【编者按】一直以来，物联网都被无数人追捧，已经火热到无法回转的地步。人们预计到2020年物联网中连接的设备将超过500亿。依托于射频识别技术，全球设备互联的构思从诞生之初就产生了各种能够与现实环境进行互动的物品的设想。从某种意义上来说，物联网为联网的物品带来了视觉和表达能力。而移动技术、大数据与云计算对物联网有哪些影响和利弊呢？ 以下为英文原文。 随着物联网不断发展，今天我们再来讲讲移动技术、大数据与云计算对物联网的影响。 移动技术 说到移动技术，我想大家跟我一样对移动设备与移动应用在21世纪的创造记忆犹新。 据估计2015年底移动设备数量将超过全球人口总数。 “物联网对移动领域是仙丹还是毒药？” 移动技术是物联网未来的重要一环，它改变了我们生活的方方面面。 对已经使用了物联网的机构所做的分析显示用户更偏好于享受现成的移动应用。事实上开发者应着力于为用户提供更强有力的控制，以便用户可以随意操控家里、车里以及办公室里的一切设备。 还有一个悬而未决的大问题。那就是物联网与移动产业趋向是否一致，以及物联网是否会摧毁整个通信、宽带行业或是互联网本身？ 关于这个问题的辩论仍在继续。有人认为移动设备将会成为用户与物联网设备交互的平台。也有人认为物联网的万物互联特性将减低移动设备与移动应用的重要性。 这场辩论使我们迷惑：物联网崛起之日，二十亿智能手机将何去何从？ 大数据 与物联网有关的另一个重要方面是大数据。时至今日仅仅收集数据已经远远不够，对数据进行处理分析并将分析结果迅速转化为行动的指导才是至关重要的。 每天都有数以百万计的新设备加入物联网，如何处理这些设备所产生的各式数据是一个巨大的挑战。传统的数据分析系统面对如此海量的数据已经无能为力。 数据无处不在，对数据的处理是企业必须面对的问题。很多企业已经转向了诸如Hadoop和集群计算这样的新技术来减少处理数据所花费的时间。即使面对海量数据，这些技术也可能在很短时间内就完成处理。 数据处理的即时性也取得了长足的进步。现在有些医院已经开始监测危重病人的实时数据以便了解病人情况。 大数据分析对于物联网最重要的意义在于对数据的实时采集和实时分析并根据分析采取合适的行动。在设计分析解决方案时，也要考虑到从多种设备采集信息并产生一定的反馈。 云计算 时至今日云计算已经成为主流，但我们心中一直存有疑虑那就是物联网的云端化会产生怎样的结果。 企业更偏好云计算平台以便享受云计算所提供的扩展性，效率以及高可用性。 有分析显示调查的企业中有93%已经在使用或测试基础设计即服务IaaS。使用混合云策略的企业也从2014年的74%增加到了82%。 在即将来临的创新浪潮中，物联网将会以更快的速度发展。得力于云计算对地理分散的各种设备协同合作的良好支持，物联网的云端化也成为了一个重要的发展点。将各种设备所提供的服务结合起来并可靠地支持大量用户应是物联网应用的核心要求，而这正是云计算所擅长的。 云计算在万物互联的世界中显示出了它的灵活性、扩展性和高性能。事实上云计算有着解决物联网应用架构方面问题的潜力。 云计算使不同的用户分享计算资源，但它也同时带来了数据泄露的风险。有了物联网，更是将无数的个人信息暴露在了危险之中。 所以疑虑仍在：物联网的云端化到底是有益还是有害？ 在争议与问题中，物联网在过去几年取得了标志性的创新和技术进步。大部分的进展是在移动技术、大数据与云计算领域。这三个领域的发展融合一定能为企业提供更好的综合IT架构平台并在企业中大放异彩。 英文原文： Impact of Cloud, Mobile and Big Data on IoT Will IoT make or break? （译/刘旭坤 审校/朱正贵 责编/仲浩）
Next Generation of Cyber Physical Systems （NG-CPS） 下一代信息系统 未来信息系统的发展，必然是信息化与具体领域的结合，以感知物的信息，信息流动集成，流动信息的智能化处理与回馈影响为特征。 它将更难，成熟的周期更长，涉及的技术更多，集成的范围更广，试图在更多不确定的信息域中确定具体的行为指导。 更为关键的也许是：它将永远无法真正实现系统的最优化，而所有的活动，仅仅是偏重某一方面或者几个方面的次优化，并且同时这种次优化也许不会是永恒不变的。
物联网标准群雄割据的时代即将结束 高通、英特尔、ARM、三星、微软、Google、戴尔……所有你能想到的软硬件方面的巨头都在布局物联网。由于物联网是一个新兴产业，当中包含用户端设备、基础设施（比如管道），以及云端的数据中心等多个层面，物联网的世界里并没有一家独大的情况。而考虑到一些寡头之间的利益纠葛问题，这个市场已经展现出了群雄争霸的格局，主角就是各大物联网标准联盟（IoT Standards Alliances）。 然而，随着物联网行业的快速发展，市场不断扩容，这种群雄争霸的格局可能很快就将被终结。前几天刚有消息，由 Google 主导的 Thread 和另一大联盟 Zigbee 宣布融合。 今天，PingWest 品玩记者从英特尔高级副总裁、物联网事业部总经理戴佟森 Douglas Davis 处获悉，英特尔（主导的联盟）未来不排除和类似的物联网标准联盟进行结盟的可能。 想要了解为什么格局终结，首先我们要明白 格局到底是什么样子 。 主流物联网标准联盟 AllSeen（Alljoyn） 、 OIC 、 IIC 、 Thread 、 Zigbee ……物联网标准联盟的世界有着众多的大玩家，而深入看到各家联盟当中，你会发现很多企业同时呆在好几个联盟当中——这很容易让不熟悉这个新市场的人们感到困惑。 Thread、Zigbee 这样的标准联盟的通用名称叫做物联网通信协议（networking protocol）。为了省事儿，你可以从软硬件的区分角度，把它们理解为「硬件」之间互通方面的标准联盟。而像 AllSeen Alliance 和英特尔主导的 OIC 这样的联盟则 更像 是「软件之间」、「软硬件之间」、「软硬件和云端之间」互通方面的标准联盟。 说白了，OIC 和 AllSeen 之间的最主要区别就是对高通的抵制，这样说就好理解多了。英特尔的全线产品都采用 x86 计算架构，而高通则是 ARM 架构产品在全世界最大的研发、生产和销售商。尽管高通曾经公开指出不会通过 AllJoyn/AllSeen 谋利，但我们都知道这种话跟没说一样——作为物联网设备最核心的计算技术提供商，以及大量可以被用到物联网设备上的通信专利技术持有者，芯片厂商通过扶植各自的物联网设备联盟能够间接得到利润是很明显的事。 也就是说，作为分别代表 ARM 和 x86 两个未来物联网设备计算和通信标准的两家公司，高通和英特尔极有可能是最终整个物联网世界的两大寡头。 世界上主流分析机构都对未来的物联网市场给出了非常好的预测。根据估算，全世界目前联网的物联网设备已经达到了 150 亿台，而大部分机构都认为，到 2020 年这个数字将会暴涨到 500 亿。因此，接下来的 5 年间，150 亿到 500 亿中间的 350 亿增长量将成为各大物联网器件和服务厂商布局逐利的战场…… 等等，真的一定是战场吗？ 对于物联网设备的终端厂商和用户来说，显然一套标准是最好的解决方案，保障了用户和 OEM、ODM 的利益——毕竟大家都不想在 2020 年的时候购置了一套智能家庭设备，结果发现其中一半的设备没法跟另一半之间沟通。美国科技媒体 Re/code 作者 Ina Fried 曾经这样写道： 只有它们（指这些物联网标准联盟）之间有人最终胜出，或者达成停火，世界上的物联网设备才能有机会真的实现互联。 （there’s no way all of these devices will actually be able to all talk to each other until all this gets settled with either a victory or a truce.） 戴佟森（Douglas L. Davis）/ 英特尔 对于英特尔在未来 350 亿物联网设备的新市场当中的位置，戴佟森并不愿给出特别明确的回答。但在一次 QA 环节中，他向我表示，如果未来有打算，会在合适的时间宣布。 不论物联网设备之间使用蓝牙、Wi-Fi 还是未来什么新的通讯标准进行互联，物联网「软件」层面的联盟进行结盟融合的机会始终存在，只是在对于 x86、ARM 两种不同架构的指令集进行适配的时候会存在一定的技术难度——显然这不是什么问题，比如 Linux、Windows 这样的桌面操作系统可以跑在任何指令集架构上，而适配优化的程度提高只会是时间问题。 其实，Windows 就是一个最好的例子。上个月初我曾经报道过微软发布 IoT 版 Windows 10 操作系统，这款系统可以在 x86 和 ARM 架构无论大小的不同设备上，运行同一套内核驱动的系统级服务和软件。很明显，对于物联网市场来说，融合才是未来的终极趋势。
据PC World 2014年8月5日消息，美国 University of Washington 的计算机科学与工程团队研发了不需要电源的WiFi设备，利用WiFi反向散射体（ backscatter ）技术实现无线供电与WiFi的结合，可以利用周围的无线电波信号作为电能源，并与WiFi网络建立连接进行数据传输。无源WiFi设备将可能广泛应用于物联网领域，可以将大量的设备联上互联网。传统WiFi设备非常耗电，WiFi反向散射体将大幅度减少电源需求甚至不需要电源。 Researchers promote battery-free Wi-Fi technology for Internet of Things The coming Internet of things (IoT) revolution may not run on batteries, but on power plucked from the air, according to researchers at the University of Washington. More specifically, a university computer science and engineering team will present a paper this month on a technology called Wi-Fi backscatter, a new communication system that uses radio frequency signals as a power source. The communication technology holds the promise of connecting “billions” of devices to the Internet while avoiding the pesky, long-time problem with limited battery power, researchers said. The technology has the potential to be “a very big deal,” said Bryce Kellogg, a doctoral student in electrical engineering and co-author of a paper on Wi-Fi backscatter. “One of the biggest problems with connecting the next billion devices to the internet ... is the nightmare of charging or swapping batteries for all of them.” Traditional Wi-Fi devices are “very power expensive,” Kellogg said. But Wi-Fi backscatter could “greatly reduce dependence on batteries and maybe even get rid of them and harvest energy for many devices,” he added. The University of Washington team developed an ultra-low power tag prototype with an antenna and circuitry that can be connected to a variety of electronic devices. The tags can talk to Wi-Fi-enabled laptops or smartphones, while consuming negligible power. The tags monitor Wi-Fi signals moving between routers and laptops or smartphones. The tags encode data by either reflecting or not reflecting the Wi-Fi router’s signals, making a small change in the wireless signal. Wi-Fi enabled laptops and smartphones then detect these small changes and receive data from the tag. By exchanging data through the Wi-Fi signal changes, devices like smart watches could download email from laptops or smartphones or send information tracking your morning workout back to those larger devices, the researchers said. The small changes in the Wi-Fi signal can be a useful way to exchange data, said co-author Joshua Smith, a University of Washington professor of computer science and engineering and of electrical engineering. “If you’re looking for specific patterns, you can find it among all the other Wi-Fi reflections in an environment,” he said by email. The research team is considering starting a company to commercialize Wi-Fi backscatter, Smith added. One of the beauties of Wi-Fi backscatter is there isn’t much of a limit on the types of devices it could power, Kellogg said. “Since it is so low power we are definitely not power constrained,” he said. “The biggest constraint on size is the antenna, and Wi-Fi antennas can get very small. Your cell phone has multiple of them.” On the other side of the backscatter device chain, Wi-Fi access points can be upgraded to work with the technology through a software update, Kellogg said. “This means we could deploy a set of battery-free sensors or smart IoT devices around your house and then they could communicate with you existing Wi-Fi router,” he said. “This approach removes a significant barrier to adoption.” The research team’s backscatter tag has communicated with a Wi-Fi device at rates of 1kbps with about two meters between the devices. Researchers plan to extend the range to about 20 meters and have filed patents on the technology. Source: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2461800/researchers-promote-batteryfree-wifi-technology.html
分类排比不要模糊（ 140519 ） 闵应骅 “五月的鲜花”芳香美丽，既是一首歌，又是社区的一个活动。 5 月也是评审的旺季，基金评审，学位论文评审，都挤在这一个月。我看到许多“本子”里面，分类排比的句子很多，像许多政治宣传一样，句子很美，煽动性强。但是，作为科研课题申请和文章，却不宜模糊，给人逻辑性不强的感觉。 分类学源于生物分类。全世界的动物和植物按 门 、 纲 、 目 、 科 、 属 、 种 分为树形结构。这是全世界公认的。如果发现一种新的生物，就要把它归为某一个 门 、 纲 、 目 、 科 、 属 、 种 。没有一个生物属于两个种群。分类学亦有其自己的分支学科，即以不同的分类依据做分类，譬如以染色体为依据的 细胞分类学 （或染色体分类学），以血清反应为依据的 血清分类学 ，以化学成分为依据的化学分类学，等等。 在信息领域，人们常用 Category ，而不用 Classification 。分类信息是 WEB 2.0 的衍生物，是新一代互联网应用模式，它让网络变的跟老百姓更普及更贴近生活更方便生活。分类信息又称分类广告，我们日常在电视、报刊上所看到的广告，往往是不管你愿不愿意，它都会强加给你，我们称这类广告为被动广告；而人们主动去查询招聘、租房、旅游等方面的信息，对这些信息，我们称它为 主动广告 。广告信息当然还可以按不同的依据进行分类。 在信息科学研究中，由于现在的物联网、云计算、大数据，界限不清，有许多使人模糊的地方。譬如说：“资源和信息模型是物联网基础设施中不可或缺的部分。资源模型是用标准的语义模型来描述传感器资源。而信息模型则包括实体模型、事件模型等，即现实世界中的对象、现象、事件及其他们的关系如何以及机器理解的方式表达，包括资源模型和实体模型。”这一段相当让人糊涂，也许是为了把物联网分为资源和信息吧！资源模型和信息模型是并列的吗？信息模型包括实体模型、事件模型，资源模型里包不包括实体模型、事件模型呢？也许有人说，那是没给资源和信息下定义。如果说：“我们将物联网中提供感知和控制功能的设备的能力抽象为资源。一个设备可以具备多种感知能力，因而可以对应多个资源。”这里把能力定义为资源，那实体就不能是资源。给信息下定义就更难了。实际上，我们常说给什么东西下定义，其实不是定义，只是换一种描述而已。可分类还得做。 再举一个例子，最近在经济发展中，在 IT 行业，服务提得很高，过去 IT 公司卖硬件，后来卖系统，现在卖服务。说“服务选择、服务推荐、服务发现归根结底都是一个服务匹配的问题，即计算用户需求（用户域）、实体的情景和环境（物理空间域）、服务模型这几个方面的描述消息（消息空间域）的匹配程度。”按这一理解，你能区别服务选择、服务推荐、服务发现吗？ 现在的问题是在无法确切定义一些名词术语的时候，如何进行分类排比？至少使人觉得分类的各项是有区别的，不是含糊的，各有各的处理方法。否则，就给人一种逻辑混乱的感觉。严格的分类则必须做到：集合中的每一个对象属于一类，而且只属于一类。这样才能真正做到分而治之。在软件里， If……Then……else…… 就是以 If 条件语句为依据的一个分类。要么满足条件，要么不满足条件，二者必居其一。可是，你用 s w i t c h - c a s e 语句就得小心了。你有 case 1 ， case 2 ， …… ， case n 。它们必须是相互排斥的，一种情况不能属于两种 case 。同时，你必须列一个 default ，就是说，如果不属于这 n 种情况的时候就进入 default 。否则，你的程序就飞了。这是程序员常犯的一个错误。在一些战略性的研究或文章中，常常做不到这么严格，但是，逻辑还是要清晰，才能说明思路的清晰。把一些新名词推在一起，反而让人糊涂。这是商业宣传、产品推销中常犯的毛病，科学不能这么做。
国 际 智 慧 学 会 国际智慧学会未来网络信息中心 文件总编号IWS-G14013 2011年3月11日 国际智慧学会未来网络信息中心（HK-FNIC）简讯 ISO评估未来网络对物联网的影响 国际智慧学会未来网络信息中心第14008号文件中，介绍了物联网国际标准的新动向。其中特别说明了未来网络与物联网之间关联研究越来越受重视。下面是国际标准组织ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 6(未来网络标准项目单位)向JTC 1/SWG 5 (物联网研究组)递交的联络报告，初步介绍了未来网络标准化情况，并指出了未来网络可能对物联网的影响。这份报告由中国香港的SC6专家张庆松博士编写。 SC 6 Future Network and IoT(M2M) 1. Overview of SC 6 Future Network Future Network (FN) is a ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 6/WG 7 project started in 2007. The initial proposal was from Korea NB. It aims at creating a series of new network architecture and protocol standards based on a clean slate design approach. The underline assumption is that the existing network architectures have structural limitations, that evolutionary approach is unable to resolve all the issues, and that ISO/IEC should create a new type of network whose design takes into the consideration of the requirement of technological and social needs for more secure, more efficient and more economical information exchange and network communication. SC 6's FN project development plan has three stages. Stage 1 is the study of problems and overall requirements, stage 2 is the establishment of FN architectre/framework and stage 3 is on the development of FN network protocols. SC 6-FN Stage 1 is now almost complete. The project has been working on a series of technical reports (ISO/IEC TR 29181) since 2009. It consists of 7 parts under the general title Future Network — Problem statement and requirements: ⦁ TR 29181-1 - Part 1: General Aspects (published 2012) ⦁ TR 29181-2 - Part 2: Naming and Addressing (in DTR stage) ⦁ TR 29181-3 - Part 3: Switching and Routing (published 2013) ⦁ TR 29181-4 - Part 4: Mobility (published 2013) ⦁ TR 29181-5 - Part 5: Security (in DTR stage) ⦁ TR 29181-6 - Part 6: Media Distribution (published 2013) ⦁ TR 29181-7 - Part 7: Service Composition (published 2013) SC 6 WG 7 also established close collaboration with ITU-T SG13, SG17 and SG2 on FN related issues. 2. TR 29181 Summaries ISO/IEC TR 29181-1:2012 describes the definition, general concept, problems and requirements for Future Network (FN). It also discusses a milestone for standardization on FN. The scope includes: motivation of FN; definition, general concept, and terminologies of FN; services and applications in FN; problems with current networks; design goals and high-level requirements for FN; milestones for standardization on FN. ISO/IEC TR 29181-2 describes the general characteristics of Future Network Naming and Addressing Schemes including problem statement, design objectives, gap analysis, and development directions. The topics include: the characteristics and deficiencies of existing NAS in existing network; a list of major technical challenges to assure that the FN-NAS will be able to provide solid technical support from the base level to meet the objectives of FN; the general characteristics of Future Network are discussed and their impact on NAS design; examines the gap between existing network NAS and future network performance expectations; specify objectives and principles for NAS design. ISO/IEC TR 29181-3:2013 contains the problem statement and requirements for switching and routing in the Future Network, in particular: 1, description of the requirements for carrying data over digital networks; 2, description of the ways in which these requirements are not satisfied by current networks; 3, functional architecture for switching and routing in the Future Network; 4, and requirements for control plane information flows for finding, setting up, and tearing down routes. The requirements in 4 include support for both current (legacy) and future (new) switching technologies, to aid the transition between them. ISO/IEC TR 29181-4:2013 describes the problem statements of current network and the requirements for Future Network in the mobility perspective. It mainly specifies problems of the current network in mobile environment, and requirements for mobility support in Future Network. In addition, ISO/IEC TR 29181-4:2013 gives information on existing mobility control schemes in the current network, examples of high-level mobility control architecture for Future Network, distributed mobility control in the Proxy Mobile IPv6 networks, and additional considerations for Future Network mobility. ISO/IEC TR 29181-5 describes the problem statements of current network and the requirements for Future Network in the security perspective. It mainly specifies Problems of the current network in security environment and requirements for security support in Future Network. ISO/IEC TR 29181-6:2013 describes the problem statement and requirements for the Future Network in the perspective of media transport. ISO/IEC TR 29181-6:2013 specifies: detailed description of the media transport requirements in the Future Network; identification and definition of services, basic and media services, which will fit the requirements for communications over heterogeneous environments supporting various user preferences, for any kind of media content, either time-dependent or time-independent; requirements and functionalities of Media Aware Network Elements, which are intended to be nodes in the network to provide seamless media experiences to users. ISO/IEC TR 29181-7:2013 describes the problem statement, requirements and a functional building block for the Future Network (FN) from the perspective of service composition. The goal of is to: analyse and classify problems of the current solutions on the service composition, identify requirements on the service composition for the FN, describe some technical aspects of the service composition for the FN, and propose a functional building block of the service composition including functional components and their reference points among them. ISO/IEC TR 29181-7:2013 also introduces various on-going standardization and research activities related to service composition. 3. FN Relevance with IoT The FN project not only relates to the work of this group, but also has some discussions and plans for FN-NOT ( which discusses how a clean slate designed Future Network platform can be used to support the forming of a new Network of Things, or Future Network based Network of Things). As we know, new communication needs may require new network platforms, and newly designed network architectures may also have huge impact on new applications. SC 6 Future Network project is based on recognition that explosion of application areas including disruptive technologies like sensor networks and mission-critical applications like disaster recovery demands a more rigid, reliable, and complete networking technology (6N13295). According to the published technical report Future Network - Problem Statement and Requirements – Part 1: Overall Aspects, Internet of Things is regarded as part of the service architecture, as the following diagram indicates (ISO/IEC TR 29181-1: 2012, p.26). Figure: General Concept of FN In other words, IoT (M2M) is one of the communication services that FN intends to support with new network architectural designs. 4. Significance of SC 6 FN The significance of SC 6 FN with regard to IoT(M2M) is: ⦁ it brings new perspectives on how the network architecture should be changed or created to provide adequate support to IoT(M2M). ⦁ it encourages technology developers to consider how to take advantage of the clean slate designed FN structure to optimize IoT(M2M) communications. ⦁ other than rely on existing networks or place hopes on modifying current networks, FN provides a third alternative which is to design networks to satisfy the needs of IoT(M2M) communications. 国际智慧学会 2014年3月11日 (签章) 联系：icwisdom5000@yahoo.com
物联网专业教学及课程体系教学研讨-ppt 模块8-物联网专业教学及课程体系教学研讨-7月26日上午-zibo.ppt 主要内容： n 1. 物联网专业建设及人才培养的问题探讨 1.1 物联网专业建设挑战与机遇 n 1.2 人才需求、专业特色定位及人才培养方案 n 2. 物联网专业建设及人才培养探索 n 2.1 物联网人才培养体系建立 n 2.2 物联网人才培养体系运行与实施 n 2.3 淄博职业学院物联网专业建设探索 n 3. 物联网专业建设及人才培养讨论交流互动 n 3.1 物联网专业人才培养定位 n 3.2 物联网专业课程体系 n 3.3 物联网专业建设
物联网标准在路上 或明年3月份推出 【文章摘要】据外媒报道，美国结构化信息标准发展委员会（OASIS）成立专门的MQTT技术委员会，旨在负责制定基于MQTT技术的物联网标准协议，该技术委员会将在2014年3月份完成相关的规范工作。 据外媒报道，美国结构化信息标准发展委员会（OASIS）成立专门的MQTT技术委员会，旨在负责制定基于MQTT技术的物联网标准协议，1年后或可推出。 早在1999年，IBM的Andy Stanford-Clark博士以及Arcom公司Arlen Nipper博士发明了MQTT（Message Queuing Telemetry Transport，消息队列遥测传输）技术。该技术支持所有平台，几乎可以把所有联网设备与外部连接起来，被用来当做传感器和驱动器的通信协议。也被称为SCADA协议（Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition，数据采集与监视控制）等，成为物联网协议的重要部分。 MQTT协议在MQTT.org 网站上被描述为“机器对机器M2M/物联网连接协议”，该协议也是轻量级基于代理的发布/订阅的消息传输协议，其设计思想是开放、简单、轻量、易于实现，适合于在带宽、计算和处理能力受限的环境下工作，不仅方便与远程的设备建立连接，还能有效利用带宽。例如借助该协议，病人信息可即刻推送给医生/医院，医生可以随时查看病人的数据，给出建议。 MQTT协议也非常适合移动应用，专家认为，由于协议采用小型传输，耗电量小，能大大降低网络流量，最小化数据包并有效分配与传输。 OASIS表示，目前的设备大多采用不同种类的硬件和软件平台，设备类型和网络也大不相同，普遍接受和采用的物联网协议将有助于推进新设备和系统更快推向市场，MQTT协议的跨平台、开放、简单等特点正好与之迎合。 OASIS专门的MQTT技术委员会将以MQTT协议为基础，进一步研究与规范更为开放、简单、轻量的，适合在有限网络和多平台环境中使用的MQTT物联网协议。OASIS表示，该技术委员会将在2014年3月份完成相关的规范工作。 MQTT技术委员会也将继续补充OASIS AMQP协议组的工作，AMQP工作组负责高级消息队列协议，通过标准消息中间件技术，扩展企业内部和外部的互操作性，降低企业和系统集成的开销，并且向大众提供工业级的集成服务。 OASIS表示，通过MQTT协议，传感器、控制系统、嵌入式系统、移动设备等可以发布订阅轻量级的，以技术为导向的数据和消息，MQTT技术委员会可实现实现AMQP协议与MQTT协议的无缝融合。随着物联网的推进，各种小型计算和传感设备之间信息采集、交换变得更加复杂。MQTT协议将为大量计算能力有限，且工作在低带宽、不可靠的网络的远程传感器和控制设备，提供可靠的通信保障。 原文： Work begins to standardize 'internet-of-things' protocol Summary: OASIS launches technical committee that promises to have a widely accepted machine-to-machine connectivity protocol available in about a year. By Joe McKendrick for Service Oriented | February 17, 2013 -- 17:33 GMT (09:33 PST) OASIS has announced a new technical committee is being formed to formalize a standard protocol for machine-to-device-to-sensor-to-refrigerator-to-other-machine-somewhere-else-on-the-network interactions, otherwise known as the "internet of things.' The protocol, "MQ Telemetry Transport," or MQTT, is described on the MQTT.org site as a "machine-to-machine (M2M)/Internet of Things connectivity protocol." The protocol, designed as an "extremely lightweight publish/subscribe messaging transport," is intended to facilitate "connections with remote locations where a small code footprint is required and/or network bandwidth is at a premium." Examples include "sensors communicating to a broker via satellite link, over occasional dial-up connections with healthcare providers, and in a range of home automation and small device scenarios." MQTT is also well-suited for mobile applications, proponents say, due to "its small size, low power usage, minimized data packets, and efficient distribution of information to one or many receivers." Having a universally accepted and adopted M2M protocol will help get new devices and systems to market faster, since they often are built using many variations of hardware and software platforms, device types, and networks, OASIS notes. MQTT was invented by Dr Andy Stanford-Clark of IBM, and Arlen Nipper of Arcom (now Eurotech), back in 1999. It also has been called the “ SCADA protocol ,” the “MQ Integrator SCADA Device Protocol” (MQIsdp), the “WebSphere MQTT” (WMQTT). OASIS' MQTT Technical Committee will work with MQTT as its base document to "define an open publish/subscribe protocol for telemetry messaging designed to be open, simple, lightweight, and suited for use in constrained networks and multi-platform environments." OASIS has scheduled the first, in-person meeting to be held in Boston on Monday, 25 March 2013, to be hosted by IBM. A working specification will be completed by March 2014, OASIS says. The MQTT TC is intended to complement previous work by the OASIS AMQP Technical Committee, which released a specification that provides for transaction and publish subscribe messaging between autonomous businesses, departments and applications using an open protocol for enterprise middleware. The MQTT specification adds a means "by which sensors, control systems, embedded systems and mobile devices can publish and subscribe low-level, technically-orientated data," OASIS says. "There is natural affinity to bridge MQTT with AMQP, so as to connect telemetry with enterprise applications." 【责任编辑 孟娟】
福布斯：乔布斯生前想法与物联网不谋而合 以软件为推动力的物联网将为消费者创造极好的新能力和发展潜力。 腾讯科技讯 （童云）北京时间2月1日消息，《福布斯》杂志网络版近日刊载文章称，已故 苹果 联合创始人史蒂夫·乔布斯（Steve Jobs）生前有关软件的想法与当今的物联网不谋而合；当时，乔布斯所谈论的“软件为先”的观点针对的是平板电脑和智能手机，但到今天同样也适用于物联网领域。文章指出，以软件为推动力的物联网正在成熟，以指数级的速度增长，未来将对人们的生活造成重大影响。 以下是这篇文章的全文： 每一天，在我们生活中的每个方面——在工作，在家里，在路上，在吃饭，在商店里，在学校里，在健身中心里，在酒吧里，在机场——中，我们都会不断地被提醒一件事情，那就是手机已经变得无处不在，像衣服一样不可或缺。从更深的层面来看，这还意味着软件也正在变得更加无处不在和更加必不可少，原因是软件已经从电脑、手机和平板电脑等有限的范畴中蔓延开来，弥漫于围绕在我们周边的所有东西中：从电灯泡到冰箱，从公共汽车到鞋子，从拖拉机到电视机，从杂货店里的肉制品柜台到飞机中的喷气式发动机。 在大约10个星期以前，我曾写过一篇文章，里面提到一个例子；当你想象这个例子如何代表着我们周围令人惊讶的软件浪潮是如何发生的时候，你就会对为何“物联网”正在变成“下一个大东西”拥有一种更加深刻的理解。 “汽车——这种机械野兽的原型——又如何呢？在1990年，电子部件和软件在一辆汽车的总价值中所占比例仅为16%；而到2001年，这个比例已经上升至25%。在2010年，这一比例则已经上升至40%左右——据最近发布的一份研究报告显示，所有已被硬塞到汽车中的高科技产品都将从现在起带来势不可挡的汽车创新：‘我们不认为未来将会看到机械部件领域中会出现任何开拓性的创新。’柏林弗劳恩霍夫研究所（Fraunhofer Institute）的软件和系统工程负责人亚历山大·博卢森（Alexander Borusan）说道。‘电子和软件在所有创新中所占比例将会达到90%。’” 在最近阅读美国科技博客GigaOm撰稿人巴布·达罗（Barb Darrow）所发表的一篇有趣的文章时，我又想起了这件事。在那篇文章里，她谈及通用电气将软件的力量注入该公司所设计和生产之设备中的战略意图——这种灌输将可为通用电气带来新的、庞大的大数据机会，而其他公司也正在采取类似的措施。 “通用电气正在依赖一种增长中的认同感，那就是机器数据——由这家公司所生产的工业设备生成和收集的信息——使其能进入一个繁荣发展的大数据世界。”达罗写道。“硅谷人士可能很容易会忘记一件事情，那就是通用电气拥有自己的数千名软件开发者，能制作复杂的医学成像及其他高科技设备：这确实很有可信性。在生产更加被人关注的产品更加为人看重的时代里，通用电气可为人师。” 许多行业中的其他许多公司也正在认识到软件的力量，以及互联网能重新定义产品服务的方式及其未开发商业潜力的力量。 这是已故苹果联合创始人史蒂夫·乔布斯（Steve Jobs）在这家身为软件“霸主”的公司中所拥护的一种想法——两年以前，在苹果的季度财报电话会议上，乔布斯曾在回答一名金融分析师的问题时清楚地表达过这个想法。以下是他所发表的言论的一部分内容： “你们的想法是错误的。你们把它视为一个细分化世界中的一个‘硬件人’，你们把它视为一家硬件厂商，对于软件则并没有真正的认识——它所考虑的并非一种一体化的产品，而是假设软件将以某种方法照顾好自己……你还会假设，软件莫名其妙地就会在你所梦想的产品上变得活跃起来，但实际上这种事情不会发生。” 时光回到2010年底，那时乔布斯所谈论的是平板电脑和智能手机。但在今天，他这种“软件为先”的观点同样适用于不断增长的业务范畴。不妨看看麻省理工《科技创业》（MIT Technology Review）最近刊载的一篇文章中的说法吧，这篇文章的题目是《2013：物联网的一年》（2013: The Year of the Internet of Things）： “其他例子也比比皆是。有不少城市都已经给自己的交通运输网络配备了传感器来广播公共汽车、有轨电车和列车的位置，并向公众提供这种数据。与此同时，各种创新应用现在也正在为通勤者提供有关位置的实时更新信息，并提供下一部交通工具很可能将会到达的时间。其他传感器则会监控交通流量状况，从而实现流量的实时最优化。 物联网的另一个例子则是，从传感器技术到监控运动表现技术都正在被广泛采用。Nike+和Fitbit传感器正在收集有关身体锻炼的数据，将其发送给一个中央处理器，然后用户可以用这些数据来对其运动表现进行分析；这种数据收集和传输活动在很大程度上都是在没有人类干预的情况下发生的。 还有一些以日常生活为目标的应用正在浮出水面。Ninja Blocks是澳大利亚的一家创业公司，这家公司正在开发一种技术，允许任何人通过互联网远程监测和控制自己的家。该公司的第二批设备将在3月份出货。 来自Zaslavsky的信息显示，物联网正在成熟，以指数级的速度增长。如果说现在物联网还没有以你能认识到的方式对你的生活造成影响，那么你很快就会看到这种影响。” 很明显，以软件为推动力的物联网将为消费者创造极好的新能力和发展潜力。对于那些愿意把软件放在自己想法的中心的公司——也就是那些能避免被乔布斯称为“把它视为一个细分化世界中的一个‘硬件人’”这种圈套的公司——来说，机会是非常庞大的。 正如我的同事贾德森·阿托夫（Judson Althoff）在最近发表的一篇题为《为大数据做好准备的无数个理由》（Billions of Reasons to Get Ready for Big Data）文章中所说的那样，“到当前这个十年结束的时候，我们可能会看到数百亿个新的联网设备。大多数的企业数据最终可能会由所有类型的这些联网设备生成，然后把这些数量庞大的数据重新发回到企业服务器或是云服务。这个由设备到数据中心的世界开启了很多商业机会，而这种商业机会就是‘下一个大东西’。” “联网设备（有些时候被称为‘物联网’）数量的爆炸式增长对企业、ISV（独立软件提供商）及其他公司来说是一个很大的机会。”阿托夫说道。“但想要抓住那个机会需要各种能力，覆盖从单独的设备到数据中心里强大的商务分析工具等。” 到最后，企业领导人将需要推动整个组织改变如何评估产品和服务的想法，如何重新定义价值主张，如何寻求以新的、更具社交性的方式来与客户进行接洽，以及如何捕获和利用所有那些大数据。当那些新的动量开始触及我们个人生活以及职业生活的更多部分时，许多公司都会想起乔布斯在2010年10月中旬的财报电话会议上所说过的另一句话： “我们以一家以软件为推动力的公司来思考问题。” 在当今这个以软件为推动力的世界里，这些话无疑是金玉良言。
高通公司和ATT支持物联网开发平台 2013年1月7日，拉斯维加斯——美国 高通 公司(NASDAQ: QCOM ) 今天通过其全资子公司美国高通技术公司（QTI）宣布推出物联网（IoE）开发平台，该平台基于美国高通技术公司的 QSC6270-Turbo芯片组，并支持Oracle的JavaMEEmbedded 3.2平台。这款物联网开发平台采用美国高通技术公司行业领先的Gobi™调制解调器3G解决方案，提升开发人员的开发效率，使他们更快地将支持ATT移动互联网连接的海量应用和终端推向市场。ATT和美国高通技术公司预计该物联网开发平台将在2013年第二季度提供给开发者。 这款物联网开发平台为开发人员提供了一个理想的起点，帮助他们针对追踪、工业控制和医疗保健等物联网垂直行业打造蜂窝连接产品和应用。由于该平台也支持Oracle的Java ME Embedded 3.2软件版本，没有移动开发经验的开发人员也可以直接在QSC6270-Turbo芯片组上，快速完成从概念到Java应用的编写和执行的过程。在北美地区，物联网开发平台将获得ATT的支持，开发人员在设计和开发阶段就能在实时网络上测试解决方案并展示功能，降低开发人员将解决方案推向市场过程中的复杂性和成本，并缩短上市时间。通过QSC6270-Turbo芯片组上的应用环境访问3G调制解调器的各种硬件接口和功能，开发人员还可以定制和优化最终产品的印刷电路板（PCB），不再需要额外的处理器或微控制器，从而以更高性价比的方式将蜂窝功能集成到更广泛的终端和解决方案中。 这款物联网开发平台由多个机载传感器和指示器组成，包括加速计、光传感器和温度传感器。Java ME 3.2软件版本也可以在此平台上运行，它包括多个针对物联网应用的全新Java规范请求（JSR）、终端访问和AT Command指令传递API，使开发人员可使用大量的芯片组IO和接口，如GPIO、I2C和SPI。该平台还支持三频段UMTS /HSDPA（2100/1900/850 MHz）和四频段GSM（850/900/1800/1900 MHz）的蜂窝覆盖范围和独立GPS，并通过高通创锐讯公司的AR6103模块支持2.4GHz Wi-Fi a/b/g/n连接。 ATT负责新兴终端的高级副总裁Chris Penrose表示：“这款物联网开发平台为那些希望其产品能连接移动互联网的终端制造商们提供了大量机会。无线连接使产品更出色，而物联网开发平台能使现有的和新的ATT开发人员更轻松地将无线技术嵌入到他们的产品中。” 美国高通技术公司业务拓展高级副总裁Kanwalinder Singh表示：“高通技术公司看到了物联网的巨大潜力。除了汽车和能源业等已有稳定市场参与者的大型物联网垂直行业外，应用开发人员才是打造超乎想象的未来物联网垂直行业和应用的关键。我们这款支持Java的物联网开发平台是一个很好的工具，能够将我们集成芯片组的优势带给应用开发人员。我们非常高兴，ATT公司关于蜂窝连接物联网的愿景与我们不谋而合， ATT开发者社区也将会创造更多机会。” 欲了解更多有关物联网开发平台的信息，请在ATT开发者峰会上参观高通公司展台，或访问 www.qualcomm.com 。 Qualcomm ATT Look To Accelerate The Internet Of Things In the not-so-distant future, everything in our lives is going to be connected to the Internet of Things. Fire hydrants, medical equipment, toasters. Really, everything. Yesterday a “smart” fork was introduced to bring “ metrics to your mouthfuls. ” If you can slap a sensor to a device and add wireless connectivity, eventually it will be connected to the Internet. Qualcomm and ATT want to make the process of creating Internet of Things devices and applications easier. Today the companies announced a joint project called the Internet of Everything development platform. Based on Qualcomm’s QSC6270-Turbo chipset and Gobi modem for 3G connections, the Internet of Everything platform aims to decrease time to market for IoT projects. The development platform will use ATT’s cellular data bandwidth to connect things to the Web. The chipset supports Oracle’s Java ME Embedded 3.2 to write the programs necessary to create IoT devices and applications. The Internet of Everything platform should be available to developers in the second quarter of 2013. The Real Benefit The idea is to lower the barrier to entry for connecting devices to the Internet. As such, it is a good sign that two of the leading American technology companies are starting to take IoT seriously. When we wrote our Futurist Cheat Sheet on the Internet of Things , we noted that much of the technology to create a robust Internet of Things possible is already in place - it just needed more infrastructurerefinementto speed adoption. "This IoE development platform with Java support is a tool to extend the power of our integrated chipsets to application developers,” said Kanwalinder Singh, /SVP of business development at Qualcomm Technologies in a press release. “We are excited that ATT shares our vision of a cellular-connected IoE, and by the opportunities that will be created by the ATT developer community." Qualcomm and ATT join a growing community of machine-to-machine (M2M) companies working to make the Internet of Things possible. The leaders in M2M development over the last several years have been companies like Cosm, Numerex and KORETelematics, while other consumer- or enterprise-focused companies like Google (with Android) and Research In Motion (with its QNX-based BlackBerry 10 system) also have software platforms that could provide the capability to integrate items like home utilities and aspects of automobiles on the Web. Apple has not specifically built any products for the Internet of Things, but its iOS mobile operating system could easily be outfitted to run a variety of items beyond the iPhones and iPads that currently run iOS. Unlike other aspiring technology sets (Near Field Communications, for instance), IoT development lends itself to a variety of business applications. Name an industry, and entrepreneurs and innovators will be able to find a way to connect it to the Internet. Qualcomm and ATT specifically mention healthcare, energy and automotive as sectors that will be able to use the Internet of Things to provide tracking, remote control and analytics.The Internet Of Things will give businesspeople capabilities that they could previously only track through inference, not directly. Image courtesy of Shutterstock .
Android joins the 'internet of things' The top prize winner announced at Demo 2012 and poised to launch on Kickstarter, innovator Ube builds Android-based home automation. By Steve Patterson The Ube team applied their experience in consumer electronics, semiconductors and high-volume manufacturing to improve and reduce the cost of home automation. They believe that they will find customers that will buy their smart power outlets and light dimmers. Made digital by the addition of an Android SoC, these commonplace devices are designed to control and measure power. Expensive home automation system controllers are replaced with a mobile phone app. It is an example of the consumerization of industrial devices. This approach is incredibly efficient. By replacing a physical analog control plane with Wi-Fi and using a mobile app, home automation is simplified and standardized. Consider the current approach to home automation. To automate the control and measurement of electricity or remotely turn on or off a device, a second set of wiring needs to be run through the walls and ceilings back to a central controller. The consumer interfaces with the system controller with a custom-built remote control unit. Using present day technologies, it is expensive to install and, once complete, the consumer gets an inflexible custom control system with one-of-a-kind modified software. Ube has designed an Arm processor SoC into each power outlet and light dimmer that includes Wi-Fi and Android software. This brings energy savings and convenience to the consumer. Some examples of the energy savings are: The app will know that you have left the house and shut off lights and other devices ambiently draining ambient power. The homeowner can manually or automatically turn on heating or cooling before arriving home to a comfortable environment, without using energy to maintain a comfortable temperature when no one is home. Homeowners can use less energy, such as setting a limit on how bright lights can shine or shifting the time a dishwasher or clothes dryer runs to a time when electricity is less expensive. For convenience after recording and analyzing the homeowner’s behavior the app might suggest to the homeowner that it automate turning on the lights at a certain time based on the workweek and length of day. A consumer could use its Ube smartphone app to control other IP-enabled devices over Wi-Fi, such as garage door openers, thermostats and smart TVs. These devices will sell for $50 to $60, which is less than the analog controlled devices, and do not require extra wiring or an expensive controller. Ube’s approach should provide greater flexibility and much lower cost in renovation applications, because the homeowner can choose to add control and measurement only where they want it without first devising a comprehensive electrical design and building out a complete home automation project. Consumerization of industrial products with Android and ARM, such as home automation, puts the products on a declining cost curve as Android and ARM volumes increase and provide flexibility. This permits the dimmer panels to perform more complex tasks, such as turn off a series of lights with a two finger swipe.
Making The Internet Of Things A Reality: Mobility Meets Big Data In The Cloud -- "Triple Word Score"! Sanjay Poonen ,SAP One aspect of working for a global company that I don’t care for are 5 a.m. conference calls with Europe. But what’s even more frustrating is waking up to my alarm clock at 4:30 a.m. only to discover that the 5 a.m. call was cancelled overnight. Well, what if my calendar could talk to my alarm clock across the Internet? The cancelled meeting would trigger my alarm clock being set back an hour, allowing me to sleep a little longer. Now imagine what my morning would be like if all of the devices in my life were synched together. The meeting cancellation resets not only my alarm clock but the coffee machine as well. Additionally, my mobile device receives a notification from my car that I’m low on gasoline. I’m informed that the trains are running 15 minutes late, and there’s 10 minutes of crowded traffic on my route to the train station. All of that information is fed back to my alarm clock (and coffee machine for that matter) via the Internet. At the end of the day, on my walk to the train station, my phone receives a notification from my refrigerator that I’m low on milk and a grocery store that I’m passing has a promotion for milk (and by the way, my favorite yogurt). I’m directed via location awareness right to the aisle where the milk and yogurt are stocked, and through precision retailing, a personalized coupon for 50% discount on the yogurt is sent to my mobile device. Here’s another scenario. When my family goes on a ski trip to Tahoe, my wife and I disagree about whether to turn our home heating on or off. She wants the house warm for our kids when we return; I want to save energy. Well, what if we turned off the thermostat, but on our return drive an hour away from home, I use my phone to direct an Internet-enabled thermostat to turn the heat up in my home! These might all seem like scenes from “Back to the Future”, but much of this is increasingly possible via what is known as the Internet of Things (IoTs) and the intelligent sharing of information between Machine-to-Machine (M2M). Basically, four key elements are required for IoTs – a) Tagging Things b) Sensing Things c) Shrinking Things and d) Thinking Things. With advances in RFID, miniaturization and analytics, M2M makes the Internet of Things an increasingly tangible possibility. Think of such M2M communication as the “social collaboration” of machine-to-machine or machine-to-man. Such technology is beginning to mature, whether it’s smart thermostats from startups like Nest Labs or Honeywell, or what’s being called “precision retailing”, where innovations in Big Data Analytics, combined with Mobility and GPS, allow tailored promotions to be offered to consumers on their mobile devices. One of our automotive customers once told me that there’s more software in the modern car than in the first space shuttle! I learned from our manufacturing customers that if you thought today’s tractors are dumb, quite the contrary, they stream all kinds of information like an Airbus 380 might, so that farmers can optimize usage, schedule maintenance and focus their time on agricultural production. Consumer companies are exploring smart vending machines that have tiny computers on a wireless network which leverage information like usage data and weather forecasts to determine replenishment schedules. If you know it’s going to be a hot day, being able to get your trucks to the vending machine fast enough might be the difference in a breakout profitable quarter. We look at all of these machines, whether wired or unwired, and see them as extensions of mobile devices; they all need to be secured, managed, and enabled to run applications in much the same way as a mobile phone. Managing this smart machine to machine (M2M) evolution requires a comprehensive architecture and technology solutions that we’re working on with our partners. But at the core of M2M are three key elements: Mobility, Big Data and the Cloud. These are precisely the focus areas that we’ve designated as innovation vectors at SAP. And when these three elements come together in use cases like the “Internet of Things” or “Machine-2-Machine”, it’s like getting a “Triple Word Score” in the game of Scrabble! So how does SAP’s Mobile Management solution fit into this vision? Stay tuned for my next blog to find out!
The ‘Internet of Things’ needs to empower people, not machines September 24, 2012 By Bruce Kasanoff Sensors embedded in everything you buy in the future could radically change what computers are capable of, but ultimately, they’ll need to save you time, money and annoyance to be worth their weight in silicon. Business predictions from more than a decade ago are not likely to come true as originally envisioned, and that’s turning out to be the case with the so-called “Internet of Things.” By his own account, Kevin Ashton coined the term “Internet of Things” in a presentation to Proctor Gamble in 1999. “We need to empower computers with their own means of gathering information,” he explained. “So they can see, hear and smell the world for themselves, in all its random glory.” With all respect to Kevin, this is why the “Internet of Things” phrase bothers me; it’s obsessed with the notion of empowering machines — instead of people. In our book Smart Customers, Stupid Companies , Michael Hinshaw and I used the term “Physical Web” to describe what happens when the real world becomes linked up like the Web is today. The Physical Web will connect people, ideas, events and things. To help you grasp the difference, I reached out to Rick Bullotta, co-founder of ThingWorx. He, too, dislikes terms like Internet of Things and M2M (machine to machine). His firm has built an application development platform that helps companies connect devices and people faster and hopefully for less money. “The Internet of Things, ” says Rick, “Sprung up around the notion that everything will have a smart tag, and that you will therefore be able to follow it around with some sort of tracking. People basically had three business models in mind. There was telematics stuff, like ‘where’s my truck?’ There was remote monitoring, like tell me when the tank on my farm is empty. And there were remote servicing ideas, like hooking up an expensive MRI machine to a service center.” But as useful as many of these ideas can be, they don’t really scratch the surface of what’s possible. “When the tsunami hit Fukushima,” explains Rick, “Citizens in Japan were starved for information on the status of leaks, and the amount of radiation that had been released. Other people and groups stepped into to share radiation data that the government failed to provide.” Many, if not most, new businesses spring up to solve a problem. To use a simple example: people like hamburgers + hamburgers cost too much = McDonalds! But Rick says that if you ask a customer what her problems are, she most likely will follow an innate human impulse to limit her responses to what she thinks is possible. This is why no one in in 1995 asked for an iPhone, and why no one today is asking for a $5-a-month home security service: People don’t believe it is possible. If you want to start a company or service that is mind-boggling in its potential growth and profitability, you will have to expand significantly your notions of what’s possible. (That, by the way, is the main reason I write this column.) “Do you think anyone envisioned the kind of apps people would come up with when they added sensors to smartphones?” Rick asked. No way. Human ingenuity is remarkable, especially when you free it from the constraints of working in a large company with all sorts of bureaucratic rules. How to think about the Physical Web To simplify things a bit, across the Physical Web you’ll find ideas and events, plus: 1. People 2. Systems (mainly computer hardware and software) 3. Devices (meaning everything from sensors to your refrigerator) Rick says that if you want to broaden your thinking, pick any two and consider what each can and can’t do. People and devices, for example, are each capable of sensing that something happened or changed. But neither can do the sort of brute force calculating that enables Google to gather 10,000 searches for the term “earthquake” in the five minutes following a tremor. Systems and devices make a potent combination, in that they can free people from many tasks that require repetition or concentration. For example, a device can check your basement floor every minute for the presence of water, and combine with a system to alert you and others you have named. But in the end, this only matters if the pair solves problems that matter to people. To Rick’s formula, I’d add one word: less. How can you combine people, systems and devices to give customers less of the stuff that drives them crazy? Most want to spend less time, less money and less effort on annoyances. Instead of expecting that a customer will wait on hold for a customer agent to pick up, you could enable People to provide a number at which a System can have the agent call them back when a Device notices the agent is free. There are billions of other possibilities, once you embrace the idea that the Physical Web will link people, devices and systems — plus ideas and events and all the other facets of human activity. Rick is eager for innovators to solve real human problems, instead of simply marketing cool new gadgets. Billions of people can’t find clean water. They don’t have affordable ways to monitor and improve their health. They don’t know how to lower their energy costs, or to keep their children or elderly relatives safe. Broaden your thinking. Don’t be limited by what you think is possible. Don’t be fooled into thinking that the opportunity is to link things to other things. Look out your window and think: When I click on that (a tree, mailbox, sign or product)… I want this (it becomes mine, it answers my question, it tells me about itself, it gets saved to my file) to happen. Bruce Kasanoff is a speaker, author and innovation strategist who tracks sensor-driven innovation at Sense of the Future . Kasanoff and co-author Michael Hinshaw teamed up to explore more of the opportunities unearthed by disruptive forces in Smart Customers, Stupid Companies. Read more: http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/the-internet-of-things-needs-to-empower-people-not-machines/#ixzz27fUZgDwM
How should our buildings and belongings communicate? 27th September 2012 by Jamillah Knowles Social Media Week is heading into its last few days and there’s been more events than you could shake a Web-connected stick at. In London, the Imagination agency hosted an event entitled ‘ Socialising the Internet of Things ’ with Dr Jon Rogers, course director of Product Design at the University of Dundee, Mark Coyle Editor, BBC London 2012, Online and Dave Patten, Head of New Media at the Science Museum. Each managed a presentation vaguely linked to the Internet of things and a panel discussion fielding questions from the audience followed. However, much as the speakers were interesting, the interactive approach by Imagination to the entire event was very engaging indeed. As the audience arrived, they were handed an electronic tag on a lanyard which was handed over with the slightly unsettling instruction, “We’re running a social experiment today. Please head into the waiting area and find your team.” Who doesn’t like an unexpected social experiment? Well, it is Social Media Week. In the airy waiting area, around 70 people, all wearing devices milled about and looked at each other sideways. Eventually people chatted and worked out that through some sort of sensors, the lights on the tags would light up in different colours when they came into range with another tag. The colour of the lights on your device represented the team you were in. In fact, Imagination’s head of technology, Kel Phillipson and his team had cooked up 150 devices with the help of hardware hacking specialist Charles Yarnold . The tags used infra-red to communicate with each other as well as radio communication to send data back to a base station. The event data was gathered and presented after the talks revealing red, blue and green teams – blue being the best at finding other team mates. There was also information that showed who had been using a gaming machine also present in the waiting area as that was another live item in the waiting area that had a monitor stashed in it. Integrating the Internet of Things into the event was a lively touch and one that illustrated the beginnings of our connected world rather nicely. Connected Visions The speakers in turn presented their own visions of a connected world. Dr Rogers boldly claimed that print media would be dead within five to ten years and considered connected paper that could record locations or provide better interactivity as a possible future option. He also explained how the Internet of things could better breach the digital divide. Using his own work connecting popularity on Twitter with fame in the real world. The yawning gap between the two is blindingly obvious when you think about it. Try telling the chap who runs your corner store if you’re a big deal on Twitter and find out how much he cares. The difference between Twitter fame and real world fame is still enormous, but if people had a physical representation of reputation online, things could be very different. Sadly, it doesn’t seem to bring the riches with the notoriety though. Mark Cole discussed his work with ‘Torchy’ the webcam that followed the journey of the Olympic Torch around the UK and Ireland. Interestingly giving the camera view a nickname did wonders for audience engagement. When ‘Torchy’ went dark for any reason, even those who wrote in to complain were softened by anthropomorphising the service. Cole pointed out that the BBC’s unique selling point for Olympic coverage was its national broadcasting rights. So it really had to make the most of its video content. As we’ve already reported, 24 simultaneous live streams across 4 screens is no mean feat, however Cole said that the presentation of recorded video was a big problem to solve. “One of the biggest challenges we had, was working out how to take two and a half thousand hours of sporting action and present that to the user. One of the single biggest areas that was done was around UX to give people a sensible, logical way to get from the live content to on demand. I think what we did for live content was very good but it got a bit more naughty when people were trying to access the on demand content.There was a UX lesson for the BBC to learn there,” he noted. A massive haul of data is a tricky act to pull off but dealing with all of that material responsibly and presenting it in ways that are useful for audiences is another. This idea was part of the Internet of Things discussion in a broader way. If the objects around us start to communicate with us and each other, who owns the data, what should we do with it all and how should it be presented? If your home is responsive, you may think that you can manage the resulting data with apps and programs, but what about an entire building, or a city? Should the companies who make responsive software own the data, or the people who generate it? Dave Patten of the Science Museum has been working with Google on the Web Lab exhibition. A show that connects visitors to the site with visitors online and crosses the boundaries between the virtual and the real through various exhibits. Patten commented on finding standards across an Internet of Things that might make the transfer of data easier and therefore more useful. At the moment Google is one of the companies that is connecting us through our lives online to our phones and soon maybe our cars. But does this set standards or should we be more concerned about a future monopoly, whether that is Google or another tech giant in the future? These are huge questions for the future of the Internet of things and it was possibly a bit mean to fire them off at the panel expecting concise answers. One thing that the panelists all had in common though is something that might help with the waves of data we might see from an Internet of Things. A museum curator, a broadcaster and an academic all have to find the threads of a story in an open field of information. Dr Rogers hit upon the role of the expert in the future. This overwhelming amount of data might seem like an impossible amount to make sense of without computers. But already in a physical world we have curators, broadcasters and academics who help us navigate and they do this with very human skills known as story telling. It might be that these old-fashioned skills need new tools like software for data journalists, digitized records in museums or databases and remote viewing services for researchers and academics. People are natural story tellers and the Internet of Things, no matter how much it relates to objects talking to other objects, it still relates to the way people are and the things that we do. No matter how much data there is, one thing that humans are good at is talking about themselves .
Wireless Sensor Networks and the new Internet of Things by Dr Peter Harrop is the Founder and Chairman of IDTechEx. The Internet of Things was conceived in Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1998. It was believed that RFID tags could be made so cheaply that they could be fitted to trillions of items, even printed directly onto them like most barcodes today. After all, about three trillion items of consumer packaged goods are made yearly in the world and it seemed that we were headed for one trillion postal items yearly. Barcodes and phosphor dots were woefully inadequate for monitoring at a distance and sometimes at speed: these things could be dirty, torn and misoriented and trying to read them one at a time was ridiculous. Automated monitoring en-masse throughout the value chain could make logistics faster and more cost effective, reduce theft and counterfeiting and provide other benefits such as no stock-outs in shops. All that was needed was a new numbering system to handle more items and a few simple improvements to systems and, yes, ways of making the RFID tags for one cent or less, would be easily achieved by design tweaks and sheer volume. It has not turned out that way. Human frailty intervened in the form of committees writing specifications of military complexity for a host of "nice-if" features, this making the tags more expensive than necessary. Even if that error had not been perpetuated, there was the problem that retailers are technophobic beyond their databases and terrified of anything regarded, even by a handful of people, as a potential threat to privacy. The usual ruse of requiring the suppliers to do it all for nothing, despite the benefit almost entirely accruing to the retailer did not work. It had worked with anti-theft tags but with RFID the costs were one hundred times larger and the suppliers of fast moving consumer goods, with their wafer-thin margins, dragged their feet even though they had unloaded hundreds of millions of dollars of losses on their over-enthusiastic, naive RFID sources. Many in the value chain went to the wall and only certain things such as tagging apparel became successful, with demonstrable paybacks. True, some countries are proceeding as a matter of national prestige rather than payback. For example Russia intend to RFID tag all postal items but, at best, it all adds up to tens of billions not trillions yearly, woefully inadequate in getting costs sufficiently low. Companies printing RFID to make it cheap have largely collapsed or failed, as yet, to get yield that is high enough for viability. Those making primitive, very cheap ink-stripe RFID run afoul of the over-specifying by retailers and others. For example, most passive tags are required to be read-write yet very few use that facility once it is in place. Nonetheless, a catchy title like Internet of Things is too good to go to waste so it has been high-jacked by some of those making and using active tags and their systems i.e. ones with their own on-board power source which is usually a battery today. Over the last decade, the money spent on active RFID tags and systems has grown from around 10% of all RFID to something more like 30%. The percentage of all RFID projects that are active RFID has similarly grown, as monitored in the IDTechEx RFID Knowledgebase of 4500 projects in 124 countries and growing all the time. In the past, active RFID usually meant things like your car key fob opening or locking the vehicle at 30 meters, one-on-one. Some big military money went on active RFID with sensing but that was also usually one-on-one. However, nowadays the primary attention is on applying second generation active RFID called Real Time Locating Systems (RTLS) where, usually but not always, the tag knows its location thanks to "seeing" several RF emitters and applying various measurement principles such as time of arrival, angle of arrival, received signal strength and so on. More and more, this is done without human intervention in contrast to the nurse pressing her RTLS pendant in emergency, which was an early success. It becomes Machine-to-Machine (M2M). Then there is third generation active RFID called Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) or, in Korea, Ubiquitous Sensor Networks, where the tag is called a node because it acts as both RFID tag and RFID reader. To qualify for this terminology, it has to be a mesh network in computing terms, self-organising and self-healing. Drop them from a helicopter on an oil spill and they form a useful RFID system by themselves. This is all very like the internet so, bingo, let us call it the Internet of Things without a retailer in sight and with sensing in every case. IDTechEx has the definitive report on the subject called Wireless Sensor Networks 2012-2022 . This report is about progress towards automatically anticipating and monitoring forest fires, avalanches, hurricanes, failure of country wide utility equipment, traffic, hospitals and much more often over wide areas, something previously impossible. Starting with more humble applications such as meter reading in buildings - now a modest financial success for the leading participants, WSN will grow rapidly to well over two billion US dollars for the systems in 2022 . The market for wireless sensor systems in general, mainly one-on-one, is far larger but some proposed standards apply to both and some suppliers make both types. Figure 1. Total WSN Market 2010-2014 ($ Millions) Source: IDTechEx www.IDTechEx.com/WSN Ironically, WSN has some challenges in common with the original "let's deploy trillions of dumb tags" concept for the Internet of Things. The suppliers have yet to make big money. Deploying large numbers (in this case that means thousands in one system not billions) is technically challenging. The standards people are not providing the right global open standards i.e. conferring interoperability, use in many disparate industries and leading to long battery life or alternative forms of fit-and-forget. Indeed, it will be rare for a WSN system to have more than a few tens of thousands of sensors in the next ten years but after that the dream of far larger deployments will be realisable. 90% of potential applications probably need 20 year life and mostly that calls for energy harvesting in forms not yet available - such as affordable, compact, multiple energy harvesting, where electricity is produced as needed from vibration, sunlight, heat differences etc. See the IDTechEx report, Energy Harvesting and Storage for Electronic Devices 2012-2022 . In our WSN report, uniquely, we examine the business aspects in a manner that is accessible to those with limited technical knowledge but with much to interest technologists as well. While there are many academic texts about WSN dealing with the highly complex technical challenges of producing these systems, we put such systems in context, including forecasting their rollout, technical evolution and the commercial opportunities. We reveal what will happen when, the paybacks, the potential markets, the killer applications and the intractable problems that will take longer to solve. Winners and losers, successes and failures - here is a balanced view of a very broad sweep of developers and suppliers including those beyond the ZigBee Alliance. Observing that some have been too optimistic in their forecasts for WSN in the past, we try to avoid the pitfalls of over-optimism. Yet we reveal the growth that is to come, eventually creating a substantial business of huge benefit to humankind. Many of the world's largest companies are working on this new form of the Internet of Things, seeing it as part of the move to ubiquitous M2M computing. Some are working on use of printed electronics, including printed sensors for such purposes and some on energy harvesting tolerant electronics (all those voltage spikes and unpredictable intermittency). Yet others are reducing the power required by node logic, memory and sensing. Progress is quite rapid because all these things are needed more generally beyond WSN, de-risking the investments. Excitingly, adjacent technologies such as one and two-way wireless sensors with energy harvesting and no batteries to replace are succeeding financially. Most notable is the EnOcean Alliance. It may become an open standard and move closer to being WSN.
Thingsquare Announces Software to Simplify the Internet of Things Thingsquare Mist brings Internet connectivity to battery-powered wireless devices By Thingsquare Thingsquare, a pioneering provider of open-source software for the Internet of Things, today announced Thingsquare Mist, a standards-based mesh networking platform. Thingsquare Mist allows developers of smart lighting systems, smart cities, smart homes and smart buildings to quickly add Internet connectivity to their devices. A key feature of Thingsquare Mist is its ability to seamlessly connect Mist networks with existing networks based on the Internet Protocol (IP), without need for manual configuration. "The Internet of Things market is growing quickly due to new low-cost hardware and manufacturing technology," said Adam Dunkels, founder of Thingsquare and author of the Contiki operating system. "The Internet of Things needs open standards and straightforward software to move forward. Thingsquare Mist makes the Internet of Things dramatically easier to develop and deploy." Thingsquare Mist uses open standards such as the Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6), IPv6 for low-power wireless networks (6lowpan), the Routing Protocol for Lossy networks (RPL), and the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). Thingsquare Mist is open-source software and runs the open-source Contiki operating system on the devices. Key innovations in network protocols, over-the-air software update mechanisms, and network maintenance tools, makes Thingsquare Mist systems easy to develop, deploy, and operate. Thingsquare is working with several leading hardware manufacturers to bring Thingsquare Mist to a wide range of hardware platforms. Thingsquare Mist is currently in private beta with a set of selected customers and will be available by Q1 2013. More information about Thingsquare Mist can be found at http://www.thingsquare.com/ About Thingsquare Thingsquare is the leading provider of open-source software for the Internet of Things. Founded in 2012 with the aim to simplify the Internet of Things, Thingsquare provides standards-based software to a wide range of customers developing applications for smart lighting, smart cities and smart buildings. For more information, visit http://www.thingsquare.com/ Contact Roger Bergdahl, CEO Thingsquare roger@thingsquare.com SOURCE Thingsquare Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/09/20/4838150/thingsquare-announces-software.html#storylink=cpy
Four Internet of Things Trends Tech Gadgets By David Bliss , Published September 7, 2012 The Internet of Things is comprised of networked objects with sensors and actuators. These objects observe their environment and share the data they collect with each other, Internet servers and people. This data is analyzed and the results are used to make decisions and affect change. Change may come from a connected object making adjustments in the environment, or it may come after the collected information is analyzed further by a person. Nurun San Francisco has several clients involved in the Internet of Things space and have worked with them in a variety of ways including brand and marketing work, product and service development and connected object prototyping. We recently lead a workshop with one of these clients, exploring ways that their household products could benefit from being connected to the Internet. Several of their products are already connected to each other and the Internet, we helped them uncover new opportunities to push these products beyond pure utility and to find ways to do and say something new. To get things started we reviewed four themes that come up most often in our work around the Internet of Things. 1. The quantified self. At this year’s Planningness Conference, Guthrie (Director of Brand and Strategy at Nurun San Francisco) and I lead a session on Connected Personal Objects , where we explored how the Internet of Things can drive a virtuous cycle of learning and change based on the collection and analysis of data. Tracking performance as a guide for change is not a new idea. Companies use data to improve business processes as well as product marketing. Athletes and medical professionals collect biometric data to optimize performance and patient treatment. What’s more, an increasing number of non-professionals are collecting information about themselves, looking for patterns in order to positively impact their lives. In all cases, the mechanisms employed range from pen and paper to high-tech devices coupled with data mining. There is no question that the Internet of Things makes it easier and easier for us to learn from our actions. Many products provide customers with direct access to the information from which they can draw their own conclusions. Increasingly, these products will be bundled with services to perform more detailed analysis and deliver simple, actionable recommendations. For example, most services that track athletic performance such as running collect data and report extensive information about current and past runs. Future services will take things further. Based on deeper analysis, these services will be able to set optimal diet and workout plans as well as provide real-time coaching based on your individual training goals and performance history. 2. From computers to things. As sensors, actuators and the technologies that let them talk to each other become smaller and less expensive, more and more objects will be networked. This progression is the nature of the Internet of Things and it’s changing our relationships to computers and information. Today, smartphones are the most pervasive objects in the Internet of Things landscape. They provide a wide array of sensors and radios for communication in a single, portable package. They run robust operating systems that allow an endless number of applications to take advantage of these sensors and radios in different ways. As miniaturized general-purpose computers, smartphones bear more of a resemblance to PCs then they do to the future of connected objects. We’re already seeing an increase in the number of connected objects dedicated to one purpose. These objects are custom fit to do a specific thing better and more conveniently than a smartphone app. These items are easily recognizable as digital devices. Not only do their buttons and screens betray their heritage, but they also tend to be dependent on smartphones, PCs and chargers. As technology continues to advance, everyday objects unrecognizable as hi-tech gadgets will be equipped with sensors and internet connectivity. Objects such as lamps will inconspicuously monitor the conditions of their surroundings, communicate with other objects within their network and act based on their collective knowledge. Finally, in environments where robust sensors are pervasive, it’s no longer necessary for objects to contain their own electronics or power. These objects are virtually linked to the Internet by other objects that act as their agents. Technologies like RFID and computer vision allow connected objects to identify these objects and display data, information and user interfaces on their behalf. A connected kitchen counter could identify groceries by sight and display nutritional information and recipes that match your tastes. 3. Ambient information. As the components of the Internet of Things disperse, it becomes possible for displays to become more integrated into our environment. Ambient displays such as the three projects pictured above are dedicated, real-time displays for a small set of dynamic data. As with this weather clock or this map of bicycle availability , an ambient display may work exclusively with a specific type of information. Others, like the Ugle are designed to display data of your choice in a coded manner, significant only to those in the know. In either case, these objects can be made with simpler technologies than more complex devices that combine sensing, control and display. They can be made in smaller batches and in a variety of styles to match the environment in which they’re placed. It seems inevitable that stores like Target, Restoration Hardware and Bloomingdale’s will carry a range of ambient displays in their house wares departments. Furthermore, small boutique shops and furniture designers will sell uniquely designed and custom-made displays. Consumers will shop for displays that match their personal styles and connect them to the information services of their choice. With ambient displays, people won’t need to grab their phones, launch an app and wait for data to be fetched. At a glance, they will know the weather forecast, if a spouse has left work, or if the doors of their house are locked. 4. Interoperability adds value. This last trend is relatively simple, but critical: things on the Internet must work together. Currently there is no broadly used, open standard for how objects on the Internet of Things share information and communicate with one another . Except in the case of peripherals, objects made by one company seldom interact directly with those from another company. When they can directly interact, the objects tend to be part of a closed, proprietary system with a licenser acting as gatekeeper preventing a truly open standard. In response, web-based Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) are being used to encourage interoperability between different systems. Implementing an API does not require that companies expose all of their data or give up competitive advantages. Anyone who integrates their product or service with Facebook wishes that they had more control over what they read or publish through the API; but to give that control to third parties could jeopardize Facebook’s livelihood. The Health Graph by RunKeeper is one example of a company publishing a subset of their data to an open database. In exchange for providing this information to potentially competitive products, RunKeeper benefits from complementary devices such as the Fitbit Ultra, the Withings Scale and the Zeo Sleep Manager publishing data to the same system. Having one place for all of these products and services to come together provides additional value to the customers of all participating companies. In cases where a manufacturer does not directly support interoperability with specific products or features, third party systems such as If This Then That will step in and provide an easy way to connect the outputs of one API to the inputs of another. Theoretically, a service like this could allow a house’s lighting system to benefit from knowing that the alarm system has been armed and that everyone has left the house. This sort of interaction between systems assumes that those features have been exposed via APIs and that the homeowner has given each system permission to talk to one another. This scenario doesn’t require that the two manufacturers plan for or invest in this particular integration. As with popular web-services, we’ll find that Internet of Things products and services that offer APIs and encourage third parties to develop integrated applications will enjoy broader adoption than those that are closed. Forward looking statements. These four themes are in no way comprehensive of all the trends influencing the development of the Internet of Things. The work we do largely focuses on personal connected objects and those found within homes and autos. Within this purview, these trends are influencing the design of Internet of Things products and services and the way we interact with them. What trends related to the Internet of Things interest you? Let us know in the comments below. This article was originally published on Odopod’s What’s Fresh blog on September 6 th .
Super wi-fi poised for growth in US, elsewhere Move over wi-fi, there's a new wireless technology coming. So-called "Super Wi-Fi", which offers a bigger range than existing hotspots, is being deployed in the United States and generating interest in a number of countries, including Britain and Brazil. Super wi-fi is not really wi-fi because it uses a different frequency and requires specially designed equipment, but it offers some of wi-fi's advantages, and more. The name was coined by the US Federal Communications Commission in 2010, when it approved the deployment of unused broadcast television spectrum, or so-called "white spaces", for wireless broadband. Advertisement The long range and use of the broadcast spectrum could allow wireless signals to travel farther than wi-fi - in theory as far as 160 kilometres - although for practical reasons the range will probably be only a few kilometres. Michael Calabrese, director of the Wireless Future Project at the New America Foundation, said that is an advantage of using the broadcast spectrum. "Wi-fi has been booming, but it has been limited by the frequencies it operates on, which go only a few hundred metres," said Calabrese, who has been pressing for the use of "white spaces" since 2002. In contrast, "television frequencies travel long distances at low power and penetrate through buildings, trees and bad weather", Calabrese said. This could provide high-speed internet to sparsely populated rural areas which lack broadband. It could also allow consumers to create their own hotspots, which could be used on devices while away from their homes. The first deployment of Super wi-fi came last year by Rice University in Houston, Texas, followed by another earlier this year in Wilmington, North Carolina. A coalition of organisations has announced plans to deploy Super wi-fi to college campuses in rural areas starting early next year in a project called AIR.U, backed by Google and Microsoft. Super wi-fi would be on "unlicensed" spectrum, like wi-fi, so companies would not bid on exclusive spectrum rights. This can lower costs. And there is often excess capacity, especially in rural areas, where fewer TV stations operate. Mobile phone companies could use Super wi-fi, as they do now with wi-fi, to relieve some of the "spectrum crunch" from the explosion of mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. But in order for Super wi-fi to gain traction, manufacturers of PCs and other devices would have to make chipsets that could operate on both systems. Dan Lubar of the WhiteSpace Alliance, an association dedicated to new wireless technology, said he sees Super wi-fi gaining momentum in the US and other countries with unused broadcast spectrum. "Everybody understands the value of this spectrum," he said. "It is the biggest swath of spectrum and has the most favourable characteristics." Chipmaker Texas Instruments recently joined the alliance, suggesting that equipment makers are ready to start making Super wi-fi equipment. "It's definitely going to be here in visible ways by the middle of next year," Lubar said. Calabrese said that because of a lack of compatible equipment, most of the early Super wi-fi deployments are being back converted to regular wi-fi signals. At some point soon, he said, people may start using air cards or dongles to capture Super wi-fi. Gerry Purdy, an analyst and consultant with MobileTrax LLC, was more cautious about prospects for Super wi-fi, saying it may take several years to gain traction. "It's a good utilization of spectrum, but I'm more conservative than some people," he said. "Building chipsets takes times, software standards take time; I don't think people should have false expectations." The most vocal criticism comes from the Wi-Fi Alliance, which has a trademark on the name wi-fi and fears consumers will be confused by incompatible technical norms. The group said it supports the use of unlicensed spectrum for broadband but that Super wi-fi "does not inter-operate with the billions of wi-fi devices in use today" and does not "deliver the same user experience as is available in wi-fi hotspots and home networks". Although the name is the most controversial part of Super wi-fi, that did not come from the backers of the technology, but from the FCC and chairman Julius Genachowski. "I wish we had thought of that. We had been calling it wi-fi on steroids," said Calabrese. AFP “超级WiFi”辐射160公里 无线WiFi网络已经进入我们的生活，但是由于覆盖范围小而经常令人“禁足”在数十平方米的房间内。 据英国《每日电讯报》昨日报道，美国研发了一种“超级WiFi”，将信号接收范围大幅提高至160公里，目前已经在得克萨斯州休斯敦市首先试用。 “超级WiFi”不受建筑阻隔 报道称，“超级WiFi”不是严格意义上的WiFi网络，两者使用的频率不同。超级WiFi将电视未使用的“空白频率”建构成无线网络，需要特别设计的设备，与普通WiFi相比优势明显。理论上，超级WiFi传播距离可以达到160公里。由于实际操作中的一些限制，这种无线网络目前的覆盖半径为数公里。 新美洲基金会无线网络发展总监卡拉布雷塞称，“超级电 视频 波能够传播更远的距离，不受建筑、树木阻隔，更适应恶劣天气。该技术可以用于向人烟稀少的地区提供高速 互联网 服务。另外，它使消费者有能力自建网络"热点"，便于离家时使用。 ” 不支持现有WiFi装置 研发公司“MobileTrax”顾问珀迪表示，新技术已可初步应用，但因现有WiFi装置不支持，需重新研制专用接收器，离普及尚有一段时间。 网络巨头谷歌及微软均表示，明年将合作推出“AIR·U”计划，将新技术扩展至乡镇大学内。 电信 服务供货商有望借助该新技术，缓解智能手机热潮导致的网络拥堵。 来源：和讯科技 http://tech.hexun.com/2012-09-04/145464831.html
Making chips for ‘Internet of things’ Deepa Kurup The Hindu Evolving with times: The India teams for the firm’s networking business are leading the way on system-on-chip designs, software, and tools development, says Tom Deitrich, senior vice-president and general manager, Freescale Semiconductor. Cutting power consumption, securing data are key hardware challenges in the wireless world By 2015, by several industry estimates, over 5.5 billion mobile devices will be connected to the Web. In the developed world, the concept of an ‘Internet of things’ — where networks connect cars, machines or electrical equipment rather than people — is no more the stuff that sci-fi is made of. And at the heart of this intelligent network, or the ‘Internet of things’, is a robust communications infrastructure. The “dramatic growth” of wireless devices poses tall challenges in embedded processing, says Tom Deitrich, senior vice-president and general manager – networking and multimedia solutions group at Freescale Semiconductor. In a freewheeling chat with The Hindu , on the sidelines of the Freescale Technology Forum, held here recently, Mr. Deitrich spoke on rapid advancements and challenges in process technologies (in the embedded technologies field), advancements in automotive chipsets and key challenges in keeping pace with the growing infrastructure demands of a wireless world. Today, Mr. Deitrich says, most people have a minimum of three devices. Pointing to the mobile phone that records his interview, he explains how everything from transferring this file to another device to parsing the data uses heavy networking infrastructure. “Think about all the network consumption at each stage; it’s even worse with video. There’s a mobile data tsunami that requires OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) and carriers to dramatically boost network performance while controlling capital expenditure costs, increasing power efficiency and supporting the emergence of 4G technologies.” The challenge here, he explains, is to build a secure network that keeps up with the spiralling demand, while controlling or reducing energy consumption and equipment cost. But that’s easier said than done, he admits. He explains how one product portfolio of base station-on-chip products integrates communications processing, digital signal processing and wireless acceleration technologies into a single system-on-chip (SoC) in various configurations, optimised for next-generation femtocell, picocell, metrocell and macrocell base stations. “This integration lowers part counts and delivers significant power, cost and footprint reductions for base stations. Significantly, the architecture is common across the cells, allowing for software reuse and optimising RD investments,” he explains. Embedded challenges As the number of transistors on a chip grows, and multicore processing enables higher and higher levels of processing, a key challenge is decreasing power consumption. Besides data security and device size, power expenditure poses a bigger challenge in wireless networks. Mr. Deitrich explains that Freescale is developing a wide array of power management techniques at the process level. For instance, he explains the concept of cascading power management, a key research area for the company. What this does is steers tasks to a smaller number of cores during non-peak activity periods, so that the idle cores can enter a minimal-power or “drowsy” state. When packet traffic increases again, the technique allows a rapid return to fully loaded conditions. Mr. Deitrich puts this in perspective by pointing to any cellphone tower, where the traffic obviously slows down as the night approaches, perhaps to a few packets in the wee hours of the morning. This then picks up again as the day progresses, reaching a peak during work hours. “With this, cores can achieve reduced energy consumption under light network loads and then automatically return to full function when network loads increase,” he explains, adding that this not only saves a great deal of power, but also provides a more efficient way to distribute packet processing loads among cores on an SoC. Mr. Deitrich speaks at length about the new Layerscape architecture, a development that he spoke of at length in his keynote address at the Freescale Technology Forum. “I’m excited because I see it speeding up innovation in the embedded sector,” he says. This new architecture, unveiled a few months ago, is the industry’s first “software-aware, core-agnostic networking systems architecture”. How is this a game changer? Mr. Deitrich explains that it is easy to programme (in high-level or human-friendly languages), and offers the flexibility and scalability needed to deal with the exponential increase in connected devices. Designed with intelligent networking applications in mind, its architecture innovations include enabling power architecture and ARM-based cores, making it “unique and exciting”. Automotive chipsets At the cutting-edge of innovation in the automotive embedded technology field, Freescale’s focus is on designing chipsets and circuits that help improve fuel economy or increase energy efficiency, improving vehicle safety and consumer “in-car experience”, all catering to the rigorous and increasing demands of the modern automotive industry. When asked what’s most exciting in the Freescale automotive lab, Mr. Deitrich talks about i.MX product line that power infotainment/ telematics systems, currently deployed by more than 10 world-class automotive equipment managers. “Our forthcoming dual and quad-core i.MX 6 product presents extremely compelling automotive applications moving forward,” he says. For instance, he explains that they have demonstrated surround-view camera systems for auto applications, which takes input from four cameras placed around a car, then stitches them together for a virtual top view. In this system, the camera images are connected by Ethernet, and sent to the central processor. Each image is time-stamped, and then the i.MX processor stitches the properly time-stamped images together, and shows them quickly enough for the human eye to see them as video. These technologies, he explains, have a wide range of applications in safety apps, a 77 gigahertz radar for collision avoidance and adaptive cruise control, to mention a few. ‘Back on track’ In 2009, during a particularly rough patch, globally, Freescale retrenched around 250 employees from the cellular product group in Bangalore. Today, when asked if things are looking up for the company, Mr. Deitrich says, “We’re absolutely back on track.” Currently, its design centres employ around 1,000 engineers. “These teams are involved in hardware development, IP development, SoC design, software development, and tools development. The India teams for Freescale’s networking business are leading the way on SoC designs, software, and tools development. Many of the most advanced designs, including Layerscape, are executed in India,” he elaborated.
物联网----Smart things 物联网要实现一个智慧化的世界的一个重要的部分或者说基本单元是Smart things 或者说 Smart Objects。Internet of Things的基本的实体部分也是这个Smart Objects。 Smart Objects具有感知能力（sense）和控制能力（Actuator），能够实现感知信息和控制外界的功能。它的智能可以独立依赖于自身的感知和决策，更重要的是还可以通过通信与周围的Smart Objects获取更多的决策信息，或者执行涉及更大范围的虚拟智能中心的指挥和决策，从而可以实现协同决策和协同控制。其自身的决策和控制，可以称为是自己的内脑，而虚拟智能中心可以称为是外脑。内脑和外脑，既分又合，既分布式又集中式地工作。 Smart Objects其实可以看做是一个简单的具有无线或有线通信功能的小电脑，这个小电脑具有感知、运算（决策）、控制、通信等基本功能。但这个物体有多智能？当然它越智能越好，但费用和耗能将要考量，并且本质上限于其自身只是信息网上的一个点，因此它的智能将更多地依赖于其外脑----即众多与它一样的单个智能物体的信息的聚和和信息决策。
"Internet of Things" a Chinese national initiative China's machine-to-machine (M2M) is expected to grow from $642 million in 2011 to $2.76 billion in 2016, with smart meters and smart grid a significant portion of the market, according to ABI Research. And M2M has a solid place in China's national economic strategy. "China's latest economic five-year-plan has placed the ‘Internet of Things' as a key, strategic national industry initiative for the country," said Jake Saunders, ABI's Vice President of Forecasting. "Carriers have made significant progress through 2011 in terms of developing technologies, unified platforms, applications, and strategic cooperation." 转载来源： http://www.fierceenergy.com/story/internet-things-chinese-national-initiative/2012-02-27
物联网鞋----实时查询你的孩子现在在哪 将GPS嵌入到鞋子中，你的孩子现在在哪里就可以实时查看跟踪了。 美国Los Angeles的GTX Corp目前已经开始生产这种鞋子，每双价值299美元，外加无线月租费就可以实现这种功能。 实时查询可以通过地图实时看到你孩子现在在哪，当然查看历史也很容易。 这种鞋子，除了对于监护孩子，对于老人监护也很有用处。 当然，对于成人也很有用途，比如可以实时监视你的那个XX现在在哪，都去过具体什么地方？呵呵，这个也够厉害的吧？ 相关： 《Today, the Internet -- tomorrow, the Internet of Things?》 http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9221614/Today_the_Internet_tomorrow_the_Internet_of_Things _
Contents 1 周涛 个性化推荐的十大挑战 推荐引擎：信息暗海的领航员 Tag-Aware Recommender Systems: A State-of-the-Art Survey 1 周涛 个性化推荐的十大挑战 周涛 CCF通讯 第 8 卷 第 7 期 2012 年 7 月 关键词：个性化推荐 挑站 应用的算法和技术： 推荐项亮和陈义合著的《推荐系统实践》 挑战一：数据稀疏性问题 挑战二：冷启动问题 标签系统（tagging systems） 挑战三：大数据处理与增量计算问题 （latent dirichlet allocation, LDA）算法 挑战四：多样性与精确性的两难困境 挑战五：推荐系统的脆弱性问题 挑战六：用户行为模式的挖掘和利用 挑战七：推荐系统效果评估 图5总结了文献中曾经出现过的几乎所有的推荐系统指标 挑战八：用户界面与用户体验 挑战九：多维数据的交叉利用 网络与网络之间的相互作用 挑战十：社会推荐 个性化推荐的十大挑战.pdf 推荐引擎：信息暗海的领航员 Terry Lau 张韶峰 周 涛 CCF通讯 第 8 卷 第 6 期 2012 年 6 月 关键词：推荐引擎 电子商务 海量数据 1 引言 推荐引擎 - 信息过载 2 系统架构 如图1所示，百分点推荐引擎分为存储层、业务层、算法层和管理层四大功能组件 推荐引擎 信息暗海的领航员.pdf Tag-Aware Recommender Systems: A State-of-the-Art Survey Zi-Ke Zhang(张子柯), Tao Zhou (周涛), and Yi-Cheng Zhang JOURNAL OF COMPUTER SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 26(5): 767{777 Sept. 2011. Abstract In the past decade, Social Tagging Systems have attracted increasing attention from both physical and computer science communities. Besides the underlying structure and dynamics of tagging systems, many efforts have been addressed to unify tagging information to reveal user behaviors and preferences, extract the latent semantic relations among items, make recommendations, and so on. Specifically, this article summarizes recent progress about tag-aware recommender systems, emphasizing on the contributions from three mainstream perspectives and approaches: network-based methods, tensor-based methods, and the topic-based methods. Finally, we outline some other tag-related studies and future challenges of tag-aware recommendation algorithms. Keywords social tagging systems, tag-aware recommendation, network-based/tensor-based/topic-based methods 1 Introduction an information overload: an urgent problem: how to automatically find out the relevant items for us? personalization = recommender system collaborative filtering (CF) obstacles confronted by CF: the sparsity of data reason: (i) the huge number of items are far beyond users' ability to evaluate even a small fraction of them; (ii) users do not incentively wish to rate the purchased/viewed items Q: User profiles vs. personal privacy. A: Attribute-aware method content-based algorithms vs. its limitation: the items contain rich content information that can be automatically extracted out network theory = complex networks. = folksonomy = social tags user-defined tags 2 Overview of Tag-Based Recommender Systems the influence of social tag on recommendation algorithms. -- FolkRank some open issues in tagging systems: (i) singularity vs. plurality: (ii) polysemy vs. synonymy: (iii) different online tagging systems allow users to give different formats of the tags Solutions: -- Firstly, clustering-based methods are proposed to alleviate the word reduction problem. -- Secondly, semantic methods are discussed to use ontology-based algorithms to organize the tags and reveal the semantic relations among them -- Thirdly, dimension reduction and topic-based methods are put forward to discover the latent topics, and graph-based methods are proposed to solve the sparsity problem in large-scale datasets. the orgnization of this paper: -- firstly give the evaluation metrics measured in this survey. -- Secondly we summarize some of the most recent and prominent tag-aware recommendation algorithms, showing and discussing how they make use of the aforementioned representations to address some unresolved issues in recommender systems. three kinds of recommendations in social tagging systems: (i) predicting friends to users; (ii) recommending items to users; (iii) pushing interesting topics (tags) to users. the most challenges in RS: filter irrelevant items for individuals the purpose of this paper: mainly discuss the second case, 3 Tag-Aware Recommendation Models a social tagging network consists of three different kinds of communities: users, items and tags, personomy: an entry set of personalized folksonomy, a full folksonomy can be considered in two ways to be: (i) three sets described by an adjacent matrix (ii) a ternary or hypergraph-based structure: 3.1 Evaluation Metrics each dataset,E: -- the training set -- the testing set 3.1.1 Metrics of Accuracy 1) Ranking Score (RS) 2) The Area under the ROC Curve 3) Recall recall: 3.1.2 Metrics of Diversity 1) Inter Diversity (InterD): measures the differences of different users' recommendation lists, 2) Inner Diversity (InnerD): measures the differences of items within a user's recommendation list 3.2 Network-Based Models mathematical modeling: tag-based network can be viewed as a tripartite graph which consists of three integrated bipartite graphs or a hypergraph. two underlying network-based methods: probability spreading (ProbS) and heat spreading (HeatS) ProbS: -- random walk (RW) in computer science -- mass diffusion (MD) in physics. HeatS: Table 1 shows the corresponding AUC results for three datasets: 3.3 Tensor-Based Models the tensor factorization (TF)-based method a ternary relation Fig.3 shows the illustration of the above two definitions. Y can be represented: The tensor factorization is based on singular value decomposition (SVD): 3.4 Topic-Based Models the core challenge of recommender systems: to estimate the likelihood between users and items. -- latent semantic analysis (LSA) -- the probability latent semantic analysis (PLSA) -- latent dirichlet allocation (LDA) 4 Conclusion and Outlook three aspects: (i) network-based methods; (ii) tensor-based methods; (iii) topic-based methods. 2011JCST-Tag_aware_recommender_systems.pdf
给物联网起个英文名字--Net of Things (NOT) 科学网博客连续推出黄富强老师和刘钢老师关于物联网的博文（ 《物联网工程概念的界定问题》 ， 《模糊的物联网》 ），可见物联网这个有争议的话题引起了更多人的注意。 “物联网”概念似乎包容的内容很多：传感网（Wireless of Sensor Networks）、RFID网络、Internet of things （IOT）、M2M、Web of things、云计算。。。。 物联网这个概念也真是太大，太广泛了，并且它还在发展中，给它定性还真不容易。 要说物联网的雏形可能源于RFID的应用，随着发展许多个研究和发展的相关领域有了交叉和融合的趋势（ 但总的趋势是随着智能物体的加入对原有的信息流动、处理和信息呈现有了新的影响和应用，对周围世界的控制有了融入更多智慧的可能 ）。最初的物联网热可能来自于美国，因为那时IBM提出“智慧地球”的概念，奥巴马为了应对当时的次贷危机而很感兴趣。中国掀起的物联网热可能有更深的战略意义，物联网也许可以掀起第三次信息浪潮，至少可以是社会信息化的进一步推进。过去都是发达国家主导信息化浪潮，中国这次应该获取更多的话语权和主导权。毕竟中国具有了更强的经济实力和逐步发展壮大的科研力量，有了这么个物联网“旗帜”，也许可以号召和集中更多的社会力量来推动这次信息化的浪潮（虽然国外没有这么热，但从网络报道和论文发表上看，大家仍然在关注相关的事情，做类似的科研和推动）。 现在物联网的争议有多个方面： 第一，它是社会信息化推动的产物，是一种技术集成的信息化应用，具有渗透性的行业应用特征和服务的特性，所以概念很大，包含技术和内容繁多，交叉涉及了原有的很多个发展研究中的领域，因此使用任何一个术语好像都难以包容界定。 第二，物联网本身是一个发展的事物，大家感到有这么个东西，也感觉有发展前景，但由于处在发展开始阶段，市场还不大（目前RFID市场比较稳定和成熟），概念也不甚清晰，于是感到模糊、困惑，甚至不接受它。这其实都是正常的。因为对于未来的东西，有一个发展不确定性和认识的不确定性。 第三，由于社会趋利因素的驱动，比如股市、急于获利企业等的加入和炒作，带来一些负面效应。但也应该看到，现在存在很大争议也正表明了它的影响在扩大，至于将来有没有那么大，正如 闵应骅老 师所讲：物联网的定义并不重要，重要的是解决一些实际问题。其实骑驴看唱本，可以走着瞧。 物联网的概念似乎从英文的Internet of things（IOT）得来，但今天我们谈的这个物联网其实早超出了这个英文名字。这个名字给人感觉物联网就是将物体连在internet上。但显然物联网不仅仅是使单个物体上网（比如说一个局域的控制网络，可能不需要连接到internet上）。 自己建议给中国目前的物联网起个英文名字 Net of things (NOT)，与IOT减少混淆。物体就不用说了，可以是实体物（人也是啊），可以是虚拟物体。Net是网络，可以是internet，可以是无线网，可以是专用网，局域网等等。 孤立的物体通过网络（net）连接，网络流动的是信息，承载的是人的智慧。 目标在于实现一个智慧化的世界（是不是先实现智能化？）。
论文“互联网与神经学的交叉对比研究”。详细阐述了五年来的研究成果，并补充上互联网的神经反射弧，人脑中的搜索引擎，维基百科，IPv4/v6地址编码，路由系统等方面的实验设计。发表在“复杂系统与复杂性科学”2010年9月的网络科学专刊。 互联网与神经学的交叉对比研究 刘锋1 2 1.中国科学院虚拟经济与数据科学研究中心，北京（100190） 2. 北京交通大学计算机与信息技术学院，北京（100044） 摘要： 随着互联网的发展，越来越多的迹象表明互联网与神经学具有很强的对比性，本文首先就互联网和神经学交叉对比的猜想提出过程进行介绍。然后通过神经学对互联网研究的启发，分别从互联网虚拟神经元，虚拟感觉和运动系统，虚拟自主神经系统，虚拟中枢神经系统，虚拟神经反射弧对互联网虚拟大脑的结构和功能进行阐述。利用互联网对神经学研究的启发，从路由系统，搜索引擎应用，维基百科应用，IP地址应用等方面介绍了人脑中类互联网结构功能的研究方法和实验设计。同时本文也对其他研究者观点以及云计算，物联网，智慧地球等相关概念进行了介绍。 关键词：互联网 大脑 神经学 互联网虚拟大脑 互联网进化 中图分类号：TP393.4 ; Q42 文献标识码：A Crossover comparative study on the Internet and Neurologyn Liu Feng1 2 1．Research Centre on Fictitious Economy and Data Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing (100190) 2． School of Computer and Information Technology，beijing jiaotong unversity Beijing (100044) Abstract: Following the development of the internet, more and more phenomena show that there are strong relative properties between the Internet and Neurology. The article first makes a review on the developing process of idea on crossover comparation of the Internet and Neurology, then based on the enlightment by Neurology on the internet research, elaborates the structure and functions of Internet virtual brain from aspects of virtual nerve cell, virtual sensory and locomotor system, virtual autonomic nervous system, virtual central nervous system, virtual neural arc, and makes introduction on the research methods and experimental designs of structures and functions similar to Internet in human brains from aspects of router system, search engine, Wikipedia, IP address etc. The article also makes introduction on the views of other relative researchers and related concepts of " cloud computing" ,"the internet of things", "smarter planet" etc . Keyword: Internet，brain，internet virtual brain，neurolog，evolution of Internet 0引言 一般认为互联网诞生与1969 年的美国，从那时到现在的41年里，互联网取得了迅猛的发展，连接线路从最初的电话线发展到现在的光纤，无线通讯，电缆等多种类型，应用从最初的电子邮件，ftp, BBS发展到现在的博客，视频，搜索引擎，SNS等数千种种类，据中国通信信息研究所“2008-2009年度全球互联网发展研究”报告称“截至2008年底，全球互联网用户数已经达到15.74亿，较2007年增长19.2%，普及率达到23.5％“。各个国家在科技，军事，文化，娱乐，商业等各个领域都受到互联网越来越强大和深入的影响。 面对互联网的迅猛发展，有二个问题需要确定和解决，第一，互联网的发展有没有规律；第二，互联网发展的最终结构是什么。从2005年开始，我们对互联网的结构和应用进行了大量观测，发现互联网和大脑的结构和功能具有很强的相似性。因此提出通过互联网与神经学的交叉对比，一方面可以预测互联网未来的发展动向和最终结构，另一方面可以逐步解开神经学中人脑的未知领域。本文将对这一观点的起源，相关研究以及其他研究者的进展进行阐述。 1互联网与神经学交叉对比的猜想 1.1提出互联网的新定义 无论是1995年10月24日，“联合网络委员会”（FNC）关于“互联网定义”的决议，还是计算机网络的七层结构，一般认为，互联网是由计算机，通讯线路，以及在它们中传输和运行的信息，数据，资料和应用组成。 传统的互联网和网络定义往往忽略了”人“和“人脑中的数据”这两个要素。纵观人类的发展历史和互联网诞生后的进化过程，我们可以看到人类进步就是一部包含了其感觉和运动器官不断延长的历史。棍棒延伸了双臂，石头延伸了拳头，汽车、火车延伸了双腿，望远镜、显微镜延伸了眼睛，传递信号的锣、鼓、电话线延伸了耳朵，大工业革命后出现的公路网、铁路网、飞机航线、海运航线的出现最终使人类四肢实现联网。 与此同时，人类大脑的延伸也一刻没有停止。结绳、算盘、数筹的出现就是早期的例证。1946年，在美国诞生的电子计算机使人类大脑实现质的延伸。1969年互联网诞生后，台式机，笔记本电脑，3G手机的出现无一不是增加人脑与互联网的连接时间。人脑中的信息和知识不断与互联网里的信息和知识进行交互。人类和互联网的发展史告诉我们，互联网不仅仅是机器的联网，它更是为了加强人脑之间的连接。 综上所述，我们在2007年的论文中提出了新的互联网定义，即互联网是由网络线路、计算机节点、人脑和在它们之间储存，流动和运行的数据等四个部分组成的网络结构 ，这个定义最大的特点是把人脑，和人脑中的数据也作为互联网的一部分。它将是我们进行下列问题探讨的重要基础。 1.2电子公告牌功能分裂现象的发现 1983年Capital PC User Group（CPCUG）通过努力，完成了个人计算机的第1版BBS系统——RBBS-PC，这个系统一般认为是电子公告牌的鼻祖，2005年，我们在编写网站程序时，发现使用一个BBS原程序可以任意变形为类新闻，类电子商务，类维基百科，类SNS和类搜索引擎的应用。通过进一步观测我们提出，电子公告牌在诞生之后，开始逐渐发生分裂现象，其功能一个个的分离出去，形成互联网众多应用。这些应用包括新闻类网站，电子商务类网站。博客类网站。智力互动问答类网站，热点点评（DIGG类网站)，维基WIKI类网站，SNS类网站．换客类网站．搜索引擎网站 （图 1）。 图1 电子公告牌功能分离现象图 我们将其中的网络互动问答方向与知识管理的知识价值化概念结合，提出威客witkey的概念和商业模式图形。威客模式就是互联网用户通过解答科学，技术，工作，生活中的问题，获得经济报酬 （图2）。 图2 威客模式运行模型 1.3互联网类神经元现象的发现 在研究的过程中, 我们发现从2007年开始，BBS分离出来的博客、互动问答（威客）与电子邮件、远程网络软件又开始融合起来，相关的应用在雅虎，新浪等门户类网站的个人空间系统中已经得到体现。结合互联网得新定义，我们对这种现象进行思考，我们知道在知识管理领域，知识有这样一种划分，显性知识和隐性知识。对这种划分方法进行了扩充，可以将人脑的功能从知识层面划分成1）共享知识区，例如免费给人指路的信息。2）可交易知识区，例如医生的专业知识必需等病人挂号后才能表达。3）问题区，例如学生不知道答案的数学难题。4）隐私区，例如个人或几个朋友之间的隐私信息。5）运动控制功能区，例如人用筷子夹菜的能力或者用手指打键盘的能力。把这些区域组合起来就形成图3左边的人脑知识功能区。 图3 人脑知识功能区与互联网个人空间的对应关系图 如果我们将人脑知识功能区与互联网个人空间进行对比，可以看到共享知识区对应了博客，可交易知识区和问题区对应了智力互动问答，隐私区对应了电子邮箱，运动控制功能对应了网络软件（图3）。前面我们提到互联网进化的目标是使人类的大脑充分联网，但是目前互联网不可能通过物理手段直接将线路和信号接驳到人的大脑中，通过上述对应关系的描述，我们可以看出人脑的知识功能区通过互联网个人空间被映射到互联网中。 在互联网中，电子邮件和网络远程软件需要通过光纤，电话线里的数据通道与其他人或设备进行联系。我们把这个数据线路也描绘出来（图4左图），可以看出它与图4右图中真实的神经元十分相似。在神经学中，神经元的胞体是信息处理中心，树突和轴突负责与外界进行信息沟通。因此可以这样类比，互联网个人空间对应了神经元的胞体，电子邮件和网络软件的远程数据线路对应了神经元的树突和轴突。我们将互联网这一结构命名为互联网的映射型神经元 。 图4 互联网虚拟神经元与人类大脑神经元 1.4互联网类躯体感觉和类运动系统的出现 2007年7月本文作者参加中国水利部举办的研讨会，了解到中国水利部部门开始在土壤，河流，空气中安放传感器，及时将气温，湿度，风速等数据通过互联网传输到信息处理中心，形成报告供防汛抗旱决策使用。环境部门在自然界安置联网的传感器供环境监测系统使用，这启发我们联想到了大脑中的躯体感觉神经系统。 2007年开始，Google推出了“街景“服务，即在城市中安装安装多镜头摄像机，互联网用户可以实时观看丹佛、拉斯维加斯、迈阿密、纽约和旧金山等城市的风貌，这些项目使我们联想到了大脑中的视觉和听觉系统。 从20世纪90年代，通过局域网或城域网远程操控打印机，复印机的应用已经出现，到21世纪前十年，医生通过远程网络进行手术的案例已经十分普遍，这些远程操控机器设备的应用启发我们联想到人脑中的运动神经系统 。 1.5互联网与神经学交叉对比猜想的提出 2008年7月我们在论文“从人脑的机理看互联网的进化“提出，互联网正在从一个原始的，不完善，相对分裂的网络进化成一个统一的，与人类大脑结构高度相似的组织结构，它将同样具备自己的虚拟神经元，虚拟感觉、视觉、听觉、运动，中枢，自主和记忆神经系统。我们将互联网这一结构命名为互联网虚拟大脑。互联网虚拟大脑的不断成熟将对神经学产生重大的启发式影响，通过对比成熟的互联网结构和应用功能，我们将可能不断发现人类大脑中未知的领域”，在这篇论文中我们也第一次绘制出互联网虚拟大脑结构图 （图5） 图5 互联网虚拟大脑简要结构图 1.6互联网进化的其他相关研究者情况 历史上很多人独立的揭示了社会可以看作为带有自己的神经系统的有机体的概念。例如认为国王是头，农夫是脚的观点，至少可以追溯到古希腊人和中世纪。这个类推为19世纪社会学的创始人提供了灵感。赫伯特•斯宾塞（Herbert Spencer）提出他的《社会是一个有机体》）。进化论神学家德日进（Pierre Teilhard De Chardin）关注社会有机体的精神组织，称之为“心智界（noosphere）”。科幻小说作家赫伯特•乔治•威尔斯（H. G. Wells）提出“世界脑”的概念，当作知识的联合系统，所有人可以访问。1983年彼得•罗素（P. Russell）撰写的《地球脑的觉醒——进化的下一次飞跃》从哲学的层面探讨地球存在的本源和意义中，他提出人类社会通过政治，文化，技术等各种联系使地球成为一个类人脑的组织结构，也就是地球脑 。 总体上看这些思考和理论还局限在科幻，社会学，哲学甚至神学的层面。由于受到当时互联网技术发展水平的局限，不能全面的了解互联网的结构和最新应用，无法从科学研究的视角，将互联网的功能结构与神经学做交叉对比研究。他们往往把人作为神经元本身进行探讨，而没有发现人脑功能通过映射，在互联网中出现的类神经元现象，这个重要的区别导致上述这些思考一直无法将研究推进到科学实证研究的方向。事实上，直到2008年，即使是主流科学意见对互联网和神经学的关系依然抱有怀疑的看法。美国计算机期刊ACM对互联网与神经学交叉对比论文"The Discovery and Analysis on the Law of Internet Evolution"的评审意见就十分具有代表性"the brain evolved over millions of years and the brain evolved under natural selection in which many millions of individual designs were tried and abandoned. The internet is a single entity and is designed by humans.” 2互联网虚拟大脑提出和研究情况 2.1互联网虚拟大脑的结构组成 根据互联网与神经学交叉对比猜想的启发，2009年7月我们在论文“互联网虚拟大脑的结构与功能”中提出了更为详细的互联网虚拟大脑的结构图示（图6）。,将互联网从低端到高端划分为硬件层，软件层，和信息层。其中互联网硬件层包括互联网核心硬件层，互联网远程传感和运动设备。互联网个人终端，互联网网络线路等四个组成部分。互联网软件层包含互联网操作系统和互联网应用软件，其中互联网的应用软件根据其特点又被划分为人脑映射型虚拟神经元，数据整理和挖掘虚拟神经元，感觉和运动虚拟神经元，特异类虚拟神经元，互联网的信息层包含文字，二维图片，文档，视频，声音，三维图像等，分布在互联网的服务器，路由器，交换机，用户终端和互联网虚拟神经系统里。我们将这些分布在互联网中的信息统称为互联网数据海洋 。 图6 互联网虚拟大脑复杂结构图 对于互联网虚拟大脑的研究，我们认为主要包含如下几个问题，存在几种互联网神经元？互联网的感觉，听觉，视觉，运动等虚拟神经系统如何运转？虚拟神经元与互联网中的数据，信息和资料如何交互？互联网虚拟大脑中存在多少种虚拟神经反射弧？ 2.2互联网的虚拟神经元 根据互联网应用程序的特点，我们提出四种互联网的虚拟神经元，它们分别是： 第一，融合博客，威客（智力互动问答），电子邮件的互联网应用，如新浪，雅虎的用户系统，我们将这种与互联网用户交互的应用定义为人脑映射型虚拟神经元。 第二，对互联网的信息，数据和资料进行整理，挖掘和知识发现的互联网应用程序，如谷歌的搜索引擎，ANGOSS软件公司的KnowledgeSTUDIO，Comshare公司的Comshare Decision and Decision Web等，我们将这些软件定义为数据整理和挖掘虚拟神经元。 第三，控制互联网远程传感和运动设备，并且将他们产生的数据传输给互联网信息层的应用软件，我们将它们定义为感觉和运动虚拟神经元。 第四，其他类型的互联网应用软件，如网络游戏，防病毒软件等。我们将它们定义为特异类虚拟神经元 2.3互联网虚拟感觉和运动神经系统 我们提出互联网虚拟感觉和运动神经系统在成熟后，主要有两种运行模式，第一种是互联网用户直接操控模式（图7），流程为（1）互联网用户登陆个人终端（2）个人终端运行个人空间应用程序（映射型虚拟神经元）（3）个人空间相关应用程序与远方传感器，工作设备的驱动程序进行接驳（4）互联网用户通过个人空间界面直接操控传感器，视频，音频和办公设备进行活动。 图7 互联网用户直接操控的虚拟感觉和运动系统机构图 第二种是互联网用户的间接获取模式（图8），流程为（1）传感器，视频，音频采集器，工作设备在本身的程序（或在数据整理和挖掘虚拟神经元）的驱动下，自动运行（2）传感器，视频，音频采集器，工作设备在运行中得到的相关数据进入到互联网的数据海洋中。（3）互联网用户通过个人终端的个人空间应用程序（映射型虚拟神经元）与数据整理和挖掘虚拟神经元接驳并获取数据。 图8 互联网用户间接获取虚拟感觉和运动系统机构图 2.4互联网虚拟自主神经系统 互联网软件层包含了一种虚拟神经元---数据整理和挖掘虚拟神经元，这种神经元应用了人工智能，知识发现和数据挖掘领域的算法，针对互联网中的信息，数据和资料进行处理。其处理的结果通过互联网供个人用户和机构用户查阅和研究。因为这一类神经元包含了预先存放的算法和知识，在运行时并不需要人的主动控制。 数据整理和挖掘虚拟神经元与互联网虚拟感觉，视觉，听觉，运动系统的结合。设计者可以将算法和规则放入到数据整理和挖掘虚拟神经元（或直接放入到感觉或运动神经元）中，当从互联网虚拟感觉，视觉，听觉系统获得信号触发，数据整理和挖掘虚拟神经元便开始驱动互联网虚拟运动系统或其他系统完成特定功能（图9）。例如连结到互联网的传感器将气压，湿度，温度等参数发送给互联网的特定应用程序（数据整理和挖掘虚拟神经元），经过运算如果符合下雨的条件设定，程序受到触发，激活互联网虚拟运动神经元，远程控制野外设备如收割机，挖掘机打开防雨设备。上述互联网现象，我们将其归纳为互联网的类自主神经系统。 图9 互联网虚拟自主神经系统示意图 从图5我们可以看到互联网自主神经系统主要有两种运行模式：1）对互联网的数据海洋数据进行整理和挖掘，并将结果根据需求传递给映射型虚拟神经元2）数据整理和挖掘神经元用内置的算法和规则控制运动虚拟神经元，感觉虚拟神经元，并最终控制机器设备. 2.5互联网虚拟中枢神经系统 互联网中枢神经系统的硬件基础是互联网的核心服务器以及联结他们的路由器和交换机，在这些硬件设备上统一运行的虚拟感觉神经元，听觉神经元，视觉神经元，运动神经元，数据整理和挖掘神经元，映射型神经元等互联网应用程序将构成互联网中枢神经系统的软件基础，包含文字，音频，视频，文档等信息的数据海洋将组成互联网中枢神经系统的信息基础( 4 )（图10）。 图10 互联网虚拟中枢神经系统示意图 从2007年开始，互联网的核心服务器和应用也开始出现集中化的趋势，2007年9月Google和IBM提出和推广的云计算就代表了这种趋势。通俗的讲，云计算就是将传统上分散在个人计算机上的应用集中在若干个大型服务器中，互联网用户通过终端使用大型服务器提供的互联网服务。从云计算的这些特点看，它具备了互联网虚拟中枢神经系统的雏形。 2.6互联网的虚拟神经反射弧现象 反射弧是实现反射活动的神经结构。由感受器、传入神经、神经中枢、传出神经、效应器五个部分组成。神经系统的活动是各种各样简单或复杂的反射活动，反射弧的结构也有简有繁，复杂的反射弧有许多中间神经元。在最简单的反射弧中，传入神经元和传出神经元直接在中枢内接触，称为单突触反射 。 膝跳反射是一种最为简单的反射类型，它仅包含两个神经元感觉神经元（输入）和运动神经元（输出）。膝跳反射的神经中枢是低级神经中枢，位于脊髓内。但是，在完成膝跳反射的同时，脊髓中通向大脑的神经会将这一神经冲动传往大脑，使人感觉到膝盖被叩击了 （图11）。 图11 膝跳反射示意图 从图7和图8的互联网虚拟感觉和运动结构图中，我们可以看到互联网也同样存在神经反射现象。例如，当互联网中的传感器通过测量空气中的温度，湿度和风速，经过预制程序的运算，发现达到符合下雨的条件参数，于是传感器向互联网中枢神经系统发出信号，互联网中枢神经系统经过简单运算，向该地区联网的野外机械设备发出指令，打开防雨设备，实现互联网的防雨神经反射弧功能（图12）。互联网除了这种简单的反射现象之外，和人类神经系统一样，也同样存在复杂的神经反射现象，这个问题将在未来的论文中专门进行阐述。 图12 互联网神经反射弧示意图 2.7关于互联网研究的相关概念综述 从2007年开始，互联网出现了云计算，物联网，智慧地球，这些概念与互联网神经系统的观点都有一定关联，分别介绍如下。 云计算由Google提出，2007年10月Google与IBM开始在美国大学校园，包括卡内基美隆大学、麻省理工学院、斯坦福大学、加州大学柏克莱分校及马里兰大学等，推广云计算的计划，一般来讲，就是传统我们在个人计算机里安装的办公软件，游戏软件，杀毒软件，财务软件等，都集中放入互联网中的巨型服务器中，无数用户通过更为简单的客户端接受巨型服务器的“服务“ 。 物联网普遍公认的是MIT Auto-ID中心Ashton教授1999年在研究RFID时最早提出来的。物联网的英文名称为"The Internet of Things” ,简称：IOT。物联网通过传感器、射频识别技术、全球定位系统等技术，实时采集任何需要监控、连接、互动的物体或过程，采集其声、光、热、电、力学、化学、生物、位置等各种需要的信息，通过各类可能的网络接入，实现物与物、物与人的泛在链接，实现对物品和过程的智能化感知、识别和管理 。 2009年１月２８日，ＩＢＭ首席执行官彭明盛在奥巴马举办的美国工商业领袖圆桌会议上，提出“智慧地球”这一概念，建议新政府投资新一代的智慧型基础设施。IBM的智慧地球主要内容是“物联网和互联网整合起来，实现人类社会与物理系统的整合。把感应器嵌入和装备到电网、铁路、桥梁、隧道、公路、建筑、供水系统、大坝、油气管道等各种物体中,并且被普遍连接，形成所谓“物联网，通过超级计算机和云计算将“物联网”整合起来 。 从本文描述的互联网虚拟大脑结构看，云计算相当于互联网的中枢神经系统，物联网相当于互联网的虚拟感觉神经系统，而智慧地球的概念从结构上与互联网虚拟大脑结构类似，但仍然没有很好的解决云计算，物联网与传统互联网的关系，迄今为止没有形成完整的结构图示。从互联网进化的观点看，云计算，物联网和智慧地球仍然是互联网（虚拟大脑）的组成部分，并不是脱离互联网出现的新独立事物。 3人脑中的互联网应用 我们曾经在论文“互联网虚拟大脑的结构和功能” 中提出5个人脑中类互联网应用，连同本文新提出的6个新互联网应用，形成11个互联网虚拟大脑与人脑结构的对比应用，（表1）。 表1互联网与人脑功能结构对比表 互联网的结构 人脑的结构 SNS 类SNS应用 电子商务 类电子商务应用 twitter 类twitter 威客（witkey） 类威客（witkey） 博客应用 类博客应用 维基百科应用 类维基百科应用 互联网的地址编码系统（ipv4,ipv6） 人脑的地址编码系统 互联网的搜索引擎（google.，百度） 人脑的搜索引擎 互联网网络的路由协议（Tcp,rip,bgp）人脑的路由协议 互联网的信用体系 人脑的信用体系 互联网的信息筛选，整理和推荐机制 人脑的信息筛选，整理和推荐机制 对于上述对比象，我们认为应该从神经心理学和神经生理学等层面进行研究，一方面提炼和总结互联网相关应用的运行特征，以此为启发和索引，设计神经心理学和神经生理学实验，在人脑或其他生物大脑中寻找对应结构,本文将从4各方面对人脑中类互联网应用进行阐述。 3.1人脑中类搜索引擎应用 搜索引擎(search engine)是指根据一定的策略、运用特定的计算机程序搜集互联网上的信息，在对信息进行组织和处理后，并将处理后的信息显示给用户，是为用户提供检索服务的系统。目前互联网使用最为广泛的是Google（英文）和baidu(中文)。主要工作原理有三个环节。第一，每个独立的搜索引擎都有自己的网页抓取程序（spider）。Spider顺着网页中的超链接，连续地抓取网页。由于互联网中超链接的应用很普遍，理论上，从一定范围的网页出发，就能搜集到绝大多数的网页。第二，搜索引擎抓到网页后，还要做大量的预处理工作，才能提供检索服务。其中，最重要的就是提取关键词，建立索引文件。第三，用户输入关键词进行检索，搜索引擎从索引数据库中找到匹配该关键词的网页 。 根据搜索引擎的工作原理，我们可以设计如下神经心理学层面的实验。第一．准备10张志愿者照片，实验参与者逐次查看照片。第二．实验者处于实验房间内静默思考。第三，分别让在10张照片内的一名志愿者和不在10张照片内的一名志愿者进入实验房间，让实验参与者辨认是否是10张照片出现过的人。实验参与者填写表格如下（表2）： 表2 人脑类搜索引擎试验记录表 照片 是否出现 备注 A志愿者照片 B志愿者照片 C志愿者照片 D志愿者照片 E志愿者照片 F志愿者照片 G志愿者照片 H志愿者照片 I志愿者照片 如果试验参与者能够直接辨识或通过重复上述过程辨识志愿者是否为照片中出现的人，则说明该实验者大脑中存在扫描信息，索引信息，检索信息的类搜索引擎功能，当试验者数目不断增加，而完成上述功能的试验者比例超过95%，则可以证明人脑中存在类搜索引擎功能。 3.2人脑中的类维基百科应用 维基百科是一个自由、免费、内容开放的互联网百科全书协作计划，参与者来自世界各地。这个站点使用Wiki，任何人都可以编辑维基百科中的任何文章及条目。从技术的角度看维基百科起源于1983年诞生的电子公告牌功能，传统上在BBS中，只有文章的发布者或管理员能够修改文章内容，维基百科对这一功能进行了创新，它允许每一个访问者（或者必须是维基百科的注册用户）可以对一个词条的内容进行修改，无论这个词条的内容是谁创建和发布的。 维基百科应用的工作原理和工作流程是这样的，用户A创建词条abc，并撰写abc的解释和说明文字，形成版本1。用户B看到词条abc和它的说明文字，认为解释不完整或者有错误，于是用户B在用户A文字的基础上进行修改，形成版本2。，不断有用户进行修改，abc的版本号不断增加。在修改的过程中，如果一个用户发现最新的版本整体质量不如前面的版本，则他可以将前面的版本置为最新版本。虽然有国界，信仰，情绪，知识范围的不同，会产生修改意见的争执。但总体上看，维基百科的工作流程还是会使各词条的说明质量不断提高。 根据维基百科的工作原理，我们可以在神经心理学层面设计如下实验。参与实验者A和志愿者B最初共同处于一个实验房间内，要求参与实验者A观察志愿者B衣服的颜色，然后志愿者B离开房间，实验者A纪录B的衣服颜色，B更换不同颜色服装进入实验室，重复上述过程5次，在五次试验结束后，收回A填写的纪录表，更换同样内容的新表，请A回忆B从第一次到最后一次穿着颜色并按顺序重新纪录(表3）。 表3 人脑中类维基百科应用试验记录表 次数 志愿者B衣服的颜色 备注 第一次 第二次 第三次 第四次 第五次 如果参与者A能够完成上述过程并正确纪录B不断更新的颜色，则说明A根据一个物体的变化，不断更新该物体属性的说明和纪录，并保留原有属性的纪录，而这恰恰是维基百科的运行原理。通过对大量人员的测试，如果95%（色盲导致的错误除外）的试验者能够完成实验，则说明人脑大脑存在类维基百科的应用是成立的。 3.3人脑中的类ip地址应用 目前的全球因特网所采用的协议族是TCP/IP协议族。IP是TCP/IP协议族中网络层的协议，是TCP/IP协议族的核心协议。目前IP协议的版本号是4(简称为IPv4)，发展至今已经使用了30多年。 IPv4的地址位数为32位，也就是可以为连接到Internet上的设备提供2^32-1个地址。随着互联网的蓬勃发展，IP位址的需求量愈来愈大，使得IP位址的发放愈趋严格。 IPv6是下一版本的互联网协议，也可以说是下一代互联网的协议，它的提出最初是因为随着互联网的迅速发展，IPv4定义的有限地址空间将被耗尽，地址空间的不足必将妨碍互联网的进一步发展。为了扩大地址空间，拟通过IPv6重新定义地址空间。IPv6采用128位地址长度，可以为互联网中的设备提供2^128-1个地址 。 检验在人脑中是否存在类ipv4/ipv6的应用，这个地址编码系统究竟是存在于神经元层面，或者人脑中的记忆信息层面，这是一个深入涉及神经生理学的实验设计，已经超出了本文作者的知识范围，但是本文作者提供了ipv4/ipv6的设计原理，希望能作为神经生理学家设计相关实验的参考，需要回答的有两个问题第一，在人脑的哪个结构层面会出现类ipv4/ipv6应用。第二，互联网的地址编码系统正在经历从ipv4/向ipv6进化的阶段，那么在生物大脑进化的过程中，是否也出现过类似的地址编码扩充现象。 3.4人脑中的类路由器功能应用 工作在OSI参考模型第三层——网络层的数据包转发设备。路由器通过转发数据包来实现网络互连，路由器工作包含两个基本的动作：第一，根据维护的路由表确定最佳路径，第二，通过网络传输信息路由器。 具体工作流程如下路由器的某一个接口接收到一个数据包时，会查看包中的目标网络地址以判断该包的目的地址在当前的路由表中是否存在。如果发现包的目标地址与本路由器的某个接口所连接的网络地址相同，就将数据转发到相应接口；如果发现包的目标地址不是自己的直连网段，路由器会查看自己的路由表，查找包的目的网络所对应的接口，并从相应的接口转发出去；如果路由表中记录的网络地址与包的目标地址不匹配，则根据路由器配置转发到默认接口，在没有配置默认接口的情况下会给用户返回目标地址不可达的信息 。 正是因为互联网存在大量的路由器，以及它们维护的路由表，因此互联网出现一个在它诞生之初就有的特性具备的特性，当局部的网络出现故障无法进行通讯时，数据包或信息流可以通过互联网的其他路经绕行，从起点传达给终点。 人类大脑中存在与互联网路由高度相似的功能，目前这个方向的研究有了初步的突破，美国一项新研究发现，老鼠大脑一小块区域中的神经系统类似互联网结构。美国南加州大学神经系统科学家拉里•斯旺森和理查德•汤普森隔离起老鼠大脑中与愉悦和奖励相关的伏核区，在同一点同时注入两枚“示踪剂”，分别用于显示信号去向和来源。“示踪剂”跟随信号移动，但不会干扰信号移动，能发光，可在显微镜下观察到。他们发现，信号在一个个圈组成的网络中移动，这个网络“不是一个有上下之分的等级架构”。 斯旺森2010年8月11日对英国广播公司（BBC）说，大脑中互联网式结构的存在可以解释大脑能克服局部损伤的现象，“你可以拿掉互联网任何一个单独部分，但网络其他部分照常工作”，神经系统同样，没法说某一部分绝对不可或缺。拉里•斯旺森和理查德•汤普森的研究成果已经发表在2010年8月《国家科学院院刊》（PNAS） 。 4总结与展望 从2007年我们正式开始互联网进化的研究以来，越来越多的证据表明互联网和神经学具备很强的交叉对比研究的可能性。我们相信随着研究的深入，互联网和神经学的交叉对比将会对两个领域同时带来更多的启发和成果。 正如东南大学科技与社会研究中心主任吕乃基教授评价的那样，这个方向 “关系到互联网的发展、对人脑及思维的认识、人与互联网，从根本上说是人与技术的关系，以及对于进化的理解等一系列重大问题。有必要从IT、网络理论、科学技术哲学、神经心理学，以及认知科学等不同角度加以研究” 。 References ． Feng Liu，Ling ling zhang，Ji fa gu. The Application of Knowledge Management in the Internet--- Witkey Mode in China .International Journal of Knowledge and Systems Sciences. 2008,4(4). 12～17 ．Fengliu gengpeng yingliu. From the Structure of The Human Brain to See the Evolution of the Internet . CHINESE JOURNAL OF ERGONOMICS ,2009,15(1). 11～14 Peter • Russell. Earth Awakening Brain . Heilongjiang People Publishing House. 2004.2～4 Fengliu gengpeng. The structure and function of internet virtual brai . sciencepaper online. 2009.4 Ben greenstein,Adam greenstein. Color Atlas of Neuroscience Neuroanatomy and Neurophysiology . Thieme. 2003.56～60 Baidu Encyclopedia. cloud computing . . http://baike.baidu.com/view/1316082.htm?fr=ala0_1 Baidu Encyclopedia. The Internet of things . . http://baike.baidu.com/view/1136308.htm?fr=ala0_1_1 IBM. Smarter Planet . .http://www.ibm.com Baidu Encyclopedia. search engine .2010. http://baike.baidu.com/view/1154.htm Carl Timm Wade Edwards. CCNP：building Scalable Cisco Internetworks Study Guide . Sybex. 2002.13～16 BBC. Brain works more like internet than 'top down' company . . http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-10925841 .Naijilv. Discussion of the Evolution of the Internet ]. . http://www.sciencenet.cn/m/user_content.aspx?id=248826
这几天看了一些物联网的基本知识，初步的感觉是将网络、移动电话等通信设备与传统的产业（购物，检测等）进行结合，个人认为从技术角度讲并没有特别大的进步，但是作为一个概念和产业的确是一个非常热门而且前景非常诱人，今年的973项目中有3个关于物联网的项目，这从某种程度上也印证了我的判断..... 物联网的英文名称据百度指导是The Internet of things，我在scholar.google.com查询了一下，好像相关文章及引用率都非常有限。是否能作为一个研究方向呢？这是一个值得探索的问题......
一夜之间，物联网概念成为了股市最为热门的话题，而物联网概念个股本周以来抢眼的表现也吸引了市场人士的高度关注，以远望谷 (002161.SZ)为代表的板块龙头本周的涨幅更是高达57.11%。那么，究竟是什么原因使得物联网概念个股突然成为了市场的宠儿呢？ 何为物联网 所谓物联网(Internet of Things)，又名传感网，指的是将各种信息传感设备，如射频识别(RFID)装置、红外感应器、全球定位系统、激光扫描器等种种装置与互联网结合起来而形成的一个巨大网络。其目的是让所有的物品都与网络连接在一起，方便识别和管理。物联网是利用无所不在的网络技术建立起来的，是继计算机、互联网与移动通信网之后的又一次信息产业浪潮，是一个全新的技术领域。 早在1999年，在美国召开的移动计算和网络国际会议就提出，传感网是下一个世纪人类面临的又一个发展机遇；2003年，美国《技术评论》提出传感网络技术将是未来改变人们生活的十大技术之首；2005年，在突尼斯举行的信息社会世界峰会(WSIS)上，国际电信联盟(ITU)发布了《ITU互联网报告2005：物联网》，正式提出了物联网的概念。 根据ITU的描述，在物联网时代，通过在各种各样的日常用品上嵌入一种短距离的移动收发器，人类在信息与通信世界里将获得一个新的沟通维度，从任何时间任何地点的人与人之间的沟通连接扩展到人与物和物与物之间的沟通连接。有研究机构预计，物联网是继计算机、互联网与移动通信网之后的又一次信息产业浪潮。预计10年内物联网就可能大规模普及，这一技术将会发展成为一个上万亿元规模的高科技市场，其产业要比互联网大30倍。 产业前景广阔 据悉，物联网产业链可以细分为标识、感知、处理和信息传送四个环节，每个环节的关键技术分别为RFID、传感器、智能芯片和电信运营商的无线传输网络。EPoSS在《Internet of Things in 2020》报告中分析预测，未来物联网的发展将经历四个阶段，2010年之前RFID被广泛应用于物流、零售和制药领域，2010~2015年物体互联，2015~2020年物体进入半智能化，2020年之后物体进入全智能化。 作为物联网发展的排头兵，RFID成为了市场最为关注的技术。数据显示，2008年全球RFID市场规模已从2007年的49.3亿美元上升到52.9亿美元，这个数字覆盖了RFID市场的方方面面，包括标签、阅读器、其他基础设施、软件和服务等。RFID卡和卡相关基础设施将占市场的57.3%，达30.3亿美元。来自金融、安防行业的应用将推动RFID卡类市场的增长。易观国际预测，2009年中国RFID市场规模将达到50亿元，年复合增长率为33%，其中电子标签超过38亿元、读写器接近7亿元、软件和服务达到5亿元的市场格局。 MEMS是微机电系统的缩写，MEMS技术是建立在微米/纳米基础之上的，市场前景广阔。MEMS传感器的主要优势在于体积小、大规模量产后成本下降快，目前主要应用在汽车和消费电子两大领域。根据ICInsight最新报告，预计在2007年至2012年间，全球基于MEMS的半导体传感器和制动器的销售额将达到19%的年均复合增长率(CAGR)，与2007年的41亿美元相比，五年后将实现97亿美元的年销售额。
最近，物联网（ The Internet of Things ）理念在中国很火热，煤矿、医疗、金融、航运、社区、物品全生命周期管理等各行各业都在推进物联网的应用研究，更有甚者， IBM 在全世界推行智慧地球。我不禁在思考，物联网，与我们一直从事的智能交通系统（ Intelligent Transportation Systems ，简称 ITS ）到底有什么关联和相似之处呢？ 2009 年 8 月 7 日 ，温家宝总理在江苏无锡调研时，对中科院无锡微纳传感网工程技术研发中心予以高度关注，提出了把传感网络中心设在无锡、辐射全国的想法。温家宝总理指出在传感网发展中，要早一点谋划未来，早一点攻破核心技术，在国家重大科技专项中，加快推进传感网发展，尽快建立中国的传感信息中心，或者叫感知中国中心。无锡市做出部署：举全市之力，抢占新一轮科技革命制高点，把无锡建成传感网信息技术的创新高地、人才高地和产业高地。 上海世博园区应用了中科院无锡微纳中心的传感器产品，该套传感安全防护设备系统由 10 万个微小的传感器组成，散布在墙头墙角墙面和周围道路上，根据声音、图像、震动频率等信息分析判断，爬上墙的究竟是人还是猫狗等动物。多种传感手段组成一个 协同系统 后，可以防止人员的翻越、偷渡、恐怖袭击等攻击性入侵。 什么是物联网呢？物联网就是通过射频识别（ RFID ）、红外感应器、全球定位系统、激光扫描器等信息传感设备，按约定的协议，把任何物品与互联网连接起来，进行信息交换和通讯，以实现智能化识别、定位、跟踪、监控和管理的一种网络。从定义看出：物联网的概念和领域都比较广泛，我们可以理解为：物联网的主要组成是传感器、互联网、信息共享，物联网的目标是智能化识别、定位、监控和管理。 把物联网的概念运用到交通运输领域，其实就类似于国内开展了 10 多年研究和应用的智能交通系统。智能交通系统（ ITS ）是通过对关键基础理论模型的研究，从而将信息技术、通信技术、电子控制技术和系统集成技术等有效的应用于交通运输系统，从而建立起大范围内发挥作用的实时、准确、高效的交通运输管 理系统。（杨兆升，《智能运输系统概论》， 2002 年，人民交通出版社）。 同样， ITS 离不开各类传感器对交通数据的采集，离不开局域、网络的交通信息共享，离不开智能系统、专家系统等控制手段达到对交通运输的监控和管理。 简单的理解：在交通系统中，凡是跟人、车、路的信息化、智能化有关的内容，都可以归为 ITS ， ITS 存在于交通运输的各个领域，城市道路、高速公路、水域、铁路、航空、越江隧道、轨道交通、大型赛区、游乐场所、交通枢纽等，通过布设摄像机、线圈、红外等传感器，采集基础设施和动态交通信息，通过数据汇集融合处理共享，达到对设施和交通流的监控管理，为出行者和管理者服务。 据预测，物联网将是未来 10 年国家基础设施建设和管理的趋势，交通运输，是物联网应用的大领域之一。根据计世资讯（ CCW Research ）《 2010 年中国交通行业信息化建设与 IT 应用趋势研究报告》：我国大城市智能交通的升级换代和全面集成、中小城市的智能交通暂露头角、机电系统、信息系统、 ETC ，任何一个领域都是让人无法舍弃的庞大市场。一线大城市的智能交通建设在向全面建设、系统集成融合等方向发展，更多大中小型城市的智能交通建设还刚起步，各个城市的 ITS 投资规模日益庞大。 我们认为：智能交通系统（ ITS ）就是交通领域的物联网，我们一直在用扎实的技术积累实践着物联网在人、车、路协同系统中的开展。 ITS 市场很大，前景广阔，我们要做到理念在前，规划先行，实施紧跟，推动物联网为交通行业的安全、管理服务，促进交通和谐发展。
今天读internet of thins一书，第一章的第一句就是Mark Weiser的名言,这里摘出来与大家分享 The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it. 大致意思就是：最具影响力的技术是那些正在消失的技术。它们渗透到日常生活的方方面面，直至成为日常生活的一部分而无法区分。
标签: 物联网
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