Sorry that it came out that way, I didn’t intend to attack anyone in particular, but really to position WOT a layer above IOT. I think the main difference is the way to use the technology. Low-level hacks or vertically integrated for IOT, open and reconfigurable (and maybe less performant for real-time tasks).

I’m not criticizing at all researchers in WSN, being one myself. I’m saying that technology is here and ready (so I completely disagree with Claro’s statement “not here yet”). It’s just not used enough to provide flexible and reconfigurable tools.

I never said either that the *why* is trivial, it’s obviously not. But focusing too much on the *why* drives people to think mainly about solving a particular problem and not that much about reuse (which in my opinion leads to the end-in-the-cupboard-at-the-end-of-the-project problem, or to solutions overly tuned and expensive that are not useful anymore in case the requirements change).

Of course, fully customized and optimized solutions will always be the best solution ever for a given problem, but as systems go more open and shared (and I’m sure they’ll), there is a need to sacrifice raw performance (and not that much in fact) to gain in a much greater flexibility.

I’m also suggesting that sometimes a fuzzy target can be great sometimes, because I’m sure that the Web wasn’t build to do 99.9999999999% of the things it is used for today, and that’s why we promote the idea of using the Web. Its loosely coupled approach and apparent simplicity is what made it work great and scale! That’s an essential aspect, and for me openness, scalability, and interoperability are the future challenges in WSN. That’s what I mean by “it’s time to look further”!

I’m an engineer, not a SF writer, and I could provide of course 50 examples of what we can do with WOT, but so what? All the readers of this blog could do the same, and I’m not planning to become Nostradamus and predict the future, so I’ll leave that to people with more creativity. I just want to allow these *creative* people to implement their visions instead of them waiting for engineers to consider their ideas and eventually implement them.

It’s important for me that our readers understand that our viewpoint and requirements are not purely industrial systems tuned for specific applications, but open and flexible task that are commonly considered by embedded systems and industrial communities. I guess I really need to work on the part where I write down our assumptions, because most people have different assumptions than we do and the difference is subtle, yet detrimental.

I like to be provoking because I think that’s what starts great converstations, so keep commenting

All in all, a cool topic and will like to bring my 2c contribution.

the question of *why* one would like to connect this and that is indeed a legitimate question. Anyone taking the topic seriously will not avoid it or prematurely assume the answer to be trivial.

Such discussion would provide invaluable insights as of what people *really* want and help us understand the rational behind it.. and i believe this is key to any successful development effort.

As with any “not here yet” technology it takes some inspiration to figure out how it would impact society and how people would benefit.

I’d recommend people with this inquietude to:

a) indeed, avoid asking Vlad

b) try reading Adam Greenfield “Everyware: The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing” 2007. http://www.amazon.com/Everyware-Dawning-Ubiquitous-Computing-Voices/dp/0321384016

c) listen to Bruce Sterling at O’reilly IT conversations on the “Internet of Things”
http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/detail717.html

Sterling, for example, notices the convenience of taking out of our head the inventory of all our possessions and instead have a host of machines sorting, raking and indexing on our behalf.. thus putting us at ease with materiality. I particularly liked the idea of Goggling for my shoes in the morning.. and yes the spime sounds cool too.

Vlad, last but not least, most of your readers would agree that releasing some energy would do you immensely well. How about that new year resolution about martial arts and yoga?

Very good post, good luck with all WOT efforts.

I have a question: Why do you guys want to connect your fridge with your toaster, what’s the point? Why would you want to do that?

HAHA

Now some serious feedback for your blog post / manifesto:
1.) Don’t always attack people. Do not try to say what you are not, rather try to say what you are and give examples.
2.) Please reduce the amount of hot air. This post was good in a sense that it would shed light on your thoughts but it contains a whole lot of useless information, so please cut it down. I know you can do better than that.
3.) Add a “use cases” sections to show people which prototypes have already been built and which would be possible to be built. That’s what John Doe and Mrs. Smith are going to understand.
4.) Why not try to summarize it all in a 10 slide PPT with many nice pictures? That makes it even more marketable.

Hmmm, I’m not sure what you mean by RFID networks, as RFID don’t really connect to each other from what I know. But if you’re referring to RFID in general, then yes, I think they’re the initial step towards connecting physical things together in the digital world. Hopefully, future things will also have some more active abilities than just some static stored data.

Thanks!