Global revenues from smart home automation systems will grow at a 21-percent CAGR between 2015 and 2020, according to ABI Research. North America will account for the lion's share of the smart home automation system revenues in 2020, contributing close to 46 percent globally, followed by Europe and Asia-Pacific.

Janam Technologies LLC, a seller of rugged mobile computers for scanning barcodes and communicating wirelessly, has launched its XM2-RFID for Rail device.

Ikea's recently announced wireless charging line of furniture is expected to jump-start a trend that will amount to 10 million sticks of high-tech furniture sold in just two years.

The worldwide consumer Wi-Fi equipment market increased 5 percent in 2014, surpassing 166 million unit shipments. "Shipments of devices which support the 802.11ac standard grew significantly last ear, representing more than 11 percent of total access point shipments," says Jake Saunders, vice president and practice director, ABI Research.

For the past five years, the Pyhäsalmi mine in central Finland has been using passive high-frequency RFID tags to record when workers enter or leave a mine shaft. Since that time, says Kimmo Luukkonen, the mine's managing director, the technology has improved management's visibility into who is underground and when, and hence has increased its safety program's efficiency and accuracy. The company plans to expand that RFID solution to monitor who carries explosive detonators into the mine.

IBM says it will invest $3bn over the next four years to establish a new Internet of Things (IoT) unit, and that it is building a cloud-based open platform designed to help clients and ecosystem partners build IoT systems.