Alas, the “2021 is Great” banners have been removed from Cleveland, as the Browns lost to the Chiefs this weekend. Add this to the years Cleveland will not play in the Super Bowl. To make up for it, 2021 is sending rain to the drought-plagued Southwest and snow to the Rocky Mountain ski areas, so maybe Browns fans should take a vacation. But not from these choice newsbits, all of which are like a Super Bowl party every week.

Lenovo sponsored a nice overview of progress on Barcelona’s 5G-enabled Smart City of the Future project.

Turn to Channel 9 on MSDN for Microsoft’s “Manage Devices at Scale with Azure IoT Central,” video.

Analytics Insight looks at how voice assistants like Alexa, Siri, and Bixby are working to become the interface of choice to smart home IoT systems. Following that, here’s another article from them on how IoT will revamp retail in 2021. Fingers crossed retailers can hang on a bit longer.

Industrial IoT integrators may find some use for the new PCH Portal to integrate multiple networks and devices.

Cold chain fans might like to read what Chain Store Age has to say about how Walmart uses IoT to keep cold things cold. Currently, Walmart has over 7 million unique IoT data points across over 4,600 U.S. stores.

Staying close to the food, Perishable News talks about using IoT in the modern retail and commercial kitchen.

MetTel and Geotab partnered to deliver IoT-based fleet management for U.S. government vehicles of various kinds.

Think Ring video doorbells are the only IoT privacy issues? Privacy News Online dives into IoT and wearables and how they’re helping law enforcement.

JD Supra keeps us up to date with new Draft documents containing guidelines for the IoT Cybersecurity Improvement Act.

This seems like a suitable spot to highlight Dark Reading’s “Understanding TCP/IP Stack Vulnerabilities in the IoT” article.

Did your business suddenly become a remote office support tool thanks to the lockdown? CSM Wire looks at how tech went remote and what integrators can expect this year.

It’s a real feedback loop as IoT changes telecom which changes IoT and around and around, says BBN Times.

International Banker looks at how IoT’s digital trail becomes the Internet of Behavior, which might interest those in the financial services biz.

Samsung and Google tells us how cool it will be as they figure out how to work together.

If Helium’s LPWAN IoT network catches on, it might be handy to use for Adafruit’s new LPWAN support.

CitiesToday catches that LPWAN ball and runs with it talking about how IoT-network interoperability will be the foundation of smart cities.

From our friends at Hackster.io:

How one smart tech helped her local coffee shop go contactless during the COVID-19 pandemic and protect employees and customers.