Google and IBM team up for the "Internet of Things"
Armonk (NY) / Mountain View (CA) IBM and Google today issued a joint statement to make the Internet of things a reality (The Internet of things, in short, is the capturing of real world physical data to be processed - mostly including location data - for analysis and augmented reality). Effective today they form the Internet of Things Alliance (ITA). A Google spokes woman summed it up: " We will merge Google's network infrastructure with IBM's Smarter Planet know how to make the Internet of things become reality".
If you ever wondered why Google was buying up dark fibre you now have the answer. According to sources they are in the final round of negotiations to take over the site www.ita.org from its current owner Mr. Lasky for an undisclosed sum. Lasky will serve on the board of the alliance as its first chairman.The newly founded alliance already boosts a long list of partners mostly from the sensor industry. You find names like Wifi Sensors Inc, Aginova, Shockfish SA's TinyNode, HMB Sensors or Festo. More information can be found in the Smarter Planet Blog and the Internet of Things Council site.
So how will that all fit together? IBM and Google recently have been perceived rather as competitors then as partners. The IBM spokes person put it into perspective: " It is not about eMail or documents, so our competition isn't affected. The sensor partners will supply the input, Google will use its network to transport the data and IBM middleware and analytics will crunch the numbers to get the results. Just imagine how accurate your traffic forecast will be with 200M vehicles as your eyes and ears on the road".
As one of the key players Google will extend their WIFI presence (check their Mountain View WIFI setup for things to come) first nationwide then globally as well as revive their TiSP program. Each hotspot in this network of WIFI access points will be known as GSpot™ and provide wireless access using the emerging 802.11ngn (NGN stands for Next Generation Networking) standard featuring the "large unified serial transfer" mode.
Stay tuned for more.
If you ever wondered why Google was buying up dark fibre you now have the answer. According to sources they are in the final round of negotiations to take over the site www.ita.org from its current owner Mr. Lasky for an undisclosed sum. Lasky will serve on the board of the alliance as its first chairman.The newly founded alliance already boosts a long list of partners mostly from the sensor industry. You find names like Wifi Sensors Inc, Aginova, Shockfish SA's TinyNode, HMB Sensors or Festo. More information can be found in the Smarter Planet Blog and the Internet of Things Council site.
So how will that all fit together? IBM and Google recently have been perceived rather as competitors then as partners. The IBM spokes person put it into perspective: " It is not about eMail or documents, so our competition isn't affected. The sensor partners will supply the input, Google will use its network to transport the data and IBM middleware and analytics will crunch the numbers to get the results. Just imagine how accurate your traffic forecast will be with 200M vehicles as your eyes and ears on the road".
As one of the key players Google will extend their WIFI presence (check their Mountain View WIFI setup for things to come) first nationwide then globally as well as revive their TiSP program. Each hotspot in this network of WIFI access points will be known as GSpot™ and provide wireless access using the emerging 802.11ngn (NGN stands for Next Generation Networking) standard featuring the "large unified serial transfer" mode.
Stay tuned for more.
Posted by Stephan H Wissel on 01 April 2010 | Comments (4) | categories: Technology
