CDIT researcher, Michael Sheng, and colleagues, Lina Yao and Yongrui Qin, formerly of CDIT, are editing a new research book on Web of Things, to be published by prestigious Morgan Kaufmann. This book discusses and explores the state-of-the-art technology advances, developments and trends in the emerging area of the Web of Things.
Over the years, the World Wide Web has gone through many transformations, from traditional linking and sharing of computers and documents (i.e., “Web of Data”), to the current connection of people (i.e., “Web of People”), and to the emerging connection of billions of physical objects (i.e., “Web of Things”). WoT aims to connect everyday objects, such as coats, shoes, watches, ovens, washing machines, bikes, cars, even humans, plants, animals, and changing environments, to the Internet to enable communication/interactions between these objects. The ultimate goal of WoT is to enable computers to see, hear and sense the real world. It is predicted by Ericsson that the number of Internet-connected things will reach 50 billion by 2020. Electronic devices and systems exist around us providing different services to the people in different situations: at home, at work, in their office, or driving a car on the street. Web of Things (WoT) also enables the close relationship between human and opportunistic connection of smart things.
To realize the goals of WoT and to fully exploit its potentials, building and managing the Web of Things at a global scale has created numerous challenges, as well as tremendous opportunities, to many stakeholders, including research institutions, companies, governments, international organizations, and so on. There is an urgent need to capture related technology trends, so as to guide and help all these stakeholders to actively contribute to the promising future of WoT.
WoT provides an Application Layer that simplifies the creation of the Internet of Things (IoT) applications. In other words, WoT aims to enable real-world objects to be part of the World Wide Web, other than focusing on connecting them together at a global scale. This makes WoT different from IoT. Therefore, a more consolidated and holistic coverage of engineering, management and analytics that advances the fundamental understanding of the Web of Things building blocks in terms of concepts, models, languages, productivity support techniques, and tools is required. This is necessary to enable effective exploration, understanding, assessing, comparing, and selecting WoT models, languages, techniques, platforms, and tools.
In addition, there is a scarcity of texts on how to manage large-scale of things over the Web. The book is intended to compile the newest developments and advances in the area of WoT. It will offer a comprehensive and systematic presentation of methodologies, technologies and applications that enable efficient and effective management of things over the Web, thereby helping academic researchers, practitioners, graduate students, and governments unveil the potentials of WoT.