Internet of Things

It is rare that one is in the presence of an ontological shift. It is even more rare that one is in a position to shape it. Yet this is exactly the position many engineers, policy makers, and citizens are in today. The internet was a fluke. There was not much policy, nor strategic thinking, a bit of standard discussions but no early warning debates about the potential dangers or promises about releasing a protocol that enables anyone to communicate with anyone as fast as everyone else. It 'happened'. In its most communicative form, www, it is only 18 years old. As a teenager it has transformed the world.

Its next iteration is extending communication to single machines and devices, sensors and objects. Known as pervasive computing, ambient intelligence or ubicomp and currently as 'Internet of Things' this convergence towards ever more connectivity is 'happening' in the same way as the internet was, but is still in such an early stage that agency is possible: be it through policy or standard making, through choices made by large industrial drivers on business models and technological protocols or through end-users and citizens, as they are able to self-organize in all kinds of clusters. Who shapes the Internet of Things – and how?

Discussion Paper

» Paper: Internet of Things (pdf)

Top 5 Research Questions

We have identified a number of research questions on this topic. Here are the top 5:

• Early EU research programmes and their legacy, the effects of i3 and the Disappearing Computer on current EU FP7 and FP8  »read more
• Educational programs to deal with the speed, scope, impact and shape of of the challenges that are posed by what is now termed 'Internet of Things' need tools to be built as dynamic processes  » read more
• Trust, Privacy, Infrastructure and governance  » read more
• Governance of the Internet of Things  » read more
• Businessmodels, Currencies and funding models  » read more

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