Workshop Report: W3C Workshop on the Web of Things

W3C published today the final report of the W3C Workshop on the Web of Things that was held on 25-26 June 2014, in Berlin (Germany).

The workshop examined the opportunities for open Web standards for service platforms in the network edge and the cloud, along with the challenges for security, privacy and the integration with the Web of data.

The workshop gave a strong message of support for W3C to initiate work on standardization for the Web of Things. The foundations include RESTful HTTP and pub-sub protocols, but the detailed requirements vary across the use cases. Building upon these foundations, the workshop identified the need for standards for Web APIs that abstract away from the protocols, including the wide range of IoT technologies used at the network edge to connect to sensors and actuators. Through standardization, we can encourage re-use of APIs and data models.

The W3C staff will drive the process of chartering an Interest Group through reaching out to a wide range of interested stakeholders. Initial ideas for the scope are included in the workshop report.