The Linux Foundation Rallies Tech Heavyweights Behind "Internet of Everything"
If you spend much time listening to futurists, you're probably familiar with the concept of "The Internet of Things," a vision of a world of connected objects, where everything has an IP address and can communicate with surrounding objects and devices. The concept has been more talk than reality until now, but The Linux Foundation has just announced its Allseen Alliance initiative, billed as "the broadest cross-industry consortium to date to advance adoption and innovation in the 'Internet of Everything' in homes and industry." Sure enough, what makes this initiative different is that some very heavy-hitting technology partners are behind it.
The Internet of Everything is on the docket of futurists such as Ray Kurzweil, and conjures up a world vision of devices, objects and systems that are all connected in simple, transparent ways. It would enable smart lamps, remotely controlled garage doors and plants that turn on their own watering systems at just the right time.
The problem with the concept has been that collaboration between makers of devices and objects just hasn't been sufficient. The AllSeen Alliance looks to expand upon the “Internet of Things” concept, which Gartner predicts will add $1.9 trillion to the global economy by 2020, by gathering together powerful partners. ounding members of the AllSeen Alliance include some of the world’s leading, consumer electronics manufacturers, home appliances manufacturers, service providers, retailers, enterprise technology companies, innovative startups, and chipset manufacturers. Premier level members include Haier, LG Electronics, Panasonic, Qualcomm, Sharp, Silicon Image and TP-LINK. Community members include Canary, Cisco, D-Link, doubleTwist, Fon, Harman, HTC, Letv, LIFX, Lite-on, Moxtreme, Musaic, Sears Brand Management Corporation, Sproutling, The Sprosty Network, Weaved and Wilocity.
“Open source software and collaborative development have been proven to accelerate technology innovation in markets where major transformation is underway,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director at The Linux Foundation, in a statement. “Nowhere is this more evident today than in the consumer, industrial and embedded industries where connected devices, systems and services are generating a new level of intelligence in the way we and our systems interact. The AllSeen Alliance represents an unprecedented opportunity to advance the Internet of Everything for both home and industry. We are very happy to host and help guide this work.”
The AllSeen Alliance is also going to focus on open source and open standards. According to the announcement:
"The members of the AllSeen Alliance will contribute software and engineering resources as part of their collaboration on an open software framework that enables hardware manufacturers, service providers and software developers to create interoperable devices and services. This open source framework allows ad hoc systems to seamlessly discover, dynamically connect and interact with nearby products regardless of brand, transport layer, platform or operating system."
You can find out more about the initiative at a dedicated website, and find an initial codebase for developers to begin working with. The software framework will run on many operating systems, including Linux, Windows, iOS and Android.