Guest editorial–Wisdom Web of Things (W2T)

Abstract

With rapid development of the Internet of Things and cloud computing, a new world, called ‘hyper world’, is emerging by coupling and empowering humans in the social world, information in the cyber world, and things in the physical world. The notion of ‘Wisdom Web of Things (W2T)’ is a novel vision for computing and intelligence in the post-WWW era with data, connection and service explosions, recently put forward by a group of leading researchers from the fields of Web Intelligence (WI), Ubiquitous Intelligence (UI), Brain Informatics (BI), and Cyber Individual (CI) [1, 2]. The W2T is an extension of the wisdom Web in the IoT/WoT (Internet/Web of Things) age. The ‘wisdom’ means that each of things in the IoT/WoT can be aware of both itself and others so as to provide the right service to the right object at the right time and in the right context. Fast-evolving Web intelligence research and development initiatives are now moving towards understanding the multifaceted nature of intelligence in depth and incorporating it at Web scale and in a ubiquitous environment. As inspired by the material cycle in the physical world, the W2T focuses on the data cycle, namely ‘from things to data, information, knowledge, wisdom, services, humans, and then back to things.’ AW2T data cycle system is designed to implement such a cycle, which is, technologically speaking, a practical way to realize the harmonious symbiosis of humans, computers and things in the emerging hyper world. This special issue presents some of the best work being done worldwide that deals with the fundamental issues, new challenges, and potential applications of W2T. Akihiro Eguchi, Hung Nguyen, and Craig W. Thompson’s article “Everything is Alive: Towards the Future Wisdom Web of Things” presents the EiA project, which is broad, encompassing Ubiquitous Intelligence, Cyber-Individual, Brain Informatics and Web Intelligence. World Wide Web (2013) 16:355–356 DOI 10.1007/s11280-013-0224-6