Smart DevOps Round-up With SiliconANGLE

This week’s Smart DevOps roundup features a bank seeking out developers to make Internet of Things (IoT) applications, a fresh take on the building blocks needed for an IoT economy, and an operating system for IoT services. .

Citi calls on developers to create IoT apps

Citigroup Inc. is calling for all interested developers across the globe to participate in its fintech challenge to develop apps that will help the bank penetrate the connected market, particularly wearable technology and smart homes. Those selected to participate in the challenge will have access to a set of APIs that would allow them to create IoT apps for the bank.

The timing couldn’t be better, as Apple Inc. recently announced Apple Pay, a service that allows users pay for good using their iPhone 6, 6 Plus or Watch.

“Money matters in people’s lives,” said Heather Cox, Citi’s chief client-experience, digital and marketing officer for global consumer banking. “Wearables will create a new kind of demand that can be fueled by biometrics — think even safer payment mechanisms with multi-layer bio-authentication as the security layer.”

SAM –  the building blocks of IoT

If you think building gadgets and apps for the Internet of Things requires you to be a seasoned developer, you might be surprised to find out that now, with a kit, you can start developing for IoT without an extensive background in coding.

Meet SAM, described as the ultimate electronics kit from Sam Labs Inc. that seamlessly integrates hardware, software and the Internet. You can build almost anything, from connected doorbells to homes with reactive lights or connected toys. Aside from creating connected devices, you’ll be learning to do things such as electronics engineering, coding, and better understanding the fundamentals behind an IoT economy.

SAM’s basic Explorer kits comes with a button, an RGB light, a buzzer, micro USB and a Bluetooth 4.0 dongle. This kit allows you to experiment with creating a whole new type of doorbell, such as an emergency pizza button.

SAM is currently being funded on Kickstarter Inc. and has already raised £64,389 (about $103,213) with 2 weeks more to go.

ARM’s mbed IoT OS

ARM Holdings plc is developing mbed, a free operating system dedicated for the Internet of Things. The platform will be designed for optimal use on IoT devices, requiring little battery power and memory to operate. The catch is, mbed will only work with kits fitted with chips based on ARM’s Cortex-M designs.

“Part of the reason that we felt the need to do an operating system was because there’s a lot of fragmentation in the marketplace,” Krisztian Flautner, ARM’s vice-president of research and development, said.

Flautner explained that, unlike computer, smartphone, and tablet operating systems, ARM’s platform will only be a few hundred kilobytes big. But that doesn’t mean it’s any less complex, as there will still be a lot of software components that need to seamlessly work together.

Chris Rommel from the VDC Research Group stated that by creating a platform for the Internet of Things that only works with ARM’s Cortex-M designs, the company is “potentially setting up the success of its partners as they pursue IoT technologies.”