IOTA News

Increasingly more cryptocurrency community's members believe that a successful blockchain technology has to solve real-world problems. And that's why IOTA (MIOTA) community is very optimistic about the IOTA blockchain's abilities to revolutionize the Internet of Things (IoT). Now, IOTA (MIOTA) boosts its industrial partnerships with Volkswagen, Bosch, and Fujitsu. Thanks to this partnerships, we can […]

Mark Nixon joins IOTA to head up the Smart City Program. He brings a wealth of experience gained across the TMT sector having held senior commercial and operational roles for 3Com, Verizon, Nokia, O2 and most recently Huawei where he led the Business Consulting Practice in MENA.

Mark started his career in Telecommunications 30 years ago with the British Army “Royal Corps of Signals” as a Systems Engineer working on some of the earliest Mobile Data Communications Networks deployed globally to support British Military Operations. Early successful forays into near-realtime Intelligence Systems working on personality tracking and vehicle identification / tracking systems led to his leaving the Royal Signals and joining the TCP-IP Switching Company 3Com. Here he held several Technical and Product Marketing roles, leading key projects with the UK academic community on the development of “JANET” and “SuperJANET”, a global secure IP network supporting research and academic institutions.

Throughout his career he has looked to be innovative in terms of how technology can be applied to real world business and consumer lifestyles, looking to solve problems that make a difference to our lives. He launched the first Blackberry Service outside the US with O2, and quickly followed by leading the launch of the first Windows mobile data solution with the O2 XDA, successfully introducing secure scalable data centric solutions to the UK market.

Mark led the O2 platform solutions business, securing breakthrough contracts with Camelot (the UK National Lottery) and Pop Idol (for cross-carrier interactive voting services which have revolutionized how we interact with our TV viewing). His team pioneered the early M2M market creating an ecosystem of development and innovation for the mobility security market, with the introduction of a smart car tracker service in the UK and Europe. He played an integral role in the establishment of a mobile data application development ecosystem (O2 Litmus), enabling innovation and collaboration for the creation of data applications that can be used in 3–4G carrier networks.

At Nokia Mark drove the successful launch of the OVI Store, offering customers content that was compatible with their mobile devices and relevant to their tastes and locations. Ovi introduced the first carrier billing capability to the Nokia partner network of operators, to seamlessly simplify consumers accessing and paying for relevant content.

Most recently Mark has been leading Huawei Business Consulting Practices in Europe and the Middle East. He was responsible for driving new innovative engagements with the TMT sector, looking to enable the Digital Transformation of traditional connectivity-centric mobile network operators to becoming viable Digital Services Businesses. As a TMForum Ambassador, Mark is at the heart of introducing Industry standards and frameworks that look to accelerate transformation by utilising new open transparent technologies. For example the Open API Program, Digital Maturity Model and FrameworX — the structured building blocks for carriers to address the transition from legacy processes, skills and operating systems, to new agile experience-based business models.

Mark holds a BEng. In Electronic Engineering from City of London University and an MBA from Said Business School Oxford.

On joining IOTA

I’m so excited to be joining the IOTA team, where I will be leading the Smart City Program. I am looking forward to continuing the great work that IOTA has done to date in engaging with the Smart City ecosystem including government, academia and industry. We hope to continue to leverage the IOTA Foundation to partner in the creation of real world DLT solutions that enhance the lives of citizens globally. Utilising the IOTA Tangle, R&D teams and Partner Network in the development of POC’s and Use Cases, we can drive open source, permissionless development.

Mark Nixon brings a massive wealth of experience and a significant network of contacts, to lead the Smart City Program at the IOTA Foundation. Give him a warm welcome!

Welcome Mark Nixon to the IOTA Foundation was originally published in IOTA on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The team behind IOTA just released the Qubic status update. Their report begins by highlighting that August was all about cleaning up details on the Qubic programming language Abra. The team was able to complete a lot of details that have been associated with the syntax of the language and began understanding user experience implementation […]

People often ask me what Blockchain or Distributed Ledger Technology is. As a technical analyst, it is part of my job to explain it to them. However some technologies are extremely difficult to explain in a simple fashion.

DLT or Distributed Ledger Technology is one of those cases. Even for people with a software engineering or computer science background, it is sometimes difficult to understand the technology itself, and more so the implications for current and future business models.

Sometimes it really helps to show how it all fits together..

Inspired by Volkswagen@CEBIT

..something like Volkswagen’s miniature world showcase at CEBIT this year, which demonstrated how IOTA may be used in different automotive use cases, such as:

• Vehicle identification. Allowing a vehicle to identify itself to parking garages, smart home systems, other vehicles, etc.
• Over the air updates. Allowing verification that the software running in your car is correct and up-to-date.
• Function on demand. Allowing payments to upgrade your car with features such as higher maximum speed or extended range.
• Autonomous vehicles that earn money. Allowing autonomous vehicles to act as fee-earning taxis when not used by their owners.
• Payment for tolls and EV charging. Allowing automatic, transparent and frictionless payment.

When I first saw the Volkswagen showcase I was taken aback, as were many others. This approach actually made people understand the implications of the machine-to-machine economy vision of IOTA.

Showcasing IOTA’s vision with the EV3

We saw that physical demonstrations help people to understand the vision. So how could we as a foundation model our vision? With Lego!

Many people have childhood memories of building their dreams with Lego. So we wanted to see if we too could build our dreams with it. Lego EV3 is a computing device / platform with which you can build programmable robots. Since its release in 2013, people have implemented some sophisticated applications on the platform.

In this project we installed ev3dev, a Debian-based operating system, on our EV3 and ran a simple shell script. This script checks whether the balance on a specific IOTA address has increased, indicating that someone paid the truck. If the funds on the address increase, then the truck starts its engine and drives for a set amount of time: 1Ki equals one second of driving. Below you can see the car start driving when money is sent to the right address.

To summarize: We built a toy truck that drives only when it gets paid and stops when it ‘runs out of money’. That is the most basic use case but it already has real world relevance. With this simple example it becomes clear that IOTA:

• Decreases complexity. There are no middle men involved. Only you and the truck.
• Has no transaction fees. What you send is what the truck receives.
• Simplifies cross-country payments. No need to deal with foreign currencies any more.
• Can enforce sanctions in case of a default. The truck will only drive as long as you are paying for it [1].

These features even today, could help to reduce fraud, reduce risks and reduce costs.

We believe that by bringing together IOTA and such elegant and familiar modelling tools, we can make our new technology more approachable, and help people to understand its possibilities and implications.

The next step could be towards supply chain tracking, eg by putting a Bosch XDK (https://xdk.bosch-connectivity.com/) into a toy shipping container, and using the recently published xdk2mam (https://xdk2mam.io/) code to stream environmental data to the Tangle. Furthermore one could let the shipping container pay the truck to start driving, which would bring this miniature world showcase even closer to IOTA’s vision of a machine-to-machine economy.

There is a whole world yet to be built from these components. So that everyone can see what the future will look like!

If you want to build this future together with us, then apply for our tech analyst positions! We are hiring! (https://iota.bamboohr.co.uk/jobs/view.php?id=32)

Please note:

IOTA does not have any partnership with LEGO to support this development. Other similar toys with embedded electronics can potentially be used for these demonstrations.

[1] In Brazil “… all new vehicles manufactured or imported to the country are required to be equipped with an electronic device enabling tracking and immobilization of the vehicle if stolen.” (https://www.iea.lth.se/publications/MS-Theses/Full%20document/5255_full_document.pdf)

Modelling New Business Models with IOTA was originally published in IOTA on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

IOTA (MIOTA) recently released a research paper “IOTA Feasibility and Perspectives for Enabling Vehicular Applications” that explains the possibilities of using IOTA Tangle as an underlying feature to increase the privacy in vehicular applications. The paper details the exciting Automobile Industry. During the past years, the automotive industry has been undergoing a massive shapeshift from […]

Michele Nati, PhD has 15 years of experience in the fields of data and IoT, working on research and development and recently on innovation in a number of roles, from Academia to SMEs to government organisations. During his career he pioneered and touched all the technologies and aspects that helped to create the connected world we are living today.

In 2007, Michele obtained a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Rome La Sapienza. He researched, designed and deployed novel cross-layer communication protocols for Wireless Sensor Networks and other resource-constrained embedded devices, dividing his time between Rome and Boston where he was a visiting researcher at the Northeastern University. After his PhD, he worked for academia and a number of SMEs as a research scientist in the area of remote sensing / monitoring.

In 2010 Michele moved to the UK to work at the University of Surrey, where he was a Senior Researcher at the 5G Innovation Centre. As part of the first large scale european smart city project, SmartSantander, he led the development and deployment of an Internet of Things campus-wide testbed comprising of thousands of sensor devices for energy monitoring applications. He led a group of PhD students investigating the impact of IoT and data in creating more sustainable buildings and campuses. He developed proposals and led a number of other European Projects, researching the field of privacy-aware communication and crowdsensing in mobile Internet of Things.

Since 2015 Michele has worked as the Lead Technologist for Data and Trust at Digital Catapult London, driving open innovation in the area of data and trust. He worked on a number of projects and initiatives to increase transparency and individual control on how personal data are collected and shared. He championed the introduction of a standardized Personal Data Receipt to increase transparency, track personal data sharing transactions and provide General Data Protection Regulation compliance.

In his research into trust and transparency, Michele was exposed to blockchain and distributed ledger technologies. He researched DLTs as a means to build an infrastructure for sharing data with trust, and to create innovation in the digital manufacturing and creative industries.

Currently he is an active member of the Mydata community, actively liaising with academia, SMEs, large organizations and governments to identify open innovation activities in the field of data and IoT.

Beyond technology Michele is a keen trail runner and meetup organiser.

On joining IOTA

The IOTA technology and vision bring together all the aspects that have filled my technical and research interests for the last 15 years, IoT (from its early stage), data and trust. I believe these are the same three pillars on top of which innovation should now be created. I like the way the IOTA Foundation is working and establishing its presence in different vertical domains, through open innovation, demonstrators and partnership, rather than just capitalising only on the value associated with a cryptocurrency.

I am very excited to use my experience in managing multi-stakeholder initiatives, to find real world problems and to help with adoption of IOTA as trust infrastructure for creation of new data sharing ecosystem.

Michele’s has deep technical knowledge, multi-sector exposure and has participated in different stages of research and innovation activities. These qualities, together with his innate ability to manage multiple stakeholders, will be of great value for adoption and evolution of the IOTA protocol.

Michele is based in London, where he works as the Lead Technical Analyst to support innovation in Global Trade and Supply Chains. In light of his deep domain knowledge and network of contacts, Michele also serves as the Personal Data Lead, working with the Business Development team to define a strategy for the Personal Data arena. Give him a warm welcome!

Welcome Michele Nati to the IOTA Foundation was originally published in IOTA on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

陳志誠 (Sam Chen) is a software engineer based in Taiwan, with experience in embedded systems, the Android framework, and software integration. He holds a Bachelor of Science with specialization in computer science and studied electronic engineering in industrial high school.

Sam has helped IC design companies to develop smart-TVs, set-top boxes and media players and has been dedicated to software architecture and performance analysis for 10 years. He has an interest in open source software and open hardware, in particular using the Arduino and Raspberry Pi platforms to solve problems in daily life.

On joining IOTA

My passion lies in IoT. After reading the IOTA Whitepaper, I believe IOTA can take IoT to a further state. Based on The Tangle, IoT devices can communicate with each other in a more secure way. Though I am new to distributed ledger technologies, I am eager to contribute and realize the promise of IoT. I am glad to join the IOTA Foundation and work with smart people around the world.

We are very happy to officially announce Sam Chen joining the project. His experience as a software engineer in embedded systems is of great value to the IOTA foundation. Give him a warm welcome!

Welcome Sam Chen to the IOTA Foundation was originally published in IOTA on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Marwen Trabelsi is a software engineer with experience in multi-threading and concurrency in Linux systems. Marwen graduated from the High Institute of Computer Science (Institut supérieur d’Informatique), in Tunis. He was curious about Bitcoin and distributed systems (such as the BitTorrent protocol) dating back to his high school days.

He has been active on different open source projects since 2014. Prior to joining The IOTA Foundation, Marwen worked as a software engineer in a leading IoT company.

Marwen believes in simple and pragmatic solutions over complex ones. That is why since 2013 he became more interested in single-threaded and pragmatic programming languages, like JavaScript. Marwen will be focusing on making proofs of concept, and helping partners to build their applications on top of the IOTA protocol, providing support over the whole pipeline.

On joining IOTA

I came into this field as I was interested in building a game on top of a distributed ledger ecosystem. I compared all of the available systems at that time, and none suited my use case. I discovered the IOTA Tangle and found that it may solve the issues I saw with traditional blockchains. Therefore I decided to use IOTA as a low level protocol for my game (the website of which will be made available soon).

I have been following the IOTA twitter account for over a year. At one point I decided to be part of the innovation — not just a user.

It seems that Marwen Trabelsi shares his passion for distributed gaming with one of the IOTA founders. More importantly he will play an integral role in helping our partners embed the IOTA Tangle into their ecosystems, Please give Marwen a warm welcome !

Welcome Marwen Trabelsi to the IOTA Foundation was originally published in IOTA on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Brord van Wierst is a full stack programmer with a focus on creating complex programming infrastructure and server-side data management. He graduated only 2 years ago with a Bachelors in Computer Science from the Hogeschool Arnhem Nijmegen, in the Netherlands.

Since a young age, Brord has shown interest in how programs work, tinkering with them and attempting to reinvent the wheel for practice. This never stopped, as shown by his diversity in interests and programming tools. Taking up challenging internships and even more rewarding projects after graduation, he learned to be an efficient independent worker, requiring little guiding for complex tasks

On joining IOTA

Ever since I first heard about crypto, years ago, my interest was triggered. I feel like it is an important step towards a better future. However, due to limitations and downsides to the traditional blockchain architecture, I did not imagine it was the solution. Up until I learned about IOTA.

Since qualifying from my studies, the feeling that my contribution to the world was not enough bothered me. Creating the next social media platform or game would not change the world. But by working for IOTA I felt I could contribute towards something bigger. I look forward to working with all the great minds already here to achieve a better future.

We are delighted that Brord van Wierst is joining the team. He is a great example that enthusiasm, ability, and drive can make you an integral part of any team. Give him a warm welcome!

Welcome Brord van Wierst to the IOTA Foundation was originally published in IOTA on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Janine Härtel joins the Mobility & Automotive adoption team as a senior project manager. Since she was a young girl, Janine has driven every car she could get her hands on, old or new, no matter which brand or model. She also loves to watch Formula 1 and DTM.

Over the last years Janine could apply her passion for the automotive industry while working for MHP, a Porsche company which is part of the Volkswagen group, especially on connected car mobility services and Over-the-Air (OTA) connectivity solutions. Together with colleagues at Volkswagen, she developed the idea of the “software over the air“ PoC using the IOTA Tangle. During this time she also learned about many other opportunities to adopt DLT to the automotive world, especially for autonomous vehicles and their business models in MaaS applications. Janine has also consulted on several strategic projects in the aerospace and transportation industry, with a strong focus on IT and Engineering.

Janine studied communication engineering with a major in mechanical engineering at the Research University RWTH located in Aachen. Janine started her career in a spin off company from The Institute for Industrial Management (FIR) at RWTH Aachen, in the field of production engineering. The main focus was on developing an integration platform (myopenfactory) with a consortium of ERP providers, together with small and medium-sized and mechanical engineering companies, to reduce the complexity of intercorporate interoperability between ERP systems.

Currently, Janine is located in Hamburg, Germany.

On joining IOTA

I strongly believe in IOTA’s technology and the vision of a machine-to-machine ecosystem. Examples include vehicles paying for services on demand, such as in-car infotainment, delivery, parking onsite and offsite, driving though countries with toll roads, sharing electric power, and software updates. Most of these ideas are still at an early prototype stage, but I am proud to be part of this change.

I believe it is very important to develop a solid technical layer to support all these different digital mobility services. For instance, when it comes to autonomous driving and vehicle services-on-demand, the automotive industry will need safe, transparent and scalable tamper-proof solutions to document all kinds of transactions. The chosen technologies must be reliable, and must fulfill the demands of the industry. I believe that IOTA can be the missing link between the IT and the automotive world.

Ultimately I am focused on innovations and products which make mobility smarter and truly digital. Products and their UX must be developed in a way that hides the complexity of the layers underneath, so that users can enjoy a safe and hassle-free experience.

We are delighted to have Janine Härtel in our growing team at The IOTA Foundation. She has all the qualities to be a great driver for adoption in the mobility industry. Give her a warm welcome!

Welcome Janine Härtel to the IOTA Foundation was originally published in IOTA on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

IOTA, the number 10 ranked cryptocurrency by market cap with its unique distributed ledger called Tangle, has struggled throughout much of 2018’s bear market after reaching as high as $5.23 in December 2017. However, a pair of recent announcements have put IOTA in a bullish position, ready to make a strong rebound from August lows....

Hans Moog is a tech enthusiast, hacker and entrepreneur, with 24 years of experience in software development. He studied computer science at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich with a focus on cloud computing, IT security and artificial intelligence. He started his first company at the age of 21 and has been part of a number of well-known projects, leading international teams of developers.

In recent years he has invested a lot of his resources in supporting research projects all over the world, promoting the idea of “open science”, working with prominent scientists in various fields.

As a perpetual traveller he is used to working remotely, which integrates well with the distributed nature of the IOTA foundation.

On joining IOTA

I have always been fascinated by technology and its potential impact on people’s lives. I have been following, and investing in the cryptocurrency space since the very early days, and have been intrigued by the implications of a decentralized future.

While the success of Bitcoin made me financially independent, I realized that the technology behind it will not be able to scale to the level that is needed, to see the kind of change I am anticipating. I truly believe that IOTA’s unique approach to DLT is the only one that can live up to this promise. Being able to contribute my skills to this project is an extremely exciting prospect, and I will do everything in my power to make its vision a reality.

Hans Moog is a long-standing member of the IOTA community. It is a pleasure to formally bring him on board our team. As many of you already know, Hans has been working on the important local snapshot function, and we hope to be able to tell you more about this very soon. Give him a warm welcome!

Welcome Hans Moog to the IOTA Foundation was originally published in IOTA on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

FOMO Moments Altcoins lifting markets this morning, Icon, Iota, VeChain rising, while Lisk is losing. Monday morning has seen little action in crypto land however there has been some small upward movements by a few altcoins. Total market capitalization has remained above $215 billion and has crept up slightly on the back of a few...