From Web of Things Interest Group
- In Berlin, the workshop examined the opportunities for open Web standards for service platforms in the network edge (e.g. home gateways) and the cloud, along with the challenges for security, privacy and the integration with the Web of data. The Workshop report said there was a growing awareness among more than 120 attendees that the current situation is one of fragmentation with products and ecosystems being developed in isolation due to a plethora of IoT protocols and a lack of a shared approach to services. Moreover, many Workshop participants felt that rather than focusing on the IoT layer, it is now critical to focus on what is needed to open up the markets for applications and services that sit on top of the IoT. The workshop attendees showed strong support for W3C to initiate new standards work to help realize the huge potential for the Web of Things as a web scale layer sitting above the IoT.
- At the annual W3C TPAC in November 2014, in Silicon Valley, California, the breakout session discussed plans for a W3C Interest Group for the Web of Things, arising out of the June Workshop in Berlin. It was suggested the aim is for the Interest Group to identify use cases and requirements for web standards to enable open markets of services that build on top of the Internet of Things, in combination with the Web of Data. The Interest Group should identify whether those requirements might be satisfied in existing or new Working Groups.
- In the first WoT IG Face-to-Face meeting hosted by Siemens in Munich, it was decided the IG was going to split into task forces, each with its own mission. The task groups were WoT TD (Thing Description), WoT DI (Discovery), WoT AP (API & Protocol Mapping), and WoT SP (Security & Privacy).
- The IG had the first ever WoT PlugFest in Sapporo. Companies such as Siemens, INSTITUT TELECOM (France), FOKUS, KDDI, ETRI, ACCESS, Fujitsu verified TD-based very basic interoperability between participating implementations. Given the success in Sapporo, PlugFest was institutionalized in WoT IG. In virtually every Face-to-Face meeting thereafter starts with one or two days PlugFest before technical discussion days.
- It was noted that TD needs to be able to describe Protocol Binding information in order to be practical in real uses. This discussion helped form the basis of the current TD design capable of describing protocol bindings within TD.
- In addition to the existing task forces, it was decided to launch WoT Marketing TF with regular teleconferences.
