IoT Conference Report 2010

The report entitled "IoT Conference Report 2010" is now online and downloadable. It was written by Rob van Kranenburg of Council, Knowledge Partner. Here are the provisional conclusions:

On a technological level we see a tendency towards many platforms, a high number of solutions and open standards and we foresee a deluge of data. Much like the end of the 90’s when RFID got under the penny cost and database storage became cheaper and cheaper, storage as such might not be the real issue, but turning data into meaningful information for end users remains the key challenge. Especially when we are confronted with a tendency to making data public by governments and by public making data through all kinds of emerging services like Pachube, Arrayent and AlertMe. Is it possible to build a generic service layer between end users and the applications, appliances and devices in the home, work and fun sphere? Confronted with younger generations that want to stage their lives and are accustomed to sharing so they might want to ‘stage’ their homes by tweeting every change, new notions of privacy and privacies become crucial if we want to balance a productive and innovative relationship between individuals and groups.

This 2nd Annual Internet of Thing Europe Conference made clear that we are moving in the direction of the 4th iteration of IoT as a mental construct. The first phase dealt with RFID as the technical driver. The second wave combined the big hype stories with the first what can we really do with it RFID trials on the ground. We now see that people are doing all kinds of things using an entire ecology of wireless, zigbee, rfid, RESTful api’s, iUD codes, 2D barcodes, barcodes, EPC Global, IPV6, 6Lowplan, breaking the big stories into small, complex, real life services and applications that have to show value for money for hardnosed customers. Energy and sustainability coupled with a broader Green agenda is driving this first wave of the real IoT on the ground.

During the Conference we had some stories moving into the direction of the 4th iteration which is the Internet of Things for people. How can we get there?

• integration of policy recommendations, applications and cloud to store
• standards to go hand in hand with applications
• more effective application of governance
• multi stakeholder consultation process
• migrate terms: seamless might shift towards usability: seamless experience, hard-coding might shift toward social values, in the sense of standard making will also mean not only technical but also interaction and value

What we need:

• an (EU) device: We see that the uptake goes through ‘things’, so we should not only focus platforms and services but acknowledge that the i-phone is something people want. The basis of such a device could be the RFID Guardian, a lifestyle manager. Such a device could also have in its protocols the key issues – rules mentioned by the Article 29 Working Party. Hardware and software could be fully open source and both could be made operational on very low level through rapid prototyping (fab and brico) labs in a vision of IoT as ‘networkedneighbourhoods’.

• Education: We need to develop EU programs on ‘sensor wisdom’ very early on in schools. This is important to acquire the granularity of experience and the debate we see on the right of the silence of the chips. Can people really learn without making mistakes? Throughout the EU the term ‘media-wisdom’ is taking root. Learning to live in a smart city is just as difficult as learning the rules of traffic which should go hand in hand.

• Climate change as a transnational driver: We see that at this stage energy is a big driver and in a broader sense we see a Green Agenda looming. It could be logical if we follow this that we see transnational global standards coming alive as nations begin to realize the concrete threats of Climate Change. The Chinese vision of sensing objects - a Sensing Planet - can go very well with this idea. Yet apart from this focus on being wise and sparse with resources, this is not the whole story to what it means to be human. We also need generous services, notions of abundance to inform a positive view. The real profit may lie in getting to know ourselves better and being able to live up fully to our potential if everything becomes a bit more transparent.

• IoT is changing the relationship between the individual and the group, society. We see IoT favours the making of warm tribes, but how good is it in fostering cold solidarity with people that you do not know? The debate about balance and democracy will be scaled up according to Peter Hustinx to decision-making and democracy itself. Here we can envisage projects on garbage 3.0, sewage 3.0, roads and public transport 3.0.

also available through Europe's Information Society Newsroom.