DASH7 Mode 2 is a new, low-power wireless technology that takes the strong-points of traditional DASH7 (i.e. Mode 1) and makes them even stronger, while also adding a series of new features made possible by recent advances in semiconductor technology.  Some of these new features include: additional low-power modes, improved throughput, multi-channel communication, cryptographic security support, IPv6 addressing support.

In 90 minutes you will learn how Mode 2 can solve many problems that other low power wireless technologies simply cannot, starting with descriptions of the features and architecture, and then moving to example applications and use-cases.

More info on Mode2 is summarised here (pdf ~900Kb)

Registration for webinar available here.

DASH7 Mode 2 enables new applications for both enterprise and consumer customers, including improved “real-time” locating capability for indoor asset tracking and access control, longer range communications for enabling smart billboards, and internet addressing for smart energy applications requiring IPv6. Mode 2’s improved support for public key encryption is essential for many consumer applications where privacy is a top concern. “DASH7 Mode 2 is an important specification for automotive applications like tire pressure monitoring but holds even more promise for non-automotive applications like smart buildings and mobile advertising,” said Dr. Patrick King, Global Electronics Strategist for Michelin Corporation. Utilizing a new multi-channel architecture and improved modulation and encoding techniques, DASH7 Mode 2 preserves the sub-16 kilobyte protocol stack size of DASH7 Mode 1 while making it easier to support public key encryption, IPv6 addressing, and sensor data. DASH7 Mode 2 devices can also be configured to include optional backwards compatibility with legacy Mode 1 devices. “By advancing specifications to ISO 18000-7 standards, DASH7 continues to position active RFID as an enabling technology for a wide range of solutions, applications and markets taking advantage of low-power, wireless sensor networks,” said ABI Research RFID Practice Director Michael Liard.

A white paper summarizing mode 2 is available here.

Developers wishing to collaborate on OpenTag, the open source firmware library for DASH7, can visit here for more information.

A beta version of OpenTag with DASH7 Mode 2 support is expected this fall.

Rhinnovation, a group of Mexican university students, created the “Life Account,” a melding of the Internet of Things and social media to win Cisco’s second I-Prize.

The Life Account is a platform that gathers information about users through connected devices in the physical world and online data from the virtual world. This data is then aggregated to generate a virtual profile that understands habits and behavior patterns of the user. The winning team was selected on the basis of their idea’s technological innovation as well as the promise of the new business opportunity for Cisco. The prize carries a cash award of $250,000.

More info available here

A session entitled: Micro Manufacturing for Micro Energy Systems: Progress in Energy Harvesting, Storage and Low Power Systems Technology for Wireless Sensor Networks will be conducted on Tuesday, July 13, 2010, 2:00pm–4:30pm

Ever increasing demand for longer battery life for wireless devices is driving innovation in energy harvesting and storage. This major recent progress in MEMS and thin film energy harvesting devices, innovative nano-structured or solid-state thin film batteries, and ultra low power systems is enabling practical wireless sensor systems for everything from medical applications to industrial monitoring. During this session sector leaders will report on the progress on commercial systems, and the opportunities it presents for the supply chain.

Program is available here

RPL works by building and maintaining directed acyclic graphs toward root nodes. The protocol is the result of a collaboration between academia and industry in the ROLL working group at the IETF. In March 2010, an interoperability event hosted by the IPSO Alliance took place in Anaheim, CA. ContikiRPL participated in this event and was tested against a number of emerging RPL implementations.

Full scoop available here

The 2010 Trend Watch Sensor Survey results were published by Design News and half of the survey respondents design products for the industrial market. The balance of respondents works in industries as diverse as automotive and aerospace to packaging and healthcare.

When selecting a sensor, respondents said that reliability, accuracy and durability/ruggedness are the top three characteristics, while product support and availability are critical when selecting a particular supplier.

The file with full results is available here [pdf]

In challenging environments, the required link budget necessary to maintain a given Packet Error Rate (PER) can be quite significant, which is not compatible with the constrains introduced by inexpensive radio architectures and low-power requirements which define WSNs.

RadiaLE, recently presented at EWSN 2010, is an open benchmarking testbed that allows performance evaluation of Link Quality Estimators (LQEs), it aims for experimentation with existing and future LQE implementations.

More info here

Results are as follows:

Academic Master Thesis Award: Matthias Wilhelm for his work: “Implementation and Analysis of a Key Generation Protocol for Wireless Sensor Network“.

Industry Master Thesis Award: Carlo Alberto Boano for his Thesis: “Application Support Design for Wireless Sensor Networks“.

Academic PhD Thesis Award: Olga Saukh for his Thesis: “Efficient Algorithms for Structuring Wireless Sensor Networks“.

Industrial PhD Thesis Award: Antidio Viguria for his work: “Market-based distributed task allocation methodologies applied to multi-robot exploration”

Our warm congratulations to all awardees!

More info with photos at the ceremony could be found here.

For more information click here

In addition to that, a public Waspmote Training Course it’s also open for registration. It will take place in Zaragoza, February 17th-18th. Previous experience with the Waspmote platform is not necessary for attending the course. Important discounts apply for those who buy a Waspmote Kit in place.

New update of the API functionalities (v0.12) includes localization tools using the mobile phones cells ID’s and their received signal strength (RSSI)