion tons of annual waste — a 70 percent increase. 

Four years ago, headhunters started out calling a top engineer at Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC. They were persistent, calling three times a week - but the engineer, who asked to be identified only as Emily, turned down their overtures.

Huawei Technologies was among the Asian tech giants showing-off its latest 5G and foldable smartphones at the IFA trade show in Berlin, focusing on innovation over politics even as the China-U.S. trade war remains to cast a shadow over the company. Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei's consumer business group, presented the opening keynote speech for the event. The Chinese company is accused by the U.S. government of being unduly close to Beijing and has been targeted by a number of measures, including a ban aimed at blocking its access to American technologies.

Xiaomi has developed wireless charging technology that can power up even the largest devices in around an hour, the fastest among comparable systems, the Chinese smartphone maker said Monday. The Mi Charge Turbo will be introduced shortly coupled with Xiaomi's new 5G flagship smartphone.