Agility and Fragility in a Real-time World

Abstract

Connected mobile devices have now reached the age of being perceived as a commodity. Users expect to be able to enjoy the same level of service and performance both on the go and at home. A new wave of cloud-supported services brought about by the integration of machine learning in consumer electronics –such as Smart watches, NEST sensors, and Self-Driving cars –is entering the market with a disruptive power. The Internet of Everything is already on our wrists, cars, buildings, and pockets, and is pushing through new economic models (such as Shared Economy or Data Economy). Current technology is struggling to meet the demands posed by new applications and services; specifically, it lacks the agility needed to adapt to fast-changing business models and technical requirements; it also comes with fragilities as most of our current infrastructures, systems and solutions were not designed to allow massive usage of real-time applications at personal level. Security, connectivity, mobility, latency, and scalability are just some of the many challenges that pave the way towards a seamless user experience. Device-todevice communications along with new business and trust models will dominate the Internet. It is essential for the Internet of Everything to succeed, and that industry, government and academia join forces to build brand new protocol architectures, computing paradigms, and regulatory frameworks designed to support mobility, high performance services, strong security and a fine user privacy granularity adapted to an expanding level of personal data dissemination.