Our very own Jeff Smith was recently written up in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s “Competitive Edge” special section. Read “Profiling the Competitive Edge: Jeff Smith.”

Our CEO, Jeff Smith, is headed to Chicago for the M2M United Conference where as a keynote speaker he will be hosting a series of 7 minute “ignite” presentations from many important players in the M2M industry. Should be a great presentation, don’t miss it if your attending M2M United.

Bryan Adams High School in east Dallas (Dallas traditionally having one of the worst graduation rates among large school districts) is trying a pilot program using GPS/cellular ankle bracelets to fight truancy among high-schoolers.

This of course is raising questions about the balance between privacy and the public good — which even the system manufacturer acknowledges: “You can paint this thing as either Big Brother, or this is a device that connects you to a buddy who wants to keep you safe and help you graduate.”

ComputerWorld has an excellent article on the rapidly increasing use of M2M and sensor technology in vehicles, especially in tractor-trailers and commercial shipping. It’s impressive to see how sensors are making their way into almost every aspect of tractor-trails, from load detection to location tracking to collision and rollover avoidance.

The biggest challenge of all? How to coordinate the data and alarms from the various independent systems.

I have begun investigating OpenDMTP which is “Open Device Monitoring and Tracking Protocol”. I have long been a strong supporter of open standards and protocols even though I haven’t been able to do much to further that cause in the last year or two, so the idea of an open standard for GPS tracking applications is certainly exciting to me. I am currently looking into the possibility of offering a OpenDMTP Foundation product. Don’t hesitate to contact us if this may be of interest to you.