SAS, Cisco and the University of Technology Sydney have teamed up on an Internet of Things (IoT) centric project.

Dec 7, 2017  -  Chorus has today announced that it is underway with a proof of concept for a LoRaWAN (Long Range Wide Area Network) Internet of Things (IoT) network.  The proof of concept was undertaken in Takapuna and Torbay on Auckland’s North Shore. It makes use of Chorus' existing street network assets to provide localised, deep network coverage which enables sensors to communicate with the IoT network from what would typically be hard-to-access locations, such as underground wastewater or sewage pumping stations. The LoRaWAN solution operates similarly to Wi-Fi but over long range, with limited bandwidth and without the need for a nearby router. It caters specifically for IoT sensors that send regular, small amounts of data. Typically, an IoT access point in an urban area will give network coverage out to between 1.5km and 3km. An innovative approach has been taken for powering the LoRaWAN access points on the Chorus street infrastructure. With the UFB fibre build complete in Takapuna and increasing uptake of fibre broadband, existing copper lines were available to re-purpose to power the IoT access point from the exchange. Chorus CEO, Kate McKenzie, said, "We're excited about the opportunities the Internet of Things offers New Zealand businesses. The benefits go far beyond simple efficiency improvements, cost-cutting and revenue generation. "The proof of concept in Auckland substantiated our belief that there is a symbiotic relationship between Chorus and IoT network technologies. Our extensive, nationwide network of assets including 280,000 telephone poles, 6,000 street cabinets, 600 exchanges and 200 masts on high sites, means we will be able to offer levels of IoT network coverage that competing networks will struggle to achieve. "More and more businesses are showing tangible benefits from IoT here and overseas and it’s clear that attitudes are changing. IoT's set to become mission critical for New Zealand businesses.” In developing the proof of concept Chorus partnered with Vianet, a Ventia business that brought their technology-enabled asset management expertise and IoT experience to the team. Arjun Narang, General Manager Vianet, said,”We are pleased to be involved in this proof of concept and supporting Chorus in realising their IoT strategy. Building on the long-term relationship that Ventia’s telecommunications services business, Visionstream, has with Chorus, this is a great opportunity to explore the combined capabilities of Chorus and Vianet to make infrastructure work for our communities.” Chorus already monitors 25,000 sensors and alarms across its access and aggregation network, buildings and outdoor plant. The adoption of an integrated IoT solution with analytics presents an opportunity to improve network utilisation with less downtime and streamline the customer experience.

| A Chorus release  ||  December 6,  2017   |||

Nov 30, 2017  -  Europe’s largest industrial manufacturing company, Siemens, has teamed up with one of the world’s largest software companies, Software AG, to address the IoT market by integrating Siemens’ IoT operating system, MindSphere, with Software AG’s Digital Business Platform.  Software AG CEO Karl-Heinz Streibich said the aim was to intelligently combine Siemens’ global industrial presence with Software AG’s software expertise in IoT.

“Bringing our high-performance components of our Digital Business Platform to MindSphere, users will have new opportunities to exploit the full potential of their data to get a competitive edge,” he said.

The two companies say the combination of their technologies will provide comprehensive market-leading capabilities enabling users to acquire and comprehensively analyse raw data produced by plants, machines, systems and products more easily.

“Software AG application and device management technology enables both centralised networking of devices as well as cloud-based management, providing scalable and flexible management for a network of millions of end devices, also in the area of edge analytics in the future,” Software AG said.

Siemens describes MindSphere as a cloud-based, open IoT operating system that “connects real things to the digital world,” and “an open platform as a service (PaaS) [that] enables a rich partner ecosystem to develop and deliver new applications providing a basis for new business models, such as in the fields of preventive maintenance, energy data management or resource optimisation.”

Siemens says MindSphere’s APIs and support for open connectivity standards enable the production of OEM and customer specific apps. “For example, for machine manufacturers, Siemens MindApps provide the basic functions for machine manufacturers to enter the digital world,” the company says.

“Machine manufacturers can use these basic functions to apply their specific and comprehensive machine and process knowledge. … This allows them, for example, to monitor machines scattered throughout the world, or whole machine fleets, and to reduce their downtime.”

The Digital Business Platform is Software AG’s flagship product. It is essentially a methodology for a business that wants to undergo digital transformation and is complemented with a range of software products to enable that process.

In the IoT sphere the Digital Business Platform underpins Software AG’s Cumulocity IoT, launched in September 2017.

Software AG said at the time. “[Cumulocity IoT] brings together the power of Software AG’s Digital Business Platform and the original Cumulocity products portfolio into a single, comprehensive and leading IoT portfolio [that] will take full advantage of Software AG’s industry-leading integration, business process, advanced analytics and machine learning capabilities, based on its heritage in enterprise middleware platform leadership.”

Cumulocity originated as a spinoff from the, now defunct, Nokia Siemens joint venture in 2010 and was acquired by Software AG in 2016. According to Software AG, Cumulocity now has over 200 eco system partners including device partners, network and connectivity partners, application partners, system integrators and ISVs.

MindSphere is part of Siemens’ Digital Enterprise Suite, which the company says is used for product lifecycle management, manufacturing operations management and totally integrated automation to make “products, like laptops, computers, televisions, cars, trucks, planes, heavy equipment, fitness devices, white goods, etc.”

Siemens envisions these products being connected to MindSphere so their data can be collected and analysed in MindSphere applications and connected back to the complete digital twin to drive innovation.

MindSphere fulfils a similar role in the IoT ecosystem as Predix from US based industrial giant GE and the Siemens/Software AG tie up is the latest in a series as Siemens and GE seek to increase the role of their respective platforms in industrial IoT.

Earlier this month Apple announced a software development kit to enable developers to create iOS apps integrated with GE’s Predix industrial IoT platform. A year earlier GE and Microsoft announced a partnership to make GE’s Predix industrial IoT platform available on Microsoft Azure.

In September 2016 Bosch and GE announced plans to work on technology interoperability and platform integration through Predix operating system and the Bosch IoT Suite.

In December 2016 Siemens and IBM announced plans to integrate IBM's Watson Analytics and other analytics tools into MindSphere.

| An IOTHub release   ||  November 30, 2017   |||

Nov 27, 2017  -  The Internet of Things (IoT) has led to an unprecedented level of connectivity within enterprise.  According to Cisco, as many as 50 billion devices could be connected to the Internet of Things (IoT) by 2020, including numerous industrial processes.  The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) has facilitated connectivity between manufacturing machines, industrial equipment, pipelines and other remote devices which, in turn, has created vast amounts of operational data.

Although big data is a valuable resource for organisations, many businesses are stuck in the “what, how, where” phase of their IIoT thinking because of the challenges of implementation.

Enterprises must connect, identify and secure numerous different devices, machines, and appliances. They must capture, transmit and store data from those things.

They must analyse and learn from that data, and integrate it into core operating and information systems. They must educate customers, employees and partners in its use. And they must rethink business processes and measures of success.

But there is a way forward.

There is an approach that can quickly generate tangible and measurable value from the IIoT. It is an approach that means deploying advanced analytics solutions “at the edge.”

Analytics at the edge is a new and different solution. It involves carrying out conventional big data analysis but moving more of it to the edge of the network. In other words, closer to the “essence” or the “thing” that is the source of the new data, whether that be a vehicle, industrial machine, fitness device or washing machine.

This involves running the data through an analytics algorithm as it is created, at the edge of a corporate network.

The process sorts information in real-time and only saves useful information that is worth saving for later use. Edge Analytics moves away from the principle in Big Data Analytics that “the more data the better”.

Pushing as much computing workload as close to the edge as possible can bring serious benefits, particularly where communication costs are high or where instant action is needed. Edge Analytics can drive business value through:Improving equipment up time and efficiency

Failure in a subsystem or component, or the impact of running a component in a degraded state, can be predicted in real time (and continually refined as more data is analysed) and used to inform operational use and maintenance scheduling.

Automated “self-correcting” actions that continuously optimise performance can also be triggered.Reducing maintenance costs

Equipment failure can be avoided through preventative maintenance undertaken when actually needed, rather than at fixed periods in a predetermined schedule.

More repairs can be carried out on first visits by giving mechanics detailed instructions about the causes of a problem, what action is needed, and what parts are required.Lowering spares inventory

Maintenance crews have an earlier and more precise visibility into future failures and breakdowns, making a spares inventory vastly more efficient.

Take the hypothetical failure in one part of a manufacturing system. An analytics algorithm interpreting the data at the network edge can automatically shut down the faulty machine and simultaneously send an alert to personnel so the part could be replaced.

But today’s edge capabilities are still relatively unsophisticated, lacking anything like the computing power that cloud services can provide.

New approaches, therefore, need to be found.

The challenge in pushing computation closer to these edge devices is that their capabilities are dictated by their environment.

Unlike Big Data Analytics, Edge Analytics doesn’t require large numbers of servers, computing power for machine learning and advanced analytics.

But they must have a small processing footprint. Take a Fitbit fitness device, it operates as an individual sensor with little processing capability that can send data to the cloud for computation.

The answer to this challenge is to design, build and deploy analytical models that address specific problems or objectives. In the process, new value-added capabilities can emerge.

Edge Analytics could be used to optimise uptime and maintenance for an individual oil well, for example, while Big Data cloud-based models work across multiple locations at an enterprise level.

The benefits of edge analytics’ problem-focused approach will initially be seen at the edge of the network. That means optimisation will first occur at the level of individual pieces of equipment.

Realising the wider benefits of edge capabilities enterprise-wide will require analysis and optimisation further up the chain.

For example, the management of individual industrial equipment parts with edge capabilities will maximise the uptime and utilisation of each piece of equipment, but optimising parts management and maintenance scheduling across an entire fleet is a different story.

It means aggregating all the individual equipment outputs and then applying more traditional forms of analytics. Most organisations will thus opt for a hybrid analytics approach, incorporating both edge and cloud capabilities, optimised for their individual requirements and circumstances.

Starting at the edge and working towards the centre is the best place to start.

Edge capabilities represent the first step in an organisation’s journey to capture the immense value that lies in the billions of connected devices set to join the IIoT.

Article by Marek Rucinski is the Managing Director for Accenture Analytics in Australia and New Zealand.  \\  November 27,  2017   |||

Nov 24, 2017  -  According to Gartner, blockchain will generate $176 billion in business value by 2025.  HPE is setting out to capitalise on the rise of blockchain by releasing the first member of its HPE Mission Critical Blockchain family – a Blockchain-as-a-Service solution for enterprises.

HPE’s Mission Critical Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) aims to make it easy and simple for customers deploying blockchain solutions.

Mission Critical DLT is used to record transactions across a decentralised network of computers and has a wide range of potential applications.

HPE claims that enterprises evaluating blockchain solutions are finding that generic infrastructure and public cloud environments cannot support the requirements they need in terms of performance, security, scalability and resiliency.

Aiming to solve the problem, HPE says its Mission Critical DLT solution offers availability and fault protection for enterprise-grade applications, and scalability and SQL integration that cannot be realised with workloads running in a public cloud environment.

The Mission Critical DLT solution is a part of HPE’s overall strategy to bring enterprise-grade capability to blockchain workloads.

The solution is offered on HPE Integrity NonStop platforms, which HPE says is behind two out of every three credit card transactions in the world.

Developed in partnership with enterprise software firm R3, the solution integrates the company’s distributed ledger technology with HPE's mission-critical platform.

“Enterprises interested in blockchain are realizing that public cloud alone does not always meet their non-functional requirements”, comments Raphael Davison, HPE’s Worldwide Director for Blockchain.

“As they look to scale, they recognize that, for mission-critical processes, on-premise infrastructure must be part of the mix of traditional IT, private and public cloud that’s needed to meet the requirements of enterprise-grade blockchain workloads.”

HPE Mission Critical DLT is expected to be commercially available in early 2018. Customers also will be able to purchase access to this solution in a “DLT as a Service” environment for serious trials and production use later in the year.

| A ITBrief release  ||  November 24, 2017   |||

7 Nov  -  Dr Lynn Wilcox is the chief technology officer at Fuji Xerox’s Palo Alto Laboratory (FXPAL) in California and an expert in the Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI).  Recently, Wilcox and her team at FXPAL have been working on projects in the ambient intelligence space – that is, the real world, practical application of IoT and AI.

From a smart teleconferencing system that will notify individuals interrupting the meeting to tracking the location of patients in a hospital, as Ambient Intelligence develops - the impact it could have across all industries is exciting.

But what exactly is Ambient Intelligence and why should we care about it?

In anticipation of her upcoming visit to New Zealand, Wilcox breaks down why we should be excited about Ambient Intelligence, what’s going on at FXPAL at the moment and what happens when the use of IoT technologies becomes unethical.

What is Ambient Intelligence, and why should enterprises be excited about it?

Ambient Intelligence refers to electronic environments that are sensitive and responsive to people.

It utilises IoT to collect data about people and the environment from various types of sensors. It then analyses and makes inferences from this sensor data using AI to provide personalised and contextual actions.

Ambient Intelligence has the power to make work more efficient - for example, by automatically knowing when you walk into a conference room that you would like to display the agenda and other information about the meeting that has been scheduled for this time, and order preferred beverages for the people scheduled to attend the meeting.

How does FXPAL work, do you develop technology solely for Fuji Xerox, or do you do work with other partners?

FXPAL is a research lab wholly funded by Fuji Xerox.

We develop prototypes to demonstrate technology and if there is interest we deploy the technology outside the lab to test real use cases. Our primary goal is to provide successful technology to Fuji Xerox for commercialisation.

In certain cases where FX is not interested in using the technology for their business, we license it to third parties. We also generate a good amount of Intellectual Property in the form of patents, which Fuji Xerox commercialises.

FXPAL is developing some very exciting AI and IoT technology with the capability to track the location of people in factories and hospitals, could you tell me about what has gone into developing these technologies?

The work began as a project to help locate co-workers in and out of the office and used a variety of technology such as GPS, device monitoring and cameras. To achieve more precise indoor localization, we began experimenting with BLE beacons.

FX Australia got interested in the technology and asked us to help develop a solution for office space management that could track which offices and meeting rooms were in use and how frequently various types of space was used. After that, the business development team at FXPAL found an application for patient management at a health care facility and we helped them deploy our technology there.

Last year Fuji Xerox Manufacturing executives visited FXPAL and saw a demonstration of our localisation technology and invited us to do a trial at the FX Suzuka factory.

We did the initial deployment this summer and are working with the factory to maximise the utility of the technology.

How often would you scrap a project?

Do you ever get right to the final stages of development before you decide the technology won’t work?

The typical research cycle is to first describe the concept, usually in an Invention Proposal, then demonstrate the concept to others, then build a prototype to test outside the lab.

There are checks at each of these stages. For example, we review Invention Proposals and if the idea is not sound or has already been described by someone else, research is stopped.

Similarly with demos, if they are not convincing the project is stopped. Finally, if the prototype fails or if no business case can be found we stop the work.

Many of our research projects are never used in products or solutions, sometimes because the technology is just too early for the market.

Could you discuss the FXPAL’s development of a secure document viewer that only allows viewing of an electronic document in secure locations?

Where are you at in the development of this technology and what would define, or who would define, a secure location?

We are at the demo stage of this technology.

We can demonstrate how a secure viewer would work by using our indoor location technology to determine whether you are inside the secure location or not. To secure a specified location, for example an executive office space, we simply deploy beacons around the office.

So far, we have not developed a location aware document viewer that would be needed for a prototype system.

One of the projects that FXPAL is working on that’s really intriguing is the creation of a smart teleconferencing systems that will monitor participants, notifying them if they are interrupting the conversation, or speaking too much.

Could you tell me more about it?

How does it make decisions such as what’s interrupting and what’s considered a contribution?

The system analyses the audio and video content of the video stream during the teleconference. It knows when each of the speakers is talking, and so can detect when a speaker begins talking while another person is talking - that’s an interruption.

It keeps statistics on how long each person is speaking during the meeting and visualises this by smaller or larger circles depending on how much each speaker is talking, so it is easy to see how your circle compares to others.

When can the use of IoT and smart technologies by enterprises, or any users, cross the line and become unethical?

How can this be monitored and prevented, and is there a danger in the power these technologies could give certain users?

That’s a good question - the same problems already arise with our online activities. There we encrypt information before sending it over open networks.

The same could and should be done for IoT devices. I think the general rule is that if a technology provides sufficient value to us we overlook the loss of privacy.

A good example is surveillance cameras.

At first we rejected them but now seeing their value in preventing crime and terrorism, everyone accepts them.

What excites you about the future of IoT? What area would you like to see IoT, AI and AR move into?

I’m particularly excited about AR, which uses IoT for localisation and AI for vision.

I’d like to see AR used for providing more information about things and places in the real world. In the digital world, I can learn more about something by doing a search.

With AR, I’d be able to look at something, for example building, and see information about its history or how it was constructed.

This would be possible with an AR wearable device that could sense my location, then recognise the building, search for related information and project it on a wearable display.

| An ITBrief release  ||  November 7,  2017   |||

2 Nov[] The increasing interconnection of devices and vast flows of data between machines are transforming factory floors around the world.  From robots that work alongside humans to tracking components throughout the logistics system, the internet of things (IoT) is reshaping the way products are designed and made — and changing the role of humans in manufacturing.

CobotsUnlike traditional industrial robots hidden behind cages, like those that weld car bodies, collaborative robots — or cobots — work alongside humans and have been spreading across production lines.

They are typically smaller, flexible and mobile, as well as being cheaper than their heavy-duty cousins. They are also slower, but cobots are highly adaptable and can be assigned to different tasks.

“[Cobots] can learn by imitation. They tend to have cameras with vision recognition software. You can move the hand of the robot, you do a task and after a few minutes the robot is programmed,” says Jonathan Cohen, portfolio manager of the $90m RoboCap UCITS Fund. This compares with 50 to 200 hours to program larger industrial robots, he adds.

One of the biggest cobot manufacturers is Universal Robots of Denmark, which was acquired for $285m in 2015 by Teradyne, a US supplier of automation equipment. Uses of its machines include putting confectionery in boxes, polishing objects and screwdriving.

While many fear that robots will steal people’s jobs, proponents say cobots can improve health and safety conditions for humans by performing repetitive tasks that require uncomfortable movements such as twisting or lifting heavy objects.Additive manufacturingThis is also known as 3D printing, because it involves building objects layer by layer out of substrates such as polymer or metal. Complex patterns based on digital designs that may not be possible with traditional manufacturing techniques can be made with less material and fewer process steps.

Additive manufacturing has existed for more than three decades but has been limited by its expense and slowness. However, more real-world applications are emerging.

Continue here to read full article on Financila Times  ||  November 2,  2017   |||

31 Oct:  T

Britain’s manufacturing sector could unlock £455bn over the next decade and create thousands of jobs if it cracks the fourth industrial revolution and carves out a successful post Brexit future.

That is the conclusion of a government commissioned review on industrial digitalisation, published today and led by industry chief Jürgen Maier, the UK and Ireland boss of German engineering giant Siemens.

Continue here to read the full article on The Guardian   ||  October 31,  2017   |||

Richard Silverman penned this article on whats behind Ripple and it's future.   The CEO of Ripple, Brad Garlinghouse has many reasons to feel good, being in a conference in Toronto with money maverick Ben Bernanke and crypto-genius Vitalik Buterin.

– Yes, Ripple network itself is expanding quickly as it is among few digital currencies that has intrinsic value and has started more and more to be used in real world business, having licenced more than 100 banks and financial institutions to use its blockchain technology. XRP is the only digital asset with a clear use case – it’s the best digital asset for payments.

-Ripple’s Interledger Protocol(ILP) standardize how to instantly settle transactions across different ledgers and networks. ILP can be thought of much like the protocol HTTP used in web address that become a global standard for online information exchange. At last, value can move as quickly around the world through internet just as information does, with a few clicks.

-According to Coinmarketcap, XRP now has a market cap of more than $7,7 Billion, and it is third behind the digital money giants, Bitcoin and Ethereum.

-Ripple is the only digital asset specifically designed for financial institutions. It’s pricing model is one part software license, one part professional services and one part transaction fees.

-The Ripple ecosystem with its huge financial strength used like strategic weapon which enables it to further development of its platform; while engaging the best blockchain experts, hackers, developers, software engineers,and it is constantly evolving, updating; regarding usability, reliability, security and scalability of the XRP Ledger.

-SortedDirectories amendment. This new feature is expected to be enabled in early November, but nevertheless it is advisable to upgrade the nodes as soon as possible, as non-upgraded nodes can’t participate in the consensus process or vote on future amendments. This new update will be deployed to all Ripple servers in real time upgrade which should take around four hours without disturbing the efficiency of current operations. This is another reached important milestone for Ripple.

OPPORTUNITIES

Behind the Ripple is this great idea and vision of the global market with its Internet of Things and Internet of Value enabled by XRP.

It is estimated that by 2020 there will be 50 billion connected devices, including cars, fridges, thermostats, … this is INTERNET OF THINGS and happening now with accelerating speed. And this is just a first wave in what will be a tsunami of micropayments powering the INTERNET OF VALUE. We’ve shared our vision of an Internet of Value in which money moves like information moves today. Key to realizing that vision is lowering the cost of payments, especially cross-border payments, also very important for emerging, unbanked markets.

Actually there are $18 Trillion of cross-border payments made every year with a combined cost of about $1 trillion a year. Ripple solution through its blockchain technology allows assets to be transferred from one party directly to another without middleman, validated, permanent, completed instantly, irrevocably.

Foreign Payment Transactions is area where banks should completely embrace blockchain derived technology like Ripple, which will allow banks to move away from batch-and-file to smooth real time transactions.

Making cross border payments faster, cheaper, and reliable will bring major benefits to consumers, businesses, banks… It will also connect billions of people around the world to transact, give rise to entirely new businesses and industries, increase financial inclusion for millions underbanked consumers…

The CEO of Ripple, Garlinghouse believes big digital currencies will have a peaceful coexistence.

In his interview to Fortune’s The Ledger among other worth noting arguments, he stated:

“We took a rather contrarian view at the time that we’re not anti-bank, we’re not anti-government, we’re not anti-fiat currency”.

“In 2017, people have realized there isn’t going to be one crypto to rule them all. You’re seeing vertical solutions where XRP is focused on payment problems, Ethereum is focused on smart contracts, and increasingly Bitcoin is a store of value. Those aren’t competitive. In fact, I want Bitcoin and Ethereum to be successful”.

“If Ripple as a company went away, XRP would continue to trade. To me that’s the definition of decentralization”.

Ripple’s goal in distributing XRP tokens is to incentivize actions that build trust, utility and liquidity. The Ripple Net Accelerator program is designed to allocate up to $300 million to create incentives to accelerate adoption. It’s our vision of solving a liquidity problem for banks. We engage in distribution strategies that we expect will result in a strengthening XRP exchange rate against other currencies.

With more and more banks using the Ripple protocol, the supply of Ripple will eventually have to be enough to support the total transaction volume of all the players using the system. Since XRP could feasibly replace SWIFT as a payment system due to its lower cost and higher speed, SWIFT figures can be used as an estimate. SWIFT handles about $5 Trillion each day. This is one of the biggest opportunities for Ripple.

WEAKNESS

Unlike many other popular cryptocurrencies, XRP is not mined. The company is centralized in many ways. There are whopping 100 billion coins in existence, and they were created by the company Ripple. Ripple has been fast growing and is currently at a market cap of just about $7.7bn. This means that the current circulating supply of about 38.5 billion XRP is trading at around $0.2 each.

It’s very important for Ripple as a company to be very transparent in XRP markets so every quarter they publish a report that specifies how much they sold in the open market and to institutional buyers.

XRP supply, unlike other cryptocurrencies, is partly controlled by the company Ripple who currently owns more than 60% of all existing XRP coins. The fear is that the company will capitalize on its position and flood the market with Ripple coins, from time to time as it suits them, causing a massive oversupply in the short run. For holders of the coin, it could be devastating. This could be not just weakness but also a threat.

– Currently we are permanently removing that uncertainty by committing to place 55 billion XRP into a cryptographically-secured Escrow account by the end of 2017. We’ll use Escrow to establish 55 smart contracts of 1 billion XRP each that will expire on the first day of every month from months 0 to 54. As each contract expires, the XRP will become available for Ripple’s use. We’ll then return whatever is unused at the end of each month to the back of the escrow queue. This technology-escrow enables Ripple to promise a predictable supply of XRP and enablesinvestors to instantly verify such a promise. For comparison, Ripple has sold on average 300M XRP per month for the past 18 months.

THREAT

Investors should be considering what role Ripple might play over the course of the next several years?

The number of institutions that have partnered with Ripple has exceeded 100 and is growing almost daily and very rapidly.

Yet the price of Ripple has steadily fluctuated around $0.2 for the past months. Why is that?

There are still a lot of potential roadblocks on the way to XRP being traded at lets say higher price than $5.

-First of all, the biggest threat is competition, development of more innovative payment systems that would be similar or even better, technologically more sophisticated, offering an even more attractive alternative using a different coin as a bridge currency, so the amount of money being transferred via Ripple will decrease substantially, or even wipe out XRP usage completely.

-Unfavourable government regulations, or even ban of the cryptocurrencies.

-Many banks and financial institutions have started developing their own cryptocurrencies for the use of interbank transactions.

Still we like the quite feasible idea that the maximum supply of XRP will one day drive a majority of financial transactions which is a powerful incentive to buy XRP coins.

| An Ethereum News release  ||  October 26,  2017   |||

GERMANY: |  An alliance of German manufacturing technology firms is setting out to establish a global platform for the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), with the launch of ADAptive Manufacturing Open Solutions (ADAMOS).

The group want to establish ADAMOS as a global standard for industry and to attract other machine builders to the initiative. The companies involved are machine tool builder DMG Mori, degreasing/cleaning specialist Dürr, metrology specialist Carl Zeiss, software expert Software AG and IT specialist ASM PT.

The open IIoT platform ADAMOS is non-proprietary and brings together the most up-to-date IT technology and industry knowledge. “It enables engineering companies to offer tried-and-tested solutions for digitally networked production to their customers with little effort. Machine tool builders, as well as their suppliers and customers will benefit from this as ADAMOS is a platform service that offers data autonomy and access to leading software solutions,” the official release says.

Says Christian Thönes, chief executive officer of DMG Mori AG: “Regarding digitisation the machine and plant building industry has to set its own standards and drive development. This can only work with strong partners. That is why we are offering an open network with ADAMOS together with leading machine building, production and software/IT know-how – from machine builders for machine builders, their suppliers and customers.”

Dürr AG’s CEO, Ralf W. Dieter adds: “As a machine builder, we know our customers’ requirements and know what is important. In the ADAMOS App Factory, we bring industry knowledge for intuitively operated applications together with the design of digital marketplaces. The ADAMOS App Factory is a cooperation between machine builders and software companies that is closely linked with the partners.”

Speaking for Software AG, Karl-Heinz Streibich, EO states: “Software AG’s technology leadership and digital expertise is based on a total investment of more than one billion euros. Our industry neutrality and global presence combined with the know-how of leading machine and plant builders worldwide form the foundation of ADAMOS.”

Thomas Spitzenpfeil, member of the executive board (CFO/CIO) of Carl Zeiss AG, offers: “With ADAMOS, strong partners are working together equally on pushing digital connectivity. Together we are developing technologies for the factory of the future. Companies that use the IIoT applications from ADAMOS, will be making use of innovative services and thus increase the efficiency, transparency, reliability and availability of their systems significantly.”

Günter Lauber, CEO of the SMT Solutions Segment of ASM PT, concudes: “The growing interconnectivity of production means that not only our customers, but also we ourselves have to change our thinking. We create the conditions for this at ASM PT with innovative solutions for various line and factory workflows for electronic manufacturing – whilst complying with the highest IT security standards. Through ADAMOS we are combining this knowledge with leading machine building, production and software know-how.”

ADAMOS GmbH and ADAMOS App Factory will launch world-wide on 1 October 2017.

Features of ADAMOS include:ADAMOS focuses on close cooperation and the exchange of know-how and reduces effort and cost by making centrally developed solutions and services available to all participants. As a driver of innovation, ADAMOS will constantly be developing new IIoT applications. There is no dependency on external software providers with ADAMOS. Machine building customers obtain machines and IIoT / software solutions from the same source and have sovereignty over their data. This secures the leading position of machine building companies in the digital era. ADAMOS offers a digital portfolio with applications specific to machine building as well as domain- and industry-specific applications. ADAMOS can be deployed internationally, can be quickly implemented and is available as a cloud or “on premise” solution via stationary servers. ADAMOS uses standard solutions and interfaces and is therefore operationally reliable. As a “white label” solution ADAMOS allows participating machine builders to have their own individual IIoT presence. This means that the partners use the central ADAMOS platform but the front-end the customer sees can be designed with the partners’ own ‘look & feel’.

The ADAMOS App Factory concentrates the technological know-how and the industry knowledge of the partners for fast and joint development of apps. More comprehensive applications for planning, predictive maintenance, machine cockpit/dashboarding and maintaining assistance will be made available in the cloud from the beginning of 2018.

ADAMOS GmbH is registered in Darmstadt and the launch companies are all equal partners. In addition, other machine and plant builders can take advantage of ADAMOS’s range of services as partners. Each partner markets the ADAMOS range independently. ADAMOS GmbH operates as a platform service and thus makes leading IIoT tools and functions available to all the platform users. Marketing of individual IIoT solutions is carried out by the participating partners.

| An MA Business Machinery release  ||  SEptember 5,  2017   |||