Workshop on the Web of Things - day 2 -- 26 Jun 2014

Semantics, linked data, vocabularies and best practices

<fsasaki> introduction of session

Roger Menday & Neil Benn, Fujitsu -- The Linked Data Platform to Address, Describe and Interact with Things

<fsasaki> roger: LDP as beomce Candidate Rec recently

<fsasaki> .. purpose: read / write of linked data

<fsasaki> .. based on needs for cloud mgmt APIs

<fsasaki> .. at the time a lot of discussion on XML vs. JSON

<fsasaki> .. thought about REST + linked data

<fsasaki> .. linked data = web friendly way of data which you can store as xml, json etc.

<fsasaki> .. other people in the community thought the same, IBM propsed LDP group & we joined

<fsasaki> .. application area e.g. health care

<fsasaki> .. overview of what LDP tries to achieve

<fsasaki> .. read situation: system has a network, virtual machines, joined to networks

<fsasaki> .. addresses for every thing / concept + a description you can retrieve via HTTP GET

<fsasaki> .. uniform way of processing

<fsasaki> .. in cloud mgmt area queries to the cloud to ask questions become possible

<fsasaki> .. next: writing. one aspect is update. e.g. use HTTP to delete resource

<fsasaki> .. then: creation of a resource. How do I add a new virtual machine

<fsasaki> .. benefits: everything is addressable. benefit of LD: description, interaction. linking between APIs and SPARL'ling the cloud

<fsasaki> .. LDP and health care now a topic.

<fsasaki> .. need to pair a sensor to a patient and retrieve information

<fsasaki> .. connection between sensor and patient is important

<fsasaki> .. LDP next: form language? RDF constraints

<fsasaki> .. using web sockets etc.?

<fsasaki> .. RDF is great but for dealing with streams of data there may be a lot of repetition. Looking e.g. in CSV LD

<fsasaki> .. to remove repeated elements

Phil Archer, W3C -- Building the Web of Data

<fsasaki> phil: I am also here to represent other areas in W3C related to data

<fsasaki> .. happy to just heard the LDP presentation - it shows how we think about data: it is not in silos

<fsasaki> .. what concerns me most: issue is not division of technologies but of technologists

<fsasaki> .. some people will laugh at you if you say "you can write a SPARQL query"

<fsasaki> .. we are trying to bring divided community together

<fsasaki> .. most people don't think of LD but of CSV or other types of data

<fsasaki> .. started data activity to bring the linked data and other data areas together

<fsasaki> .. the whole activity is about: use HTTP URIS to identify things, places, ideas, sensors, ...

<fsasaki> .. that is 90% of the story!

<fsasaki> .. Share-PSI 2.0 project, doing a lot of work with public data

<fsasaki> .. e.g. life science: every protein has a URI

<fsasaki> .. or: schema.org - not owned by us but developed at w3c

<fsasaki> .. CSV on the web working group

<fsasaki> .. doing CSV with extra metadata that allows conversion to json-ld etc.

<fsasaki> .. data on the web best practices: about buidling ecosystem of open + closed data on the web

<fsasaki> .. rdf constraint language: rdf data shapes, about validation - charter being put together

<fsasaki> .. similar to XML Schema in the XML world

<fsasaki> .. and joint W3C/OGC WG coming soon: spatial data on the web

<fsasaki> .. too many standards for spatial data - need to describe best practices on how to use these

<fsasaki> .. owl time ontology, only working draft, but used a lot - want to bring that to REC

<fsasaki> .. semantic sensor network, also will be brought to REC

<fsasaki> .. important to have your use cases on the table, otherwise people won't care - all these groups are open to use cases

<fsasaki> http://www.w3.org/2014/Talks/0626_phila_wot/#%2813%29

<fsasaki> .. please let us know what you need!

<fsasaki> bernard: do you see a strong relation between web of things and data area?

<fsasaki> phi: sensors, smart services, ... - public services will apply to an area. if items in that are moving the information generated will be based on OGC standards

<fsasaki> .. location is crucial to many things - in web of things it matters a lot, so I hope that many people in this room will join the group

<fsasaki> .. chairs will be xxx from cisco and yyy from Google

<inserted> delic: do those big companies participate?

<fsasaki> phil: want to be able to compare multiple analysis of data

<fsasaki> delic: seeing huge commercial interest - how do you think security will be solved?

<fsasaki> .. once you see my location it becomes important

<fsasaki> phil: a lot of related discussion in automotive group

<fsasaki> .. you are right, privacy implications are serious

<fsasaki> .. we are very concerned on these areas (I am not directly involved) and all upcoming standards get through a privacy + security check

Michael Koster, ARM -- Information Models for an Interoperable Web of Things

<fsasaki> michael: will present from an information model point of view

<fsasaki> .. application interop: linking resource endpoints to application software components

<fsasaki> .. want to have interop no matter where the application runs

<fsasaki> .. web of people and documents is based on human understandable hyperlinks

<fsasaki> .. relies on visual metaphor and human cognitive processing

<fsasaki> .. machines have limited capabilities to do that

<fsasaki> .. hyperlink example. a triple with subject, predicate, object

<fsasaki> .. example with sensor that has an opaque meeting + descriptors

<fsasaki> .. subset of web linking and semantic web

<fsasaki> .. information model = collection of such links that describe a resource

<fsasaki> .. we are not using a lot of semantic web higher level functionality

<fsasaki> .. but it nicely maps to SM

<fsasaki> .. our software can map to XML, JSON, RDF; ...

<fsasaki> .. web objects and REST APIs

<fsasaki> .. once you resolve the link with HTTP GET and PUT things get really simple

<fsasaki> .. CoRE RD and Hypercat - examples of resource directories for discovery

<fsasaki> .. interoperabilty requirements: data model represenation + format

<fsasaki> .. information model: vocabulary + concept

<fsasaki> .. levels of interop overview

<fsasaki> .. protocol, representation, data / object models, information model

<fsasaki> .. need to focus on information model

<fsasaki> .. what W3C could do: have information standards

<fsasaki> .. like HTML for web of people, have hypermedia for machines

<fsasaki> .. lightweight + compatible with the semantic web

<fsasaki> michaelBergman(CEA): relation between existing metadata in files (e.g. image metadata) + the metadata you are talking about?

<fsasaki> michael: interesting aspect - it is a conversion process of scraping + extracting

Amelie Gyrard et al. EURECOM -- Domain knowledge Interoperability to build the Semantic Web of Things

<fsasaki> amelie: main goal is to reason on sensor data

<fsasaki> .. example temperature measurement

<fsasaki> .. depends on domain, e.g. in health care fever measurement

<fsasaki> .. M3 ontology: machine to machine measurement

<fsasaki> .. SenML protocol http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-jennings-senml-10

<fsasaki> .. extension of w3c semantic networks ontology

<fsasaki> .. .. our ontology: provides all concepts in the machine-to-machine ontology (M3)

<fsasaki> .. rules example, e.g. if domain = health care -> you have a fever

<fsasaki> .. looking into various vocabularies like Schema.org as well

<fsasaki> .. example intelligent transport systems area

<fsasaki> .. our proposal of "linked open rules"

<fsasaki> .. sensor measurement rule

<fsasaki> .. we can deduce new information via the rule

<fsasaki> .. via linking to linked open data we can ever infere more info

<fsasaki> .. help to build IoT applications: reason on sensor data, combine domains, reuse domain knowledge

<fsasaki> .. various standardization suggestions

<fsasaki> michaelKoster: did you create a way to relate sensors like SSN?

<fsasaki> amelie: yes

<fsasaki> michaelKoster: need to be simplified maybe

<fsasaki> monika: what are the rule engines being used?

<fsasaki> amelie: using an extension of SPARQL for processing

<fsasaki> .. not easy to use existing rules

<fsasaki> monika: you are proposing a new rule format?

<fsasaki> amelie: one should standardize one rule format

<fsasaki> phil: there is N3 rules and RIF

<fsasaki> .. it is a subject we are open to, if we work out how to do it - SandroH from W3C has looked into this a lot

<fsasaki> .. in the W3C tech stack rules have not been addressed a lot - if we go into that direction that would be interesting if we get enough support

<fsasaki> adrianPaschke(FU-Berlin): look also in RuleML

<fsasaki> .. in RIF we did not get into reactive rules but there was not enough time to finish it

<fsasaki> .. in RuleML you have reaction rules

Milan Milenkovic, Intel -- Towards a Case for Interoperable Sensor Data and Meta-data Formats

<fsasaki> milan: WoT is internet + new dimension = physical world interface

<fsasaki> .. IoT overview

<fsasaki> milan: various applications - people are quite important

<fsasaki> .. I don't think of them in context of social networks

<fsasaki> .. but as endpoint in web of things

<fsasaki> .. there are legacy systems, important to be able to make use of that

<fsasaki> .. mobile phones: billions of sensors connected

<fsasaki> .. now services level: application across devices / domains / people

<fsasaki> .. e.g. smart cities: air quality sensors

<fsasaki> .. if you walk through city you want to know: what is the air quality in my location?

<fsasaki> .. you care about it now, no permanent configuration

<fsasaki> .. need universal sensing platform

<fsasaki> .. support variety of sensors + sources

<fsasaki> .. a possible path: define service-level system functions

<fsasaki> .. needed: reading value, unit, time, location, owner, association, vendor, reputation

<fsasaki> .. mandatory fields + structured extensions

<fsasaki> .. also data posting methods

Alessandra Mileo, Ericsson -- Semantic Modelling of Smart City Data

<fsasaki> alessandra: challenges in smart city context & how semantic modeling can help and what W3C can do in the space

<fsasaki> .. smart city driver of change will be data. need to have services on top of the data

<fsasaki> .. people want answers, not numbers

<fsasaki> .. going from data to smart data

<fsasaki> .. perception and intelligence pipeline: raw sensor data, structured data, abstraction / perception, actionable intelligence

<fsasaki> .. first two steps are about modelling, rest about processing

<fsasaki> .. we need to focus on modeling

<fsasaki> .. cityPulse project

<fsasaki> .. connect data to go from data to information

<fsasaki> .. related to data model: heterogenity, quality, context, privacy

<fsasaki> .. related to processing: data dynamicity

<fsasaki> .. key concept of the model: reuse!

<fsasaki> .. challenges: how to connect SSN with open streetmaps

<fsasaki> .. how to connect measurement - there is no unit in SSN

<fsasaki> .. vocabularies to use: W3C provenance, also related to quality / context / event streams

<fsasaki> .. question: how do we create links in the semantic model?

<fsasaki> .. is rules the right approach?

<fsasaki> .. this is what we ask w3c

<fsasaki> .. modeling is just one aspect - we need processing

<fsasaki> .. linked stream processing. web of things / web of devices / web of data

<fsasaki> .. keep it simple. sensors are just another form of linked data

<fsasaki> .. CQELS = query of sensor data. SPARQL for querying linked data

<fsasaki> .. linked stream middleware http://lsm.deri.ie

<fsasaki> .. how do we create links? we need semantic aspects for quality / privacy / provenance?

<fsasaki> .. contextualization from SSN lower level to event level

<fsasaki> .. RDF stream processing community group

<fsasaki> .. working in that area

<fsasaki> monika: question on linking between vocabularies

<fsasaki> .. how could w3c contribute here?

<fsasaki> .. how you want to link will depend on your application scenario?

<fsasaki> .. for a general linking mechanism, what will be the basis?

<fsasaki> alessandra: I was thinking of a best practice

<fsasaki> .. rules were mentioned, I have not done that yet

<fsasaki> .. I am looking for such best practices

<fsasaki> phil: maybe work on RDF data shapes will help

<fsasaki> alessandra: agree

<fsasaki> break

<dsr> scribenick: dsr

Panel session on who is doing what

Moderator - Claes Nilsson. Claes introduces the panel. Some main questions: what standards are needed and how to drive them, which organization is doing what and how to collaborate.

Claes introduces the panelists. Richard Soley (OMG), Eric Kauz (GS1), Mike Bergmann (CEA), Ingo Friese (DT), Istvan Lajtos (GSMA), Nick Allot (UbiApps).

Each panelist to present a slide introducing their position.

Richard's slide lists the many organizations involved from the AllSeen alliance to the TMForum.

He cites a recently announced group to focus interoperability.

scribe: via developing testbeds and to identify requirements for new standards.

Richard mentions use cases such as reducing food waste in supply chains, and energy use in transport, and so forth.

This was in relation to the The industrial Internet Forum.

Eric introduces GS1, a non profit organization on standards and solutions relating to supply and demand chains globally and across sectors.

We have a very large data model and are establishing an ontology and hope use that for semantic markup and using URIs for our product keys.

We are involved in the W3C around data on the web best practices.

Mike introduces the CEA (Consumer Electronics Association) which focuses on devices in the home and other consumer specific locations.

scribe: We work at the device level not at the cloud level. As an example, we are working on sleep monitoring wearables. We are also looking at XML and EXI as a starting point as it is so well supported.

We have agreat interest in cyber security for IoT devices. We're active in IPv6 deployment including profiles of hosts and routers. We are primarily US based but expanding globally.

We are interested in the meeting zone between devices and the web of things.

Ingo introduces the Kantara initiative which focuses on identity management for things.

Different kinds of devices have different kinds of identifiers. We've set up a identities of things discussion group as part of Kantara, which it self grew out of the Liberty Alliance and work on single signon.

His slide has three levels from discovery at the bottom, then control and finally at the top, coordination.

This is mirrored with object identifiers, discovery, authentication, authorization, policies and identity management.

Ingo discusses the relation to OAuth.

We're looking at possibilities for registries, etc. We intend to feed our ideas into existing standards organizations. The Kantara initiative is open to companies and individual membership.

Istvan introduces the relationship of the GSMA to the web of things, including what we're calling connected living, which focuses on helping network operators to get the best out of M2M.

scribe: Recent meeting in Shanhai on a number of application areas. The GSMA is focusing on 4 main topics: connection efficiency, future IoT what does this mean to operators, remote M2M provisioning, and business enablers.

Concrete discussions around SIMs for M2M and how operators can create new ecosystems and business.

scribe: G&D and Gemalto have a big interest.

Standardization around storage, security, and embedded SIM.

Nick: I've been involved in a number of industry associations and research projects. A couple of observations - we should use existing standards where possible (assuming they are royalty free).

Second, there are 2 camps with data and functional perspectives. We need to define a way to name objects that will be applicable to devices with and without IP addresses.

scribe: This impacts on URI naming.

In regards to security, we need focus on explicit consumer centric models, and a hub/gateway is a natural way to approach this.

I very much support open source implementations that precede standardization.

Specific suggestions: URI schema that can resolve to non IP devices; discovery API; sensor APIs that embed the domain semantics for use cases; and a data base API for storing data.

scribe: for access to historical values.

We need good enough security appropriate to the distributed model.

Nick shows a slide (Wot is the Scope?) that has a script that receives IoT data. What is the context in which this executes?

We need to support legacy devices, so drivers are key and can run on the hub. What is in scope for W3C, e.g.the details of how devices can talk to one another.

Claes: I would like to ask a few questions, starting with the roles of different standardization organizations.
... W3C focuses on the application layer and web technologies. Any ready to give a view?

Richard cites a number of pub-sub protocols. Which of these are likely to win - the answer is all of them in their respective niches.

We can't expect clean hierarchical arrangements of standards, and our job is rather to bridge the gaps.

scribe: GS1 does a great job with the identity problem for product codes. ISO's work on legal identifiers for organizations by contrast looks likely to fail.

I listen particularly to work on standards that is solidly build on real world implementation experience.

Eric: interoperability is an area where different orgs have a shared interest to collaborate.

Mike: Everything is getting connected, and the IoT is encroaching on everyone's domains. We're looking at how to partner.

Thomas: the question is also about acceptance by the target communities. If standards are perceived as too heavy they won't be accepted.

Istvan: it is all about collaboration with other SDO's. We've recently signed a liaison agreement with W3C and are proud about that.
... We want to bridge SIMs to web services and applications.

Nick: Anything W3C does needs to work with existing and well established standards, e.g. MQTT and CoAP.
... Not sure that W3C can help much with device managment.

Claes invites questions from the audience.

He asks a question about the architecture and what we can standardize. For example the role of gateway/hub to proxy for the actual device.

scribe: This avoids the need for W3C to deal with constrained devices, right or wrong?

Mike: Zigbee, Z-wave or Bluetooth have well defined profiles, enabling higher level abstractions involving simple data models. One of the challenges is moving away from the few really large companies who currently deal with this and opening it up.

Richard: the reality is that there will be multiple architectures that address different needs.

Question from delic: there are billions of devices. will standardization succeed?

Richard: standards have succeeded e.g. the number power connectors across the world is relatively few.

Claes asks Eric to elaborate about how interoperability relates to semantics?

Eric: some guidelines will help to encourage interoperability.

Richard: this will help but won't make the problem go away.

Claes: the challenge of identifiers and authentication. Nick's proposal that URIs be extended to support non IP devices. Any suggestions?

Nick: practically, if I want to address something in my house, the closest is my router's IP adress which changes regularly. We need a scheme that is persistent.

Mike: privacy always comes up in regards to this subject. Nick where do you see this fitting in?

Nick: it is a matter of how can obtain these URIs and gain access to them. Having the address isn't enough to get the data.

Richard: there may be devices that you don't want the rest of the world to know about.
... This is a very hard problem particulary in regions like the EU with strong privacy laws.
... Concern about identifiers being handed off to 3rd parties with a resulting loss of privacy.

Nick: it is essential that there be role based access control in place.

Thomas: XRIs are cool as you can embed domains within them (talks about books and libraries).

Eric: we're looking at the URI approach with G10+. I assume Nick is talking about a specific instance of a TV, right [yes]

Jeff Jaffe (W3C): I'm familiar with the problem of forum shopping. There are real challenges for interoperability. I see a lot of technical clutter getting in the way.

scribe: How do we stop the competing so called standards with an answer other than you don't?

Richard: that is only possible within a single company. We should address this by focusing on bridges and cross SDO coordination.
... We've been successfully doing this for cloud related standards, but it is a significant effort.

Nick: SDO staff may be rewarded for covering new areas, which is a potential problem. The way to stop this is to move forward quickly.

??: Common to see companies coming together to promote something rather than actually working on standards.

Richard: companies want to promote their own approach to reduce their costs.

Charalampos: Public URIs are subject to DDOS

Nick: I want to be able to ask which of the devices in my house support a given service.

Phil: Whether a URI is for a product or a service is a matter of design. There are good and bad identifiers. Is the cultural expectation that a URI is a web page a barrier?

Richard: no.
... most people aren't even aware of the term.

Claes thanks the panelists.

Joerg asks if we can defer lunch a few minutes to get a show of hands for the day 2 breakouts.

Scripting on the web of things - Andreas Harth

[ not in the room right now]

The web of data you want - Phil Archer.

Phil want's to know if W3C is doing the right things and what else is needed, especially in regards to the WoT.

Application Layer Protocols and Data Encoding for Constrained Devices, Hauke Petersen

Hauke: we want to have an open discussion on what protocols we need and what further work is required.

Think Robot, the next smart object, Redouane Boumghar

Objects look pretty stupid to me. Robots can be considered as smart objects. I would like to share my vision of robots asobjects and the lessons that can learnde from Robotics World.

scribe: decomposition is key

Application runtime for “things,” Ricardo Morin

I want to have a discussion on common application execution engine standard, utilizing Web programming languages such as ECMAScript, and a set of standardized APIs, where I would like W3C to take on thiis challenge.

Joerg: we could perhaps combine some of these sessions

<mkovatsc> [Scripting breakout group] Link to the Actinium RESTful runtime: http://www.vs.inf.ethz.ch/publ/papers/mkovatsc-2012-iot-actinium.pdf

<scribe> scribenick: dsr

breakout summary

Phil Archer summarises the web of data we want breakout -- we discussed work that is already underway either in working groups or community groups, and came up with a short list of new work.

One of these is URIs for non IP devices. We need some sort of conventions and best practices for naming devices, and this would facilitate large scale discovery. How do we get semantics for data sent by very constrained devices.

This may lead to a lightweight rule language, we shall see. Standardization will depend on getting a critical mass of companies engaged to drive it forward.

The next breakout is Application Layer Protocols and Data Encoding for Constrained Devices. Hauke Petersen summarises. We started by characterising what kind of devices we were talking about.

scribe: The next is how to bridge small devices to the web. Some use cases will demand end to end connectivity, but others permit some kind of gateway.
... Some relevant protocols e.g. EXI, MQTT and CoAP. We can't rely on all devices supporting these and we need to also support legacy devices with hard coded behavior.

Preshared keys demand less on the device and have a role to play for encryption and access control.

Ricardo summarises the scripting/runtime breakout. Philipp Hoschka took extensive notes.

In a nutshell we want to pursue beginning the process of a JavaScript runtime. Node.js is a promising starting point, but there are a number of other companies with equivalent platforms.

Think Robot, the next smart object breakout -- Kazuyuki Ashimura summarises -- we identified several requirements, e.g. handling lifecyle processes, including perception, decision making and actuation.

Joerg invites demo folks to provide a short elevator pitches for day 2 demos.

Dominique Guinard (table 2)

Andreas Harth (table 3)

Robert Kleinfeld (table 4)

Scott Walsh (table 5)

Jens Schmutzler (table 6)

Sebastian Kaebish (table 7)

Charalampos Doukas (table 8)

Thomas Ambberg (Yaler.net)

Dominique Guinard gives a short pitch for the 5th International Workshop on the Web of Things, to be held in conjunction with IoT2014, Cambridge MA, USA, 6-8 October 2014. See http://www.webofthings.org/wot

Wrap up

<phila> Slide show...

<phila> scribe:phila

<scribe> scribeNick: phila

W3C Mechanics

ph: describes how W3C works, differnet group types etc.
... Suggests setting up a Web of Things Interest Group (cf. Web and TV IG)
... they are free to do quite a lot
... establish reqs for other WGs, or lead to creation of WGs
... may have differnet task forces
... emphasises need for chairs, charter etc.

Panel on conclusions and next steps

moderator is dsr, plus Milan Milenkovic, Ryuichi Matskura, Milan Patel, Dominique Guinard, Laurent Walter Goix, Philipp Hoschka

dsr: What is the key to breaking for of silos... creating Web of Services etc.

Dominique: Make it as simple as possible but not too simple
... need to make things simple to use, select the right tools etc.

dsr: How to bridge the gap between diff cultures, e.g. Web hackers, linked data community etc.

Laurent: JSON-LD?

dsr: There's more to it than that I think. Maybe diff task forces?

MilanP: Identify the use cases where the communities need to interact withh them

MilanM: Need a view of test beds, to inform the standards, what works etc.
... Maybe start with academics

Ryuichi: We should collect opinions from device manufacturers

dsr: What are your priorities for W3C to tackle the WoT?

MilanM: This workshop has met my expectations, what seems to be needed etc.
... I am trying to practice what I preach, deploy some actual prototypes etc
... informing the thinking as you go.
... the field is so broad, defining the standards is really hard

MilanP: Identify some use cases where you can understand the commonalities between industries
... identify what we already have that can be used is more important than new standards
... Yesterday we emphasised that whatever we do we need to do it fast
... the Consortium should issue some Best Practices. These are the techs that can be used for the WoT, this is how they might be used

Laurent: +1 to previous
... What is the real focus of the community - that needs to be found
... scout what is already there
... a Task Force might work on data modellinbg, service modelling etc.
... I'd also like the ensure that the user is in the loop
... we shouldn't forget that we have machine to person communication
... Should link worlds. including security and privacy

Ryuichi: Definition of the "Things" is important
... next step we must share the acrhitecture
... we should discuss the whole acrhitecture

Dominique: I'd like to see a mix of what everyone has said. A set of guidelines and BPs would be useful
... we published a White paper on that in 2008
... it got downloaded many times
... there is a need for something simple to explain the core
... we haev a lot of people in the room who could do that
... we need to react very quickly as it will happen with or without W3C
... the standardisation method is more for going beyond the current, into sustainable future

dsr: Any more opinions from the audience?

Red Boumghar: I lead a session on robots. We didn't talk too much about modelling actuators, only services

Shadi: Excellent workshop, congratulations.
... I do think that the work should be at W3C for its high commitment to accessibility, internationalisation etc.
... we're here to help you create the data, the vocabs, the services etc including a11y use cases
... helping establish requirements to make sure Web is available to everyone

Jorg: The diversity of people here is amazing
... there are a lot of perspectives. Need to pay attention to structure to talk about the same topic
... it's important to structure the different backgrounds and applications to make sure we're talking about the same thing

dsr: I'd like to thank everyone for coming and participating.
... we'll make sure all the material will be available
... Thanks to Siemens and Jorg for hosting us

Workshop adjourned

- DRAFT -

Workshop on the Web of Things - day 2

26 Jun 2014

Attendees

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