Internet of Things, Internet of the Future- Nice 2008

A little late I know but the Autumn conference season really does stretch my capacity. I could only attend the first day of this two day event in Nice in October but most of the presentations are available from the above title link.

So What?

I am not deep into RFID or related technologies but I guess I was a little surprised as to how slowly things are developing in the area given the bout of promise a few years ago. Not only are technologies fragmented but are a lot of legal and regulatory issues regarding confidentiality and privacy in a world rendered transparent by emerging tracking and identification technologies. This conference was as much about those as it was about technology in general or the future of the Internet in particular.

The usual challenges of developing accepted standards raises its head and its clear self-interest groups are still battling to get their way given the enormity of the opportunity in the long term. But will the vision of a truly connected world with more devices and objects than people connected to the internet come about? IPv6 may enable this but there a lot more issues to be addressed and from this conference it is clear that most have nothing to do with technology.

How long should tags on goods be active and how do we know they have been de-activated? Should the consumer have access to the data stored? Who does the data belong to and how is the data shared? The list is a long one so don’t expect to see the Internet being taken over by ‘things’ for a while yet and it may be that there will be many alternative networks vying for the right to host the connectivity of things.