links for 2009-08-11

"IBM is involved in some very interesting projects at the intersection of two big trends we've been tracking in 2009: The Real-time Web and Internet of Things. They have a website devoted to this topic, called A Smarter Planet. As the name implies, it focuses on environmental matters such as energy and food systems. Sensors, RFID tags and real-time messaging software are major parts of IBM's smarter planet strategy. The catchcry for the site – Instrumented, Interconnected, and Intelligent – is about outfitting the world with sensors and hooking them to the Internet to apply the 'smarts.'"

"As promised in early June at the
E3 event, 360 Live users will see Twitter, Facebook and streaming radio service Last.fm available to their community as downloadable apps. Additionally, the existing Netflix application is expected to be updated to allow users to browse through titles directly from Live. With the promise of on-demand games, streaming videos, music and a new social media component, the Xbox community is about to look a lot like open source media center Boxee."

"This study explores how cloud computing technologies will become a disruptive force in the mobile world, making mobile apps more sophisticated and allowing them to be offered to a much broader audience of mobile subscribers. It details the mobile applications that will lead the growth, the key technologies, players and initiatives involved, new business models that will be introduced, and the barriers that must be overcome. Forecasts include subscribers and revenue by region and application category using mobile cloud applications."

O'Reilly web-squared report, that is a lot like ubicomp, figured as internet of things plus crowd-sourcing and web2: "If we are going to solve the world’s most pressing problems, we must put the power of the Web to work – its technologies, its business models, and perhaps most importantly, its philosophies of openness, collective intelligence, and transparency. And to do that, we must take the Web to another level. We can’t afford incremental evolution anymore."

RWW comment on O'Reilly's 'Web-squared' report: "To say that sensor data can be both machine generated (e.g. by RFID chips) and human generated is perhaps trying too hard to force the web 2.0 world into the new emerging Internet of Things. But that's neither here nor there. Where the 'web squared' report is spot on, is its point that applying collective intelligence to sensor data will be a rich vein of opportunity in the coming years. Clearly the web 2.0 philosophy can and will merge with Internet of Things."