Amazon's Alexa has learned yet another new skill. Amazon Echo and Fire TV users will now be able to sync the popular virtual assistant with their Fitbit accounts to get updates on their daily activities. Alexa integration adds a layer of convenience to Fitbit users, who will no longer have to open the app to see how many steps they've taken or calories burned. "Our integration with Alexa gives you hands-free access to your data, so you can find out when you walk in the door at the end of the day what your step count is in seconds, and know if …

Robots have changed our lives in many ways, from advancing our healthcare and automating our factory lines, to taking on dangerous tasks and even taking our place in warfare. Now Domino's have developed possibly the greatest use for robots yet - safe and secure pizza delivery in what the company claims is a world first. The company is testing pizza delivery by robot in New Zealand, known as the Domino's Robotic Unit (DRU). The three-foot tall battery-powered unit contains a heated compartment for storing up to 10 pizzas, and is capable of self-driving up to 12.5 miles, or 20 km from …

When listing all the ways humanity is going to ruin the future, one that doesn’t often come up is the sun being blocked out by a horde of drone advertising blimps. But that hasn’t stopped one Swiss firm from working hard to make it a reality. Skye Aero is a project to build 10-foot helium-filled balloons, with small propellers attached to give better control than your average blimp. The benefits are a much bigger aircraft—useful when you want to advertise to people—and one that won’t crash the second it loses power, or bumps into anyone.

Seoul, Korea-based LG Electronics, www.LG.com, and Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel, www.intel.com, are working together to bring 5G (fifth generation) technologies to the car. The companies say 5G telematics delivers data faster than 4G LTE (long-term evolution), even reducing latency when cars are traveling at high speeds, allowing for greater vehicle-to-vehicle, vehicle-to-infrastructure, and vehicle-to-pedestrian communication. Software can be updated at high speeds through OTA (over-the-air) networks, while videos and other multimedia content can experience faster downloads through the car’s infotainment systems.

At the Bluetooth World conference in Santa Clara on 15 March, Wayne Piekarski, a senior developer advocate for Google, said he believes the next big push in the Internet of Things is “orchestration,” meaning multiple connected devices aware of each other working together. “When you walk in your home, the lights come on and coffee machine goes on,” Piekarski said. “People don’t want to control a single light bulb, they’re going to work with multiple devices, which means working with multiple manufacturers.” At the moment, users of connected devices have to buy one product and download its application. However, according to Piekarski, the …

SK Telecom on Wednesday announced a set of new plans to beef up the nation’s still nascent Internet of Things industry, including building a nationwide network dedicated only to IoT services. The plans come in line with the government’s new roadmap to nurture start-ups and new businesses related to IoT technology that connects all machines ranging from smartphones to home appliances and vehicles via the Web.

Ring, the maker of a connected video doorbell that sells more than 50,000 units each month, has raised $61.2 million in a third round of financing. The round was led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) with additional funding from Richard Branson, head of the Virgin Group. Ring has now raised almost $100 million to fund its hardware business. In addition to the funding, Ring is also launching a premium version of its video doorbell. Both doorbells let someone see who is at the door using an app on their phone. They also can communicate with the person ringing the …

These days, everyone only seems to want to look forward, without ever stopping to look back. And nowhere is this more keenly felt right now than in the smartphone industry, where everyone is eagerly awaiting the next big breakthrough in mobile technology. Such breakthroughs are usually the staple of the annual Mobile World Congress (MWC) trade fair, but this year’s edition — hosted in Barcelona last month — was somewhat underwhelming. Indeed, if Apple had been in charge of branding for the 2016 event, it would probably have been called MWC 2015s.

Matthew Garrett, the well-known Linux and security expert who works at CoreOS, was in a London hotel recently where the light switches had been replaced by Android tablets. Garrett, a hacker's hacker, decided to see what they were doing. A few hours later Garrett had access to the electronics in every room. While Garrett is a security expert, this feat didn't require any elite cracker skills. Garrett explained he unplugged a tablet and put his laptop into the link. He then set up a transparent bridge. That's trivial for any Linux network administrator. He then used the popular network protocol analyzer WireShark to analyze the traffic.

We have seen many incentives to buy new smartphones, from TV sets to DVD players to fridges. These usually bore little relation to the handsets themselves, and often carried completely unrelated brand names. As the Internet of Things comes closer to everyday reality, it might just start making sense to buy bundles of appliances that can connect to each other. While the everyday reality of a connected universe of appliances is still years away, the possibilities are already becoming apparent on showroom floors. Monitoring a home washing machine from a smartphone at work? Turning on the lounge air conditioning while …