FTC warns of privacy risks of ubiquitous connectivity

The need for means for managing user privacy as more and more devices become connected is a topic that has been raised a number of times on this blog. This week, at CES, someone slightly more influential, the chairwoman of the Federal Trade Commission, Edith Ramirez raised these very concerns. While highlighting all the wonderful benefits the Internet of Things can bring, she highlighted the risks of ubiquitous data collection, the impact of unintended uses of data and the increased security risks will … Read more…

The many webs of things

Two recent posts dealt with the activities of Samsung and Google in the area of the physical web, otherwise known as the Web of Things. Given the announcements of these two heavyweights within a few weeks of each other, it is worth exploring what it means for the rest of us. For starters, what is the Web of Things? Put succinctly, it is the allocation of URLs or web addresses to physical objects, allowing apps, web interfaces, and cloud services … Read more…

Samsung invests in EVRYTHNG

 

EvrythngYou may have heard of EVRYTHNG, the vocalically-challenged IoT platform technology company. Well, today they announced that Samsung Ventures has provided investment funding on top of that already received from Cisco and other companies in April. With two these two behemoths behind them, EVRYTHNG stands a decent chance on their mission to become the leading player in the ‘Web of Things’, a world whereby physical objects, be they simple or complex are associated their own individual web presence, with EVRYTHNG’s platform providing the glue (and APIs) between the physical and the virtual world. What is not clear yet is how ‘open’ this framework will be – on one hand, the Web of Things aims to be open as the Web, while on the other hand, EVRYTHNG has stated that it wishes to be the Facebook of Things.