United States-based blockchain incubator and investment firm Blockchains, LLC, has acquired the German Ethereum dev team slock.it, according to a press release on June 3. Slock.it’s team is reportedly around three dozen large, and is known for its creation of the now-defunct decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) project “The DAO.” Co-founders and brothers Christoph and Simon Jentzsch will reportedly join Blockchains as VP of technology and director of blockchain development, respectively. During the first few months of the acquisition, the newly-linked organizations will reportedly ship a line of open-source tools for Ethereum developers. As per the organizations’ acquisition agreement, teams will …

The World Economic Forum (WEF) announced the formation of six separate “fourth industrial revolution councils” to work on new technology policy guidance, according to a press release shared with Cointelegraph on May 29. Per the release, the councils intend to help regulators regulate artificial intelligence, autonomous mobility, blockchain, drones, internet of things and precision medicine. The boards — allegedly composed by over 200 leaders from the public and private sectors, civil society and academia — will also gather regularly to address the absence of clearly defined rules. The announcement notes that the councils met for the first time today at …

Internet of Things (IoT) blockchain network Iota (IOTA) has completed preparations to further decentralize its transaction validation, Cointelegraph Auf Deutsch reported on May 28. According to a press release and blog post from the company, its Coordinator mechanism will now give away to a new tool dubbed “Coordicide.” Like its predecessor, Coordicide will manage transaction security, ensuring transactions process and that the same funds are not spent twice (so-called double spending). According to executives, the move marks a major step towards complete decentralization for IOTA, which had previously stressed its Coordinator was a temporary fixture. “We have been working towards …

A unit of German telecom giant Deutsche Telekom will work with Binance-listed project Fetch.AI (FET) to develop decentralized IoT network innovations, according to a press release shared with Cointelegraph on May 22. Fetch.AI, a Cambridge-based tech startup, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Deutsche Telekom’s T-Labs to build and implement autonomous agents (AEAs) on the Fetch.AI test network in order to integrate them into Internet of Things (IoT) device communications. The new partnership intends to find out how AEAs can be incorporated into IoT devices in order to provide them with the authority and autonomy to operate with …

Dutch bank ABN AMRO announced that it is launching a blockchain inventory tracking platform dubbed Forcefield in a press release published on May 17. Per the announcement, the platform is an Internet of Things solution that allows the monitoring of physical trade inventories with sensors and near-field communication chips. Forcefield was developed over the past year as a stand-alone product and became an independent company following a successful proof-of-concept that was conducted with consulting firm Accenture. The bank claims that the system can lead to more secure physical handling processes and a reduction of costs in the management of commodities …

Engineering and electronics manufacturer Bosch hinted it would take an active role in defending the openness of the Internet of Things (IoT) against censorship as part of a press release from May 15. Bosch, which has various developments on the way in the sector, highlighted distributed ledger technology (DLT), including blockchain, as an essential part of the future of both IoT and the related Economy of Things. “Distributed ledger technologies (DLT) such as blockchain may well become the key technology in these domains,” the press release reads. While entities from governments to dedicated startups are tackling blockchain’s potential in IoT, …

Switzerland’s national postal service Swiss Post has cooperated with blockchain firm Modum to further develop a temperature monitoring solution for shipments. The news was reported by Swiss logistics news site Die Post on May 7. Die Post reports that Swiss Post has cooperated with Modum, a blockchain and Internet of Things (IoT) technology firm, as a technology partner to launch a smart service. Dubbed ThermoCare, the service is for monitoring the temperature of packages, enabling sensitive goods to be tracked, analyzed and recorded over the full course of their travel route. The solution is reported to be aimed at optimizing …

United States-based coffee chain Starbucks will implement tech giant Microsoft’s Azure Blockchain Service to track coffee production, tech news site GeekWire reports on May 6. Starbucks first announced its “bean to cup” initiative in 2018, stating that it would work with farmers in Costa Rica, Colombia, and Rwanda to pilot a blockchain-based coffee-tracking system. The system will purportedly allow customers to track the production of their coffee and will open up potential financial opportunities for coffee bean farmers on the backend. Starbucks further noted that they would open source the pilot program to disseminate their findings. The two companies presented …

Iota and internet of things (IoT) firm Evrythng announced a partnership to combine and apply their distributed ledger and IoT technologies to provide greater transparency for consumer goods supply chains. The news was revealed in a press release on April 17. According to the press release, Evrythng’s focus is to implement IoT and DLT technology to create unique, interactive and trackable identities for consumer products, with the aim of fostering greater transparency for both supply chain stakeholders and consumers. The partnership will reportedly see Evrythng’s Blockchain Integration Hub expand to include integrations with Iota’s distributed ledger protocol, known as Tangle. …

A subsidiary of Swiss cybersecurity and blockchain firm WISeKey has raised $7 million in an pre-funding round prior to launching a security token offering (STO), the company confirmed in a press release on April 11. WISeCoin, which came into being in August last year, plans to conduct the STO in Q2. Responsible for managing all of WISeKey’s blockchain initiatives and operations, the vertically-integrated platform intends to raise a total of 17,587,527 Swiss francs ($17,563,695) to expand its activities. These include the use of various disruptive technologies, specifically focusing on the Internet of Things (IoT) given WISeKey’s major presence as a …

The European Union Blockchain Observatory and Forum released a report entitled “Tokenization of physical assets and the impact of IoT and AI” on April 10. The report, authored by Dr. Tim Weingärtner, a professor at Lucerne University of Applied Sciences & Arts – School for Information Technology, features the “digital twin” concept, which refers to a digital replica of the physical world. This mirror world would be consist of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, big data, tokens representing physical objects, blockchain as a trusted ledger and Artificial Intelligence (AI). The report notes that blockchain would play a key role in …

Switzerland-based blockchain and cybersecurity firm WISeKey has launched a new blockchain-powered digital identity solution to protect Internet of Things (IoT) devices and their data. The news was announced in a WISeKey press release on March 29. WISeKey focuses on secure authentication and identification solutions for people and smart objects by implementing a cryptographic tool called Root of Trust (RoT). WISeKey IoT claims to have an install base of over 1.5 billion secure microchips across “virtually all IoT sectors” — from connected carts and smart cities to drones and crypto tokens. RoT, the press release claims, is currently embedded in 4 …