Yokogawa Solution Service Corporation announces that it will join the Smart Cell Processing project, a joint undertaking of industrial, administrative, and academic organizations in Japan and the UK. It will work with Tokyo Electron to develop a total quality management system for the automated production of stem cells that will be used in regenerative medicine. The project is being led by Tokyo Electron Limited.

ARC has been opining that one of the impacts of falling oil prices would be an increase in mergers and acquisition activity and/or an increasing number of partnerships or joint ventures.

The Wireless IoT Forum has been launched to support and promote the deployment of the Internet of Things worldwide. The Forum has been created to drive the widespread adoption of wireless wide-area networking technologies in both licensed and unlicensed spectrum. It will work with key stakeholders from across the value chain to agree requirements that inform and accelerate standards development and deployments.

Trimble announced that it will distribute DotProduct's DPI-8 handheld 3D scanner as part of a shared objective to make 3D scanning more accessible to the building design and construction market. The addition of DotProduct technology diversifies Trimble's professional portfolio of 3D scanning solutions with an easy-to-use, cost-effective handheld for 3D data capture.

Although this acquisition likely had more to do with a recognition of an increasingly valuable synergy between the two firms, declining oil prices no doubt helped reduce the valuation of the deal, thereby making it even more attractive as Kongsberg Maritime AS, a wholly owned subsidiary of Kongsberg Gruppen ASA, has acquired the remaining 90% of the shares of the Germany-based underwater chemical sensors specialist, Contros Systems & Solutions GmbH.

Even before oil prices declined over 50 percent over the last year, IOCs and NOCs were faced with the challenge of Capex investments increasing at rates much faster than their commensurate rate of production increases in the search for oil & gas.   As we all know by now, extracting hydrocarbons via unconventional methods, such as subsea projects, are more expensive than conventional ones.

​Siemens and The Confederation of the Indian Industry (CII) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to spearhead the conceptualization and implementation of pilot projects in Smart Cities. CII has set up a "National Mission on Smart Cities" and the objective of this Mission is to play the role of a facilitator and a thought leader to assist the Government in the process of the development of 100 Smart Cities by 2022. The MoU is part of the implementation strategy to take forward the Smart City initiative.

Accenture and SAP SE have been selected by CenterPoint Energy to design, test, and implement an asset analytics solution that supports CenterPoint Energy's strategy of integrating information technology (IT) with operational technology (OT). This will help improve management and maintenance of its transmission and distribution assets.

Bentley Systems, Incorporated, a leading company dedicated to providing comprehensive software solutions for sustaining infrastructure, announced that it has acquired the business of Oakland, Calif.-based EADOC, LLC, provider of construction management cloud services.

Aspen Technology, Inc., a leading provider of software and services to the process industries, announced it has acquired the BLOWDOWN software technology from Professor Stephen Richardson of Imperial College London and Dr. Graham Saville, formerly of Imperial College London.