As we approach the next @ThingsExpo, to be held June 9-11 at the Javits Center in New York, my thoughts naturally turn to the Internet of Things. <\/p>\n
The IoT is a leviathan\u2014in the best possible sense of the term\u2014that will sweep up most everything in the ocean of data and technology being created today and tomorrow. But rather than try to grasp all of its possible uses, for today I’m looking at \u201cjust\u201d the Industrial Internet part.<\/p>\n
I just read a long paper co-authored by Tim Berners-Lee about the possibility of describing a \u201cweb science,\u201d that is, discipline that combines the study involved in physical science with the engineering involved in computer science. There’s a lot of talk of the semantic web in the paper as well. <\/p>\n
Written in 2006, the paper is entitled, \u201cA Framework for Web Science,\u201d and already seems dated in one aspect: it focuses on the search and retrieval that become such a powerful societal phenomenon with the creation of the Worldwide Web. <\/p>\n
The IoT, on the other hand, is primarily a data generation engine, not a searchable repository. The searches metamorphosize into the science of data analytics, much of it done in near real-time and real-time. Furthermore, the data appear at the edges of the IoT rather than from a central web-server resource.<\/p>\n
This is a fundamental re-thinking of what the Internet is and what it does. <\/p>\n
Privacy issues move from concerns about invasions of personal privacy to theft of corporate information\u2014big companies may no longer be cavalier about this issue. <\/p>\n
The red cape of security will be waved in front of us all incessantly, even as security experts modulate the many complex layers\u2014and degrees\u2014of security that will be optimal along the information trail of IoT deployments.<\/p>\n
The semantic web\u2014once referred in handwaving fashion as Web 3.0\u2014does not go away. It was originally envisioned as a way to get a handle on proliferating data types, and the IoT will certainly be prolific in this area. But again, searches become analytics, and there will be an Oklahoma land rush of opportunities for software companies to stake their claims, while discovering numerous data lakes along the way.<\/p>\n
It’s a huge topic, and one that, according to a new report from the World Economic Forum, threatens enormous disruption to a major sector of the world economy. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe Industrial Internet will afford emerging markets a unique opportunity to leapfrog developed countries in digital infrastructure,\u201d says a guy from Chinese giant Huawei in this report.<\/p>\n
More on this later…<\/p>\n