Ubiquitous reader devices for detecting and interrogating objects. Reader technology is being integrated within ubiquitous devices such as mobile phones that can read linear barcodes and matrix codes, as well as being able to read Near Field Communication (NFC) tags [ 2]. Many of us will be familiar with smartphone applications such as RedLaser [ 3] that can be used to scan a product and retrieve pricing information and product information. Mobile readers in the form of cellphones have the advantage of providing Internet connectivity, compact displays and intuitive graphical user interfaces for displaying information and allowing users to ‘bookmark’ places, objects, people and virtually attach their own commentary to these. We can therefore expect to see further developments to integrate with services for reviews and ratings, blog posts, and so on. In addition to the growing install base of mobile readers in the form of personal smartphones, it is likely that a number of fixed reader portals will be installed in some locations, for monitoring operations and tracking assets within factories and airports. In some cases, the fixed reader portals may be provided as common-use infrastructure, with organizations paying for the data feeds of observations from those locations.

Discovery and sharing of information. One of the main challenges with information about individual uniquely identified objects is that within supply chains, the information may be commercially sensitive, since it may indicate production volumes, inventory levels, flow patterns, trading partnerships and supplier relationships, among others. We therefore cannot rely solely on public web search engines in order to discover all sources of available serial-level information. Instead, Discovery Services will need to be developed, allowing organizations and individuals to pro-actively create a ‘link’ between the unique ID of an object and the address of their information about the object—and to be able to protect that link, restricting its visibility to only those whom they trust [ 5].

Standards for data exchange. Clearly there is a need for a unified way of referring to objects and observations about

Figure 1: Transformation of raw event data into information suitable for business applications—the role of open standard interfaces in a layered architecture.

 

them, such as the (what, where, when) dimensions as well as the contextual information (why the object was there at that time, what state it was in, what was happening to it, who was interacting with it). Much of this can be hidden from everyday users of the technology, but data exchange standards help with machine-machine interoperability when information is being exchanged between companies and individuals, as well as helping with efficient indexing of information to make it easier to retrieve.

RELEVANCE TO BUSINESS
AND COMMERCE
Over the last decade, significant prog-
ress has been made in developing
standards for the business-to-business
aspect of the IoT; the GS1 EPCglobal
Network provides a layered architec-
ture of open standards [ 5] ranging
from air interface standards for radio
communications between RFID read-
ers and tags, through to data exchange
standards such as EPC Information
Services (EPCIS) [ 6] and Discovery Ser-
vices (the latter being currently under
development), all driven by end-user
requirements from industry. Together,
these standards enable business to
benefit from improved ‘visibility’ with-
in supply chains, through the sharing
of much finer-grained information,
usually derived from automatic ob-
servations of individual objects at key
locations. Figure 1 illustrates the role
played by the various EPCglobal stan-
dard interfaces in connecting hard-
ware (readers and tags) to business
information systems and applications.
The ratified standards are supported
by a number of commercial implemen-
tations as well as free open source im-
plementations [ 7].