Is there anything “springier” than baseball’s spring training? While millions and millions of us are still worried about ice and snow, players in warm places like Florida and Arizona are already playing practice games. Baseball, and better weather, will be here soon, so worry not.

Cisco’s IoT Control Center revved up to better handle new wireless tech like 5G and Wi-Fi 6 as well as advanced Industrial IoT use cases. Could Cisco’s Smart Billing really optimize pay rates?

Dell released a batch of new edge servers for IoT. Some have more power to handle more devices, some are ruggedized to handle IoT in harsh environments, and some fit into the corporate data center.

Since many IoT devices need to work in areas without AC power, batteries are the default choice. Longer battery life is critical, so batteries must get better or IoT devices need to use less power. How about a Wi-Fi chip that uses 5,000 times less energy than current models? That’s what researchers at the University of California San Diego have developed

Speaking of chips, Qualcomm just introduced its third-generation 5G chip for mobile devices. Expect 200 million or so 5G phones to be sold this year.

Inside Big Data has declared the 2020’s the Decade of the Internet of Things. Let’s hope this turns out better than the Year of Linux Desktops and spring training promises of World Series glory for the Amazing Mets.

Everactive makes battery-less IoT devices that generate power from heat differences on the steam traps they monitor. We wrote a “Vendor to Watch” story on them when they were still called PsiKick. Everactive just signed a deal with Armstrong International, the world’s largest and oldest manufacturer of said steam traps. Armstrong was awarded the patent for steam traps back in 1911.

Security alert (always). Extreme Networks surveyed 54 enterprise IT pros and found 84% have IoT devices in use. That’s good. But 70% say hackers used IoT networks as an attack vector. That’s not so good.

Maybe this will help weed out poorly secured IoT devices. Carnegie Mellon University has a new app (the Internet of Things Assistant) informs users about what IoT technologies are around them and what data they are collecting.

Another helping security hand comes from Israeli firm Essence SigmaDots. It uses a distributed architecture to completely secure IoT devices, applications, and data. Check them out at the RSA Conference in San Francisco this week.

Researchers at Rice University in Houston say they can make security more than 14,000 times better using far less energy. Their technology uses power regulators to obfuscate the information leaked by the power consumption of encryption circuits. Last year the same researchers paired security keys based on fingerprint-like defects unique to every computer chip.

Need to monitor a few IoT devices for a pilot or training? TeamViewer is making all functions of its IoT module free for up to two IoT endpoints.

Forbes has an article about how Goodyear is using IoT and AI. Yes, a smart tire is a thing (and 3D printed). The company also started a fund called Goodyear Ventures with $100 million to invest in startups in IoT and AI.

Digital Twin technology is a big help in visualizing, monitoring, and maintaining equipment. UrsaLeo just introduced its UrsaLeo 3D Digital Twin that combines photorealistic 3D models with live sensor data.

From our friends at Hackster.io

IoT is big in AgTech. This project shows how to use machine learning to classify tomatoes using Particle Argon.