When technology drives change on its own, things tend to improve. When social or political events force tech changes, the results are more random. Is it just us, or does Mastodon give you some nostalgic warmth of the BBS world, but with better graphics? What’s next, modem screeches when you login? Speaking of warmth, get these hot newsbits before they split into federations.

AWS IoT Core launched a new location service powered by LoRa Cloud Geolocation, powered by Semtech. More reach with less power.

Verizon touts some of the advances in 5G and IoT connections for real-world applications in a manager-friendly blog.

At CES, look for the Witekio booth, and get a demo of the Avnet company’s wind turbine software management tools.

Here’s BlackBerry’s take on smart cars, or what they call “software-defined vehicles.”

Parks Associates predicts lower insurance rates for smart apartment complexes that will have lower safety risks after implementation, and that apartment residents are willing to pay an additional 15% per month to rent units with smart amenities.

One of the smart apartment tools, security cameras, are getting better and better with more innovative features, says Parks Associates.

The flip side? Anker claimed its Eufy security cameras use only local storage, but it turns out they upload identifiable footage to the cloud, and outsiders can view the camera streams.

IoT devices everywhere need better security, so say hello to the new tools from Palo Alto Networks to protect connected medical devices like surgical robots and patient monitoring systems.

Good thing, since IoT-based medical devices are the Achille’s heel in healthcare.

A story from Ohio on the benefits of Industrial IoT and a grant to spread the word.

Down Under, integrators Loscam and Thinxtra are working with the Coles supermarket chain to monitor over 4,500 smart food bins.

Following that same path, Verdict Food Service discusses some other companies using IoT to improve food quality and management.

Security concerns for IoT devices from some Chinese vendors are pushing British politicians to crack down on the use of equipment from Hikvision and Dahua, both already blacklisted by the U.S.

Interestingly, TechRepublic’s “Top 5 Challenges of Implementing Industrial IoT” puts security at #3 (probably with an upward arrow icon).

Dataconomy provides a nice overview of many IoT sensor types and the jobs they can do.

Starting in the first quarter of 2023, a new SaaS fleet intelligence platform, Powerfleet Unity, will ease monitoring and management of your fleet vehicles.

Speaking of fleets, this time in the water, Zamil Offshore and satellite provider Inmarsat will deploy IoT infrastructure on 60 vessels.

On firmer ground, Astrocast and Avirtech teamed up with SatIoT for smart farming solutions to make legacy sensors smarter over long distances.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office examined the nation’s 16 critical infrastructure sectors and the IoT devices and systems used to monitor and manage them. No surprise, there’s work to be done.

Apache IoTDB 1.0 is an open-source time-series database with features for IoT data collection, storage, and analysis.

Will industrial panel computers become the edge server of choice in warehouses? They have a head start.

From our friends at Hackster.io:

This machine language project focuses on tracking knob positions on audio consoles, but you can adapt it to monitor any knob and also create a log file of changes and even send alerts if necessary.