Hello Embedded Professionals, Engineers, and Developers! Welcome to In Case You Missed it, the weekly news show all about Embedded technologies and solutions from Embedded Computing Design.

On Wednesday, January 21st, in Sacaton, Arizona, I had the opportunity to step out on the demo site for an unveiling of John Deere’s New Generation of P‑Tier Midsize Excavators. The massive and intricate machines displayed many great features, highlighting power, speed, and a cab upgrade from previous models.

CES 2026 ended just last week, and the energy is still thrumming through me as I reflect back. A few trends really jumped out at me as I think back, and before I get into specifics, let me give you that 1000-foot-high viewpoint, as I saw it.

Farmers have relied on data for centuries. They first collected data by hand, tracking information like total seeds planted, the number of days it rained, and the total plants collected at the end of the season. With the dawn of the computer age, that data moved to spreadsheets and eventually to the cloud. While the manner of data collection and analysis has changed, the purpose hasn’t:

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again—John Deere is a technology leader that sells agriculture equipment, not the other way around.

If I learned anything at last week’s John Deere Technology Summit, it’s that this company can go toe-to-toe with any of the technology giants. With the investments in machine vision, AI, EV technology, and so on, it was clear to me that John Deere could likely participate in just about any leading-edge technology application. Kudos to them for sticking to what they do best, and that is mostly agriculture and earth-moving equipment.

On this episode of Embedded Insiders, special guest Dr. Jason Mars, associate professor of computer science at the University of Michigan joins ECD associate editor Tiera Oliver to explore how the next generation of engineers is being educated.