The CeBIT 2001 M2M Zone Pavilion, located at the center of Telematics Hall 7, has more than doubled in size since last year's show, reflecting the already strong growth of this potentially explosive industry. With 14 of the most influential M2M names exhibiting, the M2M Zone is home to the manufacturers and service providers of the latest and most advanced machine-to-machine technology in existence.

M2M applications that take advantage of LTE networks will dominate this year's CeBIT, said Norbert Handke, CEO of ITS Network Germany (Brussels, Belgium), in an exclusive interview earlier this month. Dr. Handke also let slip a few products and services that his company, Intelligent Communications Systems, will be exhibiting during the week.

HP (Palo Alto, CA, USA) introduced four new telehealth partnerships on Sunday at the annual Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) conference. "LifeBot," provider of a mobile telemedicine solution, "Canvys," a medical display company, "Medweb," a cloud-hosted image and data repository, and "Parental Health," a senior monitoring company.

Frustrated school officials have turned to GPS tracking in an attempt to curb truancy, as reported in a local California, USA newspaper. The six week pilot program is aimed at habitually truant seventh- and eighth-grade students with four or more unexcused absences.

CINTERION (Munich, Germany) today introduced BGS2, the world’s smallest LGA (Land Grid Array) module for M2M solutions requiring voice and high speed GPRS data. Designed for high volume production, this ultra compact module is ideal for small M2M devices like personal tracking units and portable medical devices.

As cell phone penetration in the US hits 95% (100% if you rule out kids under 5 years of age), the battleground for the largest telecom carriers has shifted to machine-to-machine (M2M) communications. And it looks like AT&T (Dallas, TX USA) has just gotten its nose ahead in this race, adding almost 2 million devices in Q4 2010. (Note: this includes consumer and computing devices like eReaders, tablets and laptops.)

The number of global users of telematics smartphone applications will explode from 3.2 million in 2011 to 129 million in 2016, with North America as the dominant region, according to the latest ABI Research (New York) forecasts.

Iridium Communications Inc. (McLean, VA, USA) has signed agreements with five new partners to market Iridium-based solutions for the mobile machine-to-machine sector. The company hopes these new partnerships will open up numerous customer opportunities.

Iridium--formerly "Iridium Satellite LLC"--operates a network of 66 active orbiting satellites used for worldwide voice and data communication from handsets and other transceivers.

Iridium Communications Inc. (McLean, VA, USA) has signed agreements with five new partners to market Iridium-based solutions for the mobile machine-to-machine sector. The company hopes these new partnerships will open up numerous customer opportunities.

Iridium--formerly "Iridium Satellite LLC"--operates a network of 66 active orbiting satellites used for worldwide voice and data communication from handsets and other transceivers.

The number of global users of telematics smartphone applications will explode from 3.2 million in 2011 to 129 million in 2016, with North America as the dominant region, according to the latest ABI Research (New York) forecasts.