March 2018 Edition
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2018 is Going to be a Powerful Year for Wireless Charging
At the Consumer Electronics Show last month, it was evident that the global consumer electronics industry has embraced the open Qi standard for smartphones in a very big way. Wireless chargers using the Qi standard were everywhere on the show floor as manufacturers showcased a diverse array of products for homes, offices, automobiles, hotels, restaurants and more.
The numbers tell a similar story. As of today, there are 443 members of the Wireless Power Consortium representing a vast cross section of industries and their respective supply chains. There are now 995 Qi certified products on the market, and that number is growing rapidly.
TALQ Version 2.0: The Smart City Protocol
The TALQ Consortium, which has developed a global interface standard and certification scheme for managing outdoor lighting networks, will shortly introduce TALQ version 2.0, an easy to integrate RESTful/JSON protocol that addresses many smart city applications. The updated technical specification particularizes a state-of-the-art definition of the Smart City Protocol and provides manufacturers full flexibility to define their own devices and functionality as needed. Furthermore TALQ version 2.0 guarantees cities and municipalities broad interoperability of various smart city applications from different vendors.
Cities across the world on their way to becoming smart cities face the same challenges: advanced smart lighting, waste management, parking, traffic control and many other services that strive to save energy, reduce traffic, increase security, quality of life and much more. But currently, most of the available solutions are proprietary, locking cities into single vendor solutions.
MIPI Alliance Expands Reach with New Automotive Working Group
The MIPI Alliance, an international organization that develops interface specifications for mobile and mobile-influenced industries, recently announced the formation of the MIPI Automotive Working Group (AWG) to address the needs of the automotive ecosystem. The group is open to MIPI Contributor members.
As the number of sensors continues to increase in the automobile to support passive and active safety, infotainment, advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and autonomous driving systems, the need for interface specifications is apparent. Building upon the success of the MIPI Alliance Automotive Subgroup and Automotive Birds of a Feather (BoF) Group, the MIPI Board of Directors has approved the creation of the MIPI AWG.
“The approval of the MIPI Automotive Working Group marks a significant milestone for MIPI Alliance’s development activity,” said Joel Huloux, chairman of MIPI Alliance. “While MIPI’s focus is foremost on developing interface specifications for mobile devices, automakers already rely on MIPI’s industry-standard interfaces to enable a wide variety of applications. This additional focus on automotive is a natural extension to broaden MIPI specifications’ applicability.”
OpenPOWER Ecosystem Spurs Innovation in AI and Hyperscale Datacenters
Industry leaders like Google, Uber, Hitachi, Inspur, and Atos came together with representatives from the 325 OpenPOWER Foundation members today at the OpenPOWER Summit 2018 in Las Vegas, NV, to discuss how OpenPOWER is helping to transform their businesses and fuel data-intensive workloads and AI innovations. Joining them were some of the world’s leading software, hardware and cloud vendors, who discussed over 100 new OpenPOWER-based products that they are bringing to market through collaborative innovation that provide differentiated benefits.
Putting POWER9 to Work
In December 2017 IBM revealed the all-new IBM POWER9 CPU, built from the ground-up for enterprise AI and other data-intensive workloads. Thanks to the Foundation’s model of open collaboration, members are already revealing their own POWER9-based products. In a panel discussion of some of the world’s leading hardware vendors, panelists from Wistron, Hitachi, Inspur, Rackspace, and Atos, all detailed how their customers and the industry are looking for x86 alternatives, and with industry-exclusive technology like next-generation NVIDIA NVLink, OpenCAPI and PCIe Gen4, POWER9 is a great fit.
DiiA and Zhaga start cooperation on IoT solutions for lighting
The trend in lighting towards digitalisation and the need for defining interfaces for sensors and connectivity modules is well recognized.
Both the Digital Illumination Interface Alliance (DiiA) and the Zhaga Consortium (Zhaga) are developing important technology in this area. DiiA recently announced that it is “developing specifications for an optimised DALI interface inside luminaires, which will simplify the connection of luminaires to IoT networks.” Simultaneously, the Zhaga Consortium reported that it “has finalized a new specification (Book 18) that helps to bring the Internet of Things (IoT) to outdoor LED lighting fixtures.”
The organizations have now signed a liaison agreement with the aim to share technical information about available and upcoming specifications and certification programs, and the timelines of these. The first step will be to align the DALI-based communication protocol with the Zhaga Book 18 specification.
New ISTO White Paper Highlights Emerging Technologies, Such as Blockchain and Open Source, and the New Face of Standards
ISTO recently published a new white paper: Emerging Technologies and the New Face of Standards. The purpose of this paper is to specifically outline activities outside of the traditional standards development path that have been brought to bear to develop standards in today’s technical environment. This paper specifically investigates non-traditional standards initiatives such as Blockchain and Open Source. The report focuses on how traditional collaborative mechanisms can be used for the development of these new technologies, while maintaining the consensus-based processes that have made standards development a cornerstone of human progress over many generations.
DALI simplifies the complex IoT world for luminaire manufacturers
DiiA, the global DALI alliance, is taking further steps to bring the extensive benefits of DALI to the Internet of Things (IoT). Having established the DALI-2 certification process, which secures interoperability between DALI devices, DiiA is developing new specifications that extend the well-established DALI lighting protocol. These will create new possibilities for DALI technology in the IoT age, while making use of DALI’s strength as a robust, reliable and relatively low-cost communication technology optimized for lighting applications.
DiiA is standardizing the way in which DALI drivers can exchange measurement and diagnostic data in a well-defined format. Such a standardized data model is essential for DALI products to participate in the IoT world. Building on this, DiiA is also seeking to simplify the connection of luminaires to the IoT via in-built communication nodes.
“DiiA is helping to simplify the complex IoT world for the lighting industry,” says Ruud van Bokhorst, General Manager of DiiA. “Our new specifications will enable luminaires to connect to various IoT networks, while building on proven, standardized DALI technology.”
Zhaga enables IoT-upgradeable outdoor LED lighting fixtures
The Zhaga Consortium, a global association of lighting companies that is standardizing components of LED luminaires, has finalized a new specification that helps to bring the Internet of Things (IoT) to outdoor LED lighting fixtures. The specification, known as Zhaga Book 18, makes it easy to upgrade LED fixtures by adding or changing 24V modules that provide sensing and communication capabilities.
Demonstrating Zhaga’s priority focus to support the merger of IoT and lighting technologies, this specification marks the first step in a new direction for Zhaga that will also enable similar capabilities for future-proofed indoor luminaires.
Myron Slota has been re-elected to the ISTO Board of Directors for a two-year term beginning 1 January 2018.
Myron Slota has over thirty years in technology leadership that included silicon development, OEM business development, system design and Power microprocessor design and bring-up.
Recent ISTO Program News
MIPI Alliance
- 13 March 2018 - MIPI Alliance Welcomes Bosch and Qualcomm as Promoter Members
- 1 March 2018 - Driving 4K smartphone and AR/VR device displays
- 8 February 2018 - MIPI Alliance Releases MIPI UniPro v1.8 with Increased Performance and Improved Quality of Service
OpenCAPI Consortium
OpenPOWER Foundation
- 21 March 2018 - How OpenPOWER Members Created the World’s First Production-ready PCIe Gen4 NVM Express System
- 5 March 2018 - A Better Way to Compress Big Data
- 5 March 2018 - #OpenPOWERChat Provides a Sneak Peek of OpenPOWER Summit 2018
Printer Working Group
- 13 February 2018 - February 2018 Face-to-Face Meeting Summary
TALQ Consortium
- 8 March 2018 - Enabling Smart Cities to Smarter Lighting
Tenders
Wireless Power Consortium
Upcoming ISTO Program Events
MIPI Alliance
- 4 April 2018 - MIPI Webinar: MIPI Alliance Extends Interface Standards to Support the Automotive Market
- 11 April 2018 - Linley Spring Processor Conference
- 31 May - 1 June 2018 - Internet of Things North America
- 11-15 June 2018 - MIPI Member Meeting
Printer Working Group
- 15-17 May 2018 - PWG Member Meeting
TALQ Consortium
- 8-10 May 2018 - Lightfair International 2018
Wireless Power Consortium
- 3-6 June 2018 - The Wireless Power Week
About ISTO
ISTO is the premier trusted partner of the global technology community for the development, adoption, and certification of industry standards and emerging technologies. Its mission is to facilitate the life cycle of industry standards development through a dedicated staff committed to neutrality, quality support and member satisfaction.
Fostering the market acceptance, adoption and implementation of standardized technologies, programs of ISTO Federation span the spectrum of today’s information and communications technologies. ISTO is the recipient of the 2010 Tenzing Norgay Interoperability Achievement Award, which recognizes success in driving market acceptance, adoption and implementation of standardized technologies. For more information, visit the ISTO website.
