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Showing posts with label 5G. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 5G. Show all posts

Lutron lights up Amazon Echo’s life



Lutron Electronics has added its Caséta Wireless system to the growing list of devices that support Amazon Alexa range, which includes the Echo, Dot, Tap, and Fire TV.
The Caséta Wireless system features various connected LED lights that can change color or brightness on demand. The integration of Alexa allows users to change the lights through voice commands, an ideal solution when you cannot find your smartphone.

See Also: Could smart cities improve indoor air quality with home sensors?
Amazon has been steadily improving the range of voice commands for the Echo, to the point it can now hear you from a few meters away. So if you want to turn the lights on when you enter your house late at night, there’s a good chance your Echo will hear you from the porch.


Lutron and Amazon continue to add to smart home family

Lutron already provides a mobile app, available on iOS, Apple Watch and Android, for turning on and changing the light’s colors. The system also supports other smart home hubs like Works with Nest and Apple’s HomeKit, so this is a completion of the smart home package to make sure all consumers are happy.

These aren’t the first lights to take advantage of Amazon’s Alexa platform, Philips Hue, LIFX and Belkin WeMo are already integrated and offer similar functionality.
Lutron’s Caséta Wireless kit currently retails for under $100, and most wireless lightbulbs launched after 2014 are compatible with the system. You can check Lutron’s compatibility page for more information.

Hundreds of other devices are starting to integrate with Amazon’s platform, as customers start to realise the benefits of the Echo, Dot, and Tap in everyday life. Even platform hubs like the Nest thermostat and SmartThings are integrated with Alexa, taking advantage of the voice commands and APIs Amazon has on offer.

Baidu building a self-driving team in Silicon Valley



The Chinese web search giant Baidu is looking to expand its autonomous car program to the United States by bringing a 100-person team to Silicon Valley. This puts it in the same space – and now, same neighborhood – as its closest American equivalent, Google.

Baidu isn’t a household name here in the United States, but in China, it is the go-to search engine for over 80% of its 1.35 billion citizens. It was also the first Chinese company to be listed on the NASDAQ-100 index, making it an easy company to compare to Google.
Like Google, Baidu has been branching out in recent years to social networking, mobile operating systems, and even self-driving cars.

See also: Baidu wants self-driving cars on the roads by 2018 


Baidu says the Silicon Valley team will be known as Autonomous Driving Unit-US, or ADU-US. It will focus on areas integral to self-driving car development, including planning, perception, control and systems. ADU-US will work alongside Baidu’s existing Silicon Valley-based teams, including Baidu Research.

Earlier this month, Tesla opened its doors to receive pre-orders for its yet-to-be-unveiled Model 3. It received over 325,000 pro-orders – many of which were made sight unseen – in just a few days. One of the primary drivers of interest in this vehicle was Tesla’s self-driving mode that enables you to take your hands off the wheel and enjoy the ride while the car changes lanes, turns, and navigates you to where you want to go.
With interest in autonomous vehicles this high, it’s no surprise that Baidu has decided to jump in and develop its own platform that it can then partner with manufacturers like BMW to bring to market.

“Baidu is fully committed to making self-driving cars a reality,” said Jing Wang, SVP of Baidu and General Manager of Baidu’s Autonomous Driving Unit. “Autonomous vehicles will save lives and make transportation more efficient. Baidu’s Silicon Valley car team will play a significant role in building the car of the future.”

Huawei focused on IoT and VR in 2016



Communications giant Huawei has revealed its vision for 2016 at its annual analyst summit (HAS), with a focus on the Internet of Things (IoT), virtual reality, and 5G internet.
The Chinese firm was one of the first to begin 5G tests, working with Japanese wireless carrier NTT Docomo last year on field tests. It expects to see a rollout in the next five years, but in the meantime Huawei plans to upgrade its LTE Advanced service.

See Also: Google is Readying its Own Internet of Things OS
The two other areas hinge on faster internet speeds and more bandwidth, according to Huawei. It claims that LTE Advanced might be enough for artificial and virtual reality, though an IoT system in every home might require much faster Wi-Fi and cellular speeds.
Huawei didn’t announce any individual devices for the IoT market at the summit, but wants to become a provider of entire systems for consumers. This is being attempted by Nest and Apple, through Works with Nest and HomeKit, but without a strong consumer platform like the Nest thermostat or iPhone it might be hard for Huawei to get off the ground.

It already has its own IoT ecosystem, Lite OS, but only a few IoT applications and services utilize the ecosystem. Indian Express points to one app for smart parking, which allocates a parking space for a car before it enters the facility, lowering the amount of time searching for a space.
That’s not exactly the most innovative app in the IoT world, but Huawei seems committed to building its ecosystem and partnering with more developers in the future.


Huawei also working hard on VR

On the virtual reality front, Huawei recently released a VR headset to compete with Samsung’s Gear VR. It works with the P9 and P9 Plus devices, similar to Samsung’s VR, but uses its own ecosystem that offers 4,000 movies and 30 video games for free.

That might be enough in the short-term for customers, but it will need to constantly update its store to keep users interested. That is why Samsung’s partnership with Oculus made sense, so that developers weren’t forced to develop for yet another VR platform.
All in all, the real excitement here is the onset of 5G in the next five years. We’ve heard data speeds reaching up to 800Gbps in UK research labs, though we expect 2-10Gbps when it initially arrives in 2020, enough to hopefully power an IoT home without any hiccups.