Football fans are thrilled yet sad: The Super Bowl is two weeks away, but that means the end of games for months and months. The two conference finals on Sunday exceeded expectations, especially for graybeards cheering on 43-year-old Tom Brady. Dealing with whippersnappers cheering for 25-year-old Patrick Mahomes continues to annoy.

Linux runs more and more of the Internet, so why shouldn’t Linux-based IoT Edge modules be part of your toolkit? Microsoft’s Channel 9 MSDN channel helps you get started.

Avnet (which turns a ripe old 100 this year) has a new HoriZone RA evaluation kit that includes the cloud-ready Renesas RA EK-RA6M3 board with multiple sensors and advanced security features. Ties easily into Avnet’s IoTConnect Cloud Platform based on Microsoft’s Azure cloud.

Speaking of Edge Computing, Red Hat has “3 segmentation strategies for edge computing,” in a new article.

While not completely accurate, the advice from Broadband Breakfast is a good rule of thumb: Internet of Things Devices are Inherently Insecure, Say Tech Experts. Approach IoT projects with that attitude and build in security from day one.

Perhaps the IoT Cybersecurity Act of 2020 will close some security holes, as eSecurity Planet outlines in this article on implications for devices.

The Army certainly wants to find a few good men, er, secure IoT devices to collect data about people, machines, and climate during operations. Security becomes personal when IoT endpoints are armed robots, as discussed in this Ars Technica podcast report.

Those interested in smarter buildings and indoor IoT location should check out the new Kontakt.io Portal Beam and its 9-in-1 cloud-enabled platform.

Along the same smarter building line, here’s “The Future of IoT and the Digital Workplace.”

Ever thought how much worse this lockdown would be without the internet, Netflix, and delivery services? GCN hopes by the next health crisis smart cities can mitigate the impact even more.

Perhaps the new contract awarded by the Leeds City Council for £500,000 pounds to IoT specialist HomeLINK will help with the next health crisis there.

Which leads us to the report from Parks Associates that found that 34% of smart home device owners report technical problems within the last 12 months. Luckily, non-technical family members never think of calling us in the tech biz for free support, right?

Nokia and Symboticware are getting deep into Industrial IoT with private wireless networks used in mines.

Raspberry Pi makes small but smart computer modules. Now they’re making even smaller ones as the $4 Raspberry Pi Pico, a microcontroller developed by Raspberry Pi, launches. A dual-core Arm Cortex-MO+ chip at 133 MHz runs the module.

Builtin asked a Young Entrepreneurs Council for what they believe will be the most impactful IoT devices of 2021.

From our friends at Hackster.io

Many find bird feeders a fun way to bring birds close for bird watching. Sometimes squirrels help themselves and run off the birds. A new machine learning-based Bird and Squirrel Detector built with a Raspberry Pi and AWS will send a text or email when a bird arrives, and an alert if that dang squirrel tries to steal more birdseed.