IT Security, Drones Dominate Exhibits at CeBIT 2016 Media Preview

This year’s focus will be on securing systems, including IoT, cloud and telecomm technology, which are of rapidly rising importance to enterprises.

The new commercial drone from Skye is designed to overcome some of the more significant challenges to drone use, including the length of time a drone can stay aloft and limits on the ability to safely fly over people. The Skye drone is really a hybrid of a quadra copter and a blimp. You control it like a drone, but its lift comes from helium. You still control it with its propellers, but all they do is change the position of the device. Because the propellers, or thrusters, don’t hold the drone in the air, the batteries can last for hours.

The Skye drone is an ideal platform for taking photos. Here it is with a GoPro camera, a radio transmitter and attachments that provide electronic support. Yes, the camera and associated electronics are simply stuck to the side of the drone to illustrate how flexible this platform can be.

The Wingtra drone is designed for commercial users in agriculture, mining and other businesses that have to survey crops, or make 3D models of surface mining operations or any number of other tasks that require a stable platform but don’t necessarily have a place to launch or land nearby. Wingtra solves this problem by taking off and landing vertically, but flying like an airplane the rest of the time.

Dronemasters is a new drone user group in Germany that’s trying to unite drone operators, government agencies, regulators and companies with an interest in drones so that drone users can work with some consistent rules. The organization also sponsors drone events, such as races, to build interest. Here’s one of those racing drones opened up so you can see what it’s made of.

Dronemasters is also involved in developing drones. This is a commercial drone designed for a variety of purposes, including surveying, delivery or as a camera platform.

Digitrade will be introducing a high-security mobile hard drive that requires two-factor authentication to use. The new drive will only allow access when a smartcard is inserted into a slot in the bottom, and then a user-specific PIN is entered on the touch-screen shown. This drive can be outfitted with a variety of protective covers to prevent data loss due to shock or other environmental factors.

Eurotech is launching a series of secure Internet of things interface devices for use in a variety of applications. Some, such as the small unit shown here, are intended for locations where environmental threats are relatively low, and the amount of data isn’t large. This particular unit uses Java-based middleware to provide protection for IoT data that’s being passed to central or cloud based systems.

Eurotech also builds systems that are designed to be used in adverse environments, such as on mining equipment, railway cars and the like. This particular secure gateway by Eurotech is used on rail cars on the Washington, D.C., Metro system, where it collects data from sensors throughout the car, and then passes it along to Metro’s maintenance management system. From there, the sensor data is able to predict impending failure and warn of other problems before anyone gets hurt. That data is then passed along to Metro’s managers where it’s ignored.

You know how annoying it is when you’re on a conference call and there are about 25 people on the other end, and you can’t understand any of them? Well, Sennheiser has a solution that provides a central connection point with four satellite units, each able to handle around eight people. The idea is to place those satellite units near groups of people so they can be heard clearly.