by Gary Mintchell | Mar 14, 2025 | Sensors, Technology
I’ve had a soft spot for visual systems ever since my introduction to the technology in the mid-1980s. Trends of more powerful video sensors plus AI have combined to form a number of interesting new products.
This news comes from a company called Cybord (that I previously wrote about here), who bills itself as “the leading provider of advanced AI-powered electronic component analytics.” They have announced the launch of its Real-Time Interception (RTI) solution, an advanced visual AI-powered software that prevents defective components from being assembled onto Printed Circuit Board Assemblies (PCBAs) in real time. By identifying and discarding faulty components within milliseconds before placement, Cybord’s RTI safeguards product quality, integrity, and compliance while significantly reducing manufacturing waste and costs. The solution, which is already integrated into Fuji’s NXT III placing machines, is currently expanding to manufacturing lines globally.
The solution provides:
- Instantaneous Detection and Rejection: The solution identifies every type of defect and discards defective or unauthorized components in real time before they are assembled onto electronic circuit boards, ensuring only top-quality and approved components are utilized.
- Seamless Manufacturing Integration: The flexible, drop-in software solution easily integrates into existing manufacturing lines to enhance quality control without disrupting production workflows.
- Data-Packed Insights: The platform provides manufacturers with crucial analytics and monitoring and ensures compliance with IPC standards.
- Value-Add for Machine Manufacturers: RTI allows machine manufacturers to empower their EMS customers with enhanced production efficiency and quality control by reducing rework and scrap. EMSs, in turn, prevent unnecessary revenue loss.
The RTI solution builds on Cybord’s successful Quality Component Inspection (QCI) and Traceability Component Inspection (TCI) offerings, addressing a critical need voiced by manufacturers: the ability to prevent faulty components from penetrating the assembly line rather than detecting them post-assembly. The RTI solution has already driven high demand from leading industry players and is currently integrated in Fuji America’s pick-and-place machines.
Powered by a database of nearly five billion components and counting, Cybord utilizes deep learning and AI algorithms to advance the next generation of AI in electronics manufacturing. During placement on the assembly line, the visual AI solution prevents defective, damaged, and counterfeit components from being assembled onto PCBA in real time with 99.9% accuracy. Cybord currently works with industry leaders including Fuji America, Siemens, and Flex.
by Gary Mintchell | Mar 12, 2025 | News
Another conglomerate sees the light.
Throughout my business life, I have witnessed corporate hubris build huge incomes and stock prices—for a while. Then the inevitable payment came, and the house of cards came tumbling down.
Once I worked for a division of Beatrice Foods. Beginning as a dairy producer (Meadow Gold milk helped me pay college expenses), its corporate overlords added recreation vehicles, yachts, luggage, air hand dryers, and more. Unsustainable.
I once met Harold Geneen of ITT when he discussed how he managed the huge conglomerate of up to 350 companies.
Then there was the house of cards Jack Welch built at GE ending in divestitures and eventual breakup. Honeywell, once almost a twin of GE, is now undergoing a similar breakup into smaller, more agile individual parts.
Enter Hexagon AB. It began life in Sweden as an oddly structured conglomerate. They brought on board a new CFO to supposedly focus investments. Yet since 2001 it has made something like 135 acquisitions. Too much to manage, Hexagon board has directed management to prepare for the separation of its Asset Lifecycle Intelligence (ALI) division and related businesses. For those of us with histories in US software companies think Intergraph, Infor, and PAS (among others).
From the press release:
4 March 2025—Hexagon AB announces that the Board of Directors, after a comprehensive assessment, has directed management to prepare for the separation of its Asset Lifecycle Intelligence (“ALI”) division and related businesses (“NewCo”) by way of a Lex Asea distribution (or “spin-off”) to its shareholders, as previously announced on 25th October 2024. The Board intends to propose the distribution and listing of NewCo’s shares at a shareholder’s meeting in early 2026, provided that the circumstances are deemed right at the time.
Reflecting the geographical focus of NewCo’s business, Intergraph’s heritage as a U.S. public company and the location of its management team, Hexagon expects NewCo to list on a U.S. national securities exchange. Subject to regulatory approvals, Hexagon will establish a temporary Swedish Depository Receipt programme for NewCo via a listing on Nasdaq in Stockholm, for existing shareholders to locally participate in potential value creation and facilitate the transition to the U.S. listing.
After the Board’s evaluation, Hexagon has expanded the expected perimeter of NewCo to include the remainder of Hexagon’s Safety, Infrastructure & Geospatial (“SIG”) division, as opposed to solely the Utilities & Infrastructure business within SIG, as was previously communicated. As before, the NewCo perimeter will include the ETQ business (currently operating under the Manufacturing Intelligence division) and the Bricsys business (currently operating under the Geosystems division).
NewCo will be a pureplay software and SaaS company, offering comprehensive asset lifecycle intelligence, safety, infrastructure, and geospatial capabilities for a wide array of industries. NewCo will leverage best-in-class capabilities across diverse domains, applying them in new ways to deliver previously unrealised market advantages. With a data-centric strategy, NewCo will help customers plan, operate, and maintain assets more effectively, enabling clearer insights and better incident response. As a standalone company, NewCo will also have increased flexibility to pursue its distinct operating strategy, accelerate a SaaS transition and shift to recurring revenues, and establish a separate currency for future M&A. As previously announced, NewCo will be led by Mattias Stenberg who is currently President of Hexagon’s ALI division.
NewCo, including SIG, ETQ and Bricsys, had approximately 7,200 employees as of December 31, 2024, and revenues of approximately EUR 1,448 million with an adjusted operating margin (EBIT1) of approximately 31% for the year ended December 31, 2024, before consideration of standalone costs and using IFRS accounting standards.
by Gary Mintchell | Mar 11, 2025 | Security
Rubrik has announced new capabilities to its cyber resilience offerings across cloud, SaaS, and hypervisors including Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, RedHat OpenShift, and more. Its new Identity Recovery for Active Directory and Entra ID addresses the key vulnerability to business operational recovery.
The innovations aim to provide customers with even more ability to anticipate breaches, detect potential threats, and recover with speed and efficiency no matter where their data lives.
Here is a list of new products.
Cloud Posture Risk Management (CPR): CPR addresses the lack of data visibility by automatically discovering and inventorying cloud data assets and identifying unprotected or sensitive data. CPR helps organizations make informed backup decisions and strengthen their overall backup posture by protecting only what truly matters, reducing risk and unnecessary costs.
Oracle Cloud Protection: Rubrik Security Cloud (RSC) is planned to support data protection for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) —beginning with Oracle Cloud VMWare (OCVS) workloads and self-managed Oracle DB workloads operating OCI VMs. The solution is designed to enable customers to safeguard their cloud-based environments with the same robust, unified backup and recovery capabilities they rely on for other cloud and on-premises data.
Expanding Data Protection to PostgreSQL: Rubrik recognizes the critical importance of fortifying data defenses across all platforms. According to a recent Rubrik Zero Labs report, attackers are targeting backups in 96% of cyberattacks. By extending coverage to PostgreSQL, Rubrik ensures that one of the world’s most popular open-source databases thrives in the face of evolving digital threats. The comprehensive data security solution provides organizations with the assurance of maintaining data backup, availability, and recoverability.
Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization Data Protection: Sixty-percent of enterprises have adopted Kubernetes, emphasizing the critical need for cyber resilience solutions for their critical workloads. Rubrik’s new OpenShift support marks a significant step in securing these environments with comprehensive, automated, and immutable backups that deliver fast recovery from cyber incidents. Businesses have the flexibility to choose virtualization platforms for critical business processes without compromising manageability or cyber resilience.
Azure DevOps and GitHub Backup: For organizations using continuous integration and continuous development to accelerate innovation, Rubrik now protects Azure DevOps and GitHub with cyber resilient automated backups, granular recovery, extended retention, and robust compliance coverage for critical data stores.
Rubrik Cloud Vault (RCV) for Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS): RCV reduces the complexity and cost of managing a highly secure off-site archival location, with flexible policies and/or regions. RCV features immutable, isolated, logically air-gapped off-site backups combined with role-based access controls, advanced encryption, and retention locks to provide unparalleled confidence in data recovery.
Security and Resilience for Microsoft Dynamics 365: Rubrik’s enhanced protection for Microsoft Dynamics 365 aims to ensure businesses can secure their critical operational and customer data within a unified platform.
Sandbox Seeding for Salesforce: An intuitive user experience designed to allow users to select objects and records depending on specific criteria. This process aims to prevent seeding errors by thoroughly analyzing data selection size versus destination size availability before moving data to the sandbox environment. The goal of this solution, planned for 2025, is to save queries for future repetitive use, further expediting the sandbox seeding process.
With the introduction of Identity Recovery, Rubrik delivers the industry’s most comprehensive, automated, and secure solution for protecting hybrid identity environments across Entra ID and Active Directory (AD). Identity Recovery includes orchestrated Active Directory Forest Recovery to rapidly and cleanly restore entire identity environments – eliminating manual complexity and reducing downtime.
Advanced Security Features for Azure & Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS): Leveraging advanced machine learning and automation, new capabilities available today include Anomaly Detection, Data Discovery and Classification, and soon, Threat Hunting and Threat Monitoring. These capabilities are designed to work together to proactively detect and mitigate cyber threats, accelerate recovery, and ensure sensitive data remains protected and compliant.
Orchestrated Recovery for Azure VM: Rubrik is planning to extend its Orchestrated Recovery capabilities to the cloud beginning with Azure VM. By enabling customers to automate recovery sequences, schedule regular test recoveries, and generate comprehensive recovery reports, the solution is designed to reduce complexity and minimize the potential for human error.
Turbo Threat Hunting: Unlike traditional methods that scan one object at a time or require navigating multiple panes of glass, Turbo Threat Hunting scans at scale by leveraging pre-computed hashes stored within Rubrik’s metadata. This eliminates the need for file-by-file scanning, allowing organizations to rapidly pinpoint the exact recovery points free from malware or other threats within seconds — even in the most complex data environments. Internal testing found Turbo Threat Hunting scans 75,000 backups in less than 60 seconds.
Enterprise Edition for Microsoft 365: Delivering enterprise-grade security and resilience for Microsoft 365, Rubrik expands its capabilities for organizations to rapidly detect, respond to, and recover from attacks. New capabilities available for Microsoft 365 include Sensitive Data Discovery, which identifies and protects high-risk data before an attack happens, and Prioritized Recovery, which restores critical data first for fast operational recovery. Coming soon, Rubrik’s customers using Enterprise Edition for Microsoft 365 will also be able to add Anomaly Detection, Threat Monitoring, Threat Hunting, and Self-Service Recovery capabilities.
by Gary Mintchell | Mar 11, 2025 | Robots
The development of collaborative robots in the Odense, Denmark area led to important increases in the development of end-of-arm effectors. OnRobot became a leading developer of these tools. This new release marks OnRobot’s highest payload gripper to date, with intelligent control and seamless integration for palletizing and handling.
OnRobot’s new VGP30 vacuum gripper robust at 30 kg (66 lbs.) payload is designed to excel at palletizing boxes and handling irregular shapes and porous surfaces, even those constructed from cost-saving, thinner cardboard. The VGP30 is ready for immediate deployment out of the box and includes all the hardware and software needed for all leading robot brands.
Key features and benefits of the VGP30:
- High Payload: Capable of handling up to 30 kg (66 lbs.).
- Immediate Deployment: Ready to use out of the box, including all necessary hardware and software for seamless integration with all leading robot brands.
- Intelligent Vacuum Control: Automatically adjusts to any box size or interlayer, optimizing air consumption and reducing energy costs.
- Multichannel Capability: Provides failsafe and flexible operations. The VGP30 has two channels that can be operated together or independently, convenient for handling small boxes.
- Seamless Integration with D:PLOY: The VGP30 seamlessly integrates with OnRobot’s D:PLOY platform, the first automatic software development platform that enables the configuration of complete, off-the-shelf robotic systems for high-mix manufacturing applications.
by Gary Mintchell | Mar 10, 2025 | Security
Om Malik recently posted a rant about how unfriendly consumer IoT is to its customers. The goal of almost all suppliers centers on sucking up as much consumer behavior as possible while preventing competitors from interoperating. I may have more on that later.
The rant came my way the day before this news item relating to security of connected devices in manufacturing. Reading Malik’s column, I wondered about the entire manufacturing IoT ecosystem—interoperability, ease of use, ease of adding new device, and, of course, security. In our case it’s not only suppliers sucking data from our systems, it’s also industrial espionage and attacks from outside.
This news discusses how three companies came together recently to devise a solution advance.
CyberArk and Device Authority, in collaboration with Microsoft, have launched a solution that strengthens and scales connected device authentication to enterprise applications with Zero Trust principles. It helps manufacturers reduce cyber risk from connected devices in factory floors and edge environments with robust identity security, automated access management and device lifecycle protection.
The manufacturing industry is rapidly transforming to digital, driven by the coming together of the Internet of Things (IoT) and Operational Technology (OT), with countless devices connected to optimize operations. Each connected device potentially introduces new cybersecurity vulnerabilities. The NIST reference architecture for IoT, introduced in May 2024, provides a structured approach to secure onboarding, continuous device management and threat monitoring across the device lifecycle. The collaboration between Microsoft, CyberArk and Device Authority helps organizations translate this framework into practical, scalable solutions.
Each partner brings essential capabilities to this end-to-end solution architecture for NIST compliance.
- Through Microsoft Azure IoT and Defender for IoT, Microsoft enables secure, scalable device management and real-time monitoring. The cloud-edge integration ensures consistent device security, even in remote, air-gapped environments.
- CyberArk’s modern privileged access management capabilities restrict unauthorized human access to critical devices and systems, enforcing user and device security policies without the need for time consuming, error-prone manual human intervention.
- Device Authority automates secure device onboarding, identity credentialing and encryption, minimizing human error, accelerating incident response and maintaining data integrity through the connected ecosystem.
Further reading
Learn about the importance of protecting your IoT and OT devices from cyber threats.
Learn more about the joint solution with CyberArk, Device Authority, and Microsoft.
