Enterprise Mobile News of the Week: 11/13/17

Even on slow news weeks there’s always something interesting in the world of enterprise mobile news that comes our way. We’d like to share it with you ICYMI.

1. Robots Packing Groceries. Ocado Group, the UK’s largest online grocer, is using 1,000 robots to help fulfill orders. People still pack boxes and ship the items, but the robots have enabled Ocado to be more productive with two-thirds fewer employees. Pretty amazing. BTW, Ocado’s not the only one in the robot game. Wal-Mart robots will soon roam the aisles looking for stockouts, missing prices and more.



2. Machine Learning Models, No Waiting. Pretty interesting to see ML models available on GitHub with the developer practically begging you to fork their code.



3. Warby Parker using the iPhone X’s Sensor Housing to recommend your next pair of glasses. The iPhone X was one of the most awaited products of the year and the sensor housing embedded in the notch is one of the most interesting and polarizing features. Warby Parker uses the 3-D mapping capabilities help you find the right glasses for your face. Pretty neat.
4. “We are approaching the end of the line for the automobile.” I usually scoff at comments like this as they are typically made by analysts or executives at companies trying to build self-driving cars. But when Bob Lutz, a car guy’s car guy, not to mention a former executive at GM, Chrysler, Ford and BMW starts making these types of pronouncements, it’s time to listen. He sees a transition for the traditional OEMs to more of a Foxconn model.
5. A proposal to update IoT firmware. One of the biggest challenges with IoT devices (and there’s no shortage of challenges!) is that in the drive to keep device costs low in the face of limited connectivity, there is often no way to update the device’s firmware. This can lead to unpatched security holes, among other things. I realize it’s a long road from proposal to established standard but this is a promising start to being able to upgrade billions of sensors rather than replace them. And a standard for doing this across all types of devices (versus countless proprietary methods)? Hoo-boy, this is exciting.
6. A major vulnerability has frozen hundreds of millions of dollars of Ethereum. Remember when Ethereum was going to become the largest Bitcoin market? This is why I don’t invest in tech stocks anymore. Oof.