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This chapter examines four emerging areas of technological innovation in which digital technologies are becoming embedded into the physical world. The digitization of everyday objects includes consumer Internet of things and connected objects in smart cities. The Internet of self encompasses cyberphysical systems entangled with the body, such as wearable technologies, implantable chips, biometric identification devices, and digital medical monitoring and delivery systems. The industrial Internet of things, sometimes called the “fourth industrial revolution,” involves restructurings of industries and labor around cyber-physical systems. Finally, emergent embedded systems include those embedded objects that are born digital, such as robotics, 3D printing, and arguably augmented reality systems. Understanding these heterogeneous technical architectures, and the technological affordances and characteristics they all share, is necessary for understanding emerging governance debates.

This chapter assesses how technical standardization faces unique challenges. Embedded objects require high security but are also constrained architectures that demand lower energy consumption and restricted processing power. The current state of interoperability is fragmented, heterogeneous, complex, and involving multiple competing standards and an expanding base of standards-setting organizations. Unlike traditional communication systems that require universality, fragmentation by sector might actually have beneficial effects, such as serving as a de facto security boundary. The chapter then explains the evolution of fragmented standards in the Internet of things space but suggests that open standards and interoperability in the underlying common infrastructure are still vital for accountability, innovation, and stability.

This introductory chapter provides an overview of how digital systems have leapt from human-facing display screens into the physical world of material objects and artificial intelligence. The Internet is no longer merely a communication system connecting people and information. It is a control system connecting vehicles, wearable devices, home appliances, drones, medical equipment, currency, and every conceivable industry sector. Cyberspace now completely and often imperceptibly permeates offline spaces, blurring boundaries between material and virtual worlds. This transformation of the Internet from a communication network between people to a control network embedded directly into the physical world may be even more consequential than the shift from an industrial society to a digital information society. The potential for human advancement and economic growth is as staggering as the accompanying society-wide dilemmas. Indeed, the Internet of things bleeds into the real world in ways that enhance life but also can compromise personal safety and security.

This chapter discusses the fourth of six layers in The Stack, the Address layer. For any entity to participate in the wider Stack architecture it has to be known to it. It must be enumerated and enunciated by an address. The chapter examines very-large scale universal internet addressing systems (such as IPv6) that would allow for an abyssal volume of individual addressees. Some programs for ubiquitous computing and an ‘internet of things’ suggest scenarios that draw almost any, into a landscape of addressable objects. However, for “Deep Address,” the computational landscape can absorb any conceivable object, event or relation, regardless of scale or temporality into a vast, if also fragile, communicative field. Ultimately the scope and complexity of than landscape may exceed the limits of human control or literacy. The chapter also discusses the ramifications of the superimposition of multiple, internally-complete and self-sufficient addressing schemes onto the same territory, and how this complicates platform interoperability but also may allow for important variation and resiliency.

Internet technologies are now indispensable communications tools within and between companies. Yet the openness of these networks and the high potential value of corporate and personal information make these systems a tempting target for criminals, terrorists, and state-sponsored espionage. Cyber-criminals can gain access to a company’s information through its supply chain partners’ information systems. Furthermore, the rise of the Internet-of-Things, with digital “smarts” being added to ever more consumer products and industrial systems, creates physical vulnerabilities rooted in digital vulnerabilities. This chapter describes these threats and offers potential solutions on how to secure the information supply chain.

Michail Bletsas, Director of Computing at the MIT Media Lab and Director of the Network Computing Systems Group at MIT, is convinced that the 21st century will see the emergence of biological intelligence. He starts the dialogue with an explanation of why the Internet and its huge computational system, - the most complex human-built system -, is forcing us to learn to engage with systems that are becoming even more complicated, with varying levels of complexity. He describes later the arrival of the finely granular Internet, which in consequence led to the concept of connectivity everywhere. Later he outlines the Internet of Things’ capabilities that he and his team have deployed inside the new MIT Media Lab building. Michael then goes on to argue why we have to separate issues of business from scientific arguments and prediction—the important thing in business is not only what’s going to happen, but when it will happen. Michael also relates why the best type of innovation is bottom up, before going on to explain how not only innovation, but also evolution, is gradually improving things.

In this chapter the author provides an introduction to eight important ongoing technological changes with significant ramifications for ICT4D: an ever more converged and miniaturized digital world; radio spectrum technologies and their management; from fixed-line to wireless communication; from voice to data and the impacts of the digital transition; technological openness and being free; social media and Over The Top services; 5G and the Internet of Things; and incubators, digital hubs, and app development. The chapter concludes by highlighting the importance of a sound technical understanding by all those involved in trying to use ICTs effectively for delivering real development outcomes.

The smart devices that make up the Internet of Things induce consumers to cede control over the products they buy. Devices like smartphones offer real benefits, but combined with embedded software, network connectivity, microscopic sensors and large-scale data analytics, they pose serious threats to ownership and consumer welfare. From coffee makers and toys to cars and medical devices, the products we buy are defined by software. That code gives device makers an increasing degree of control over how, when, and whether those products can be used even after consumers buy them. That shift of control has profound implications for ownership.

This chapter explores the use of digital health technologies in health promotion endeavors. This “digitized health promotion” is the latest stage in the trajectory of health promotion ideology and practice over the past four decades in wealthy Anglophone nations. Lupton argues that over this period the individualistic approach to good health commonly espoused in medicine and public health was challenged by advocates arguing for a greater focus on social justice and social epidemiology. The individualistic approach to health promotion never disappeared, however, and has gathered momentum in the current economic, political, and technological climate. While many health promotion workers still champion the ideals of “health for all,” public health policy in the context of digitized health promotion has begun to return to emphasizing personal responsibility for health.

This Chapter looks at the role played by transmission of the archive through the body, drawing from performance studies, bioart, database aesthetics and history of science to look at what becomes of the archive in the era of genomic experimentation. Drawing on economics, the chapter establishes the role played by the archive within the digital economy showing how the archive evolved for each of the industrial revolutions that occurred since the 18th century. Additionally, the Chapter analyzes the role played by the archive in the development of smart objects within the internet of things. The case studies for this chapter include work by the Musée de la Danse; George Legrady; Natalie Bookchin; Eduardo Kac; Christine Borland; and Lynn Hershman Leeson’s Infinity Engine, in which the human being has become its own (a-)live archive, one that, through regenerative medicine, can be modified inside out.

Chapter 3 explains the internal organization of SDOs. It outlines the four main layers which make up the Internet and focuses on the principal SDOs associated with them: the IETF, W3C, the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS), and IEEE, analysing their governance structures and most salient areas of work. Standards are important for interoperability and to prevent lock-in to single company technology. SDOs enable a wider technical community to scrutinize proposals for errors and security. Nonetheless, procedures for decision-making are complex and often opaque. The chapter explores decision-making in a governance context. It charts the evolution of each SDO, and its main purpose, functions, and central decision-making processes. It highlights the differences as well as the degree of synergy and collaboration between each and then explains how procedures vary between the different fora and how moving goalposts and high barriers to entry make it difficult for civil society to participate.

This chapter tracks the expansion of digital surveillance across consumer activities, military actions, social media, and digital communications. It assesses a de facto commitment across corporations and state agencies to ubiquitous surveillance; that is, to real time collection of digital information and the production of large, permanent, ever-growing data sets subject to emerging and automated algorithmic assessment. Ubiquitous surveillance blurs distinctions between war and peace, intelligence and commerce, as well as public and private to an unprecedented degree. It also assumes that a full integration of data collection and data mining into everyday life is ultimately possible, encouraging the transformation of everyday objects, public spaces, expert encounters of every kind (medical, financial, communications), transportation systems, and commerce into connectible modes of surveillance. Tracking, observing, and screening, in other words, are becoming the basic tools of social institutions, making the individual less a citizen-subject than an informational node in an ever-emerging system of automated data collection and processing. Ultimately, this chapter argues that data collection is a critical terrain on which a new social contract is being forged in the 21st century.

The internet of things (IoT), where objects can communicate with each other in a way that affects the physical world, will likely have a great impact on people and society at large. Like a massively distributed set of robots, its effects will be felt on both physical and information realms. After describing key elements of the IoT, this chapter summarizes major ethical concerns. For the physical layer, the primary ethical concerns center on safety, while the informational layer’s primary concerns are about controlling information. Given the two layers’ distinct ethical concerns, we face a problem of moral pluralism—which of these layers should take priority? Recognizing this pluralism, the chapter argues that designers, policymakers, and users not only must not pay attention to both layers, but may also have to prioritize one layer over the other.

Future humans interacting with water in Kentucky will bring to their experience not only the panoply of expectations, assumptions, background knowledge, and past experiences but also ultra-smart gadgetry which will shape the outcome of the event. The technoscapes inhabited by human communities and individuals are over imposed on the natural rhythms which hydrology obeys, providing opportunities for sensorial fusion. An ongoing evolutionary explosion in diversity, mobility and interconnectedness of sensors is manifesting itself as the Internet of Things, all denizens of the “Cloud”, allowing the citizen scientist to easily generate georeferenced sensor information. This augmented, hybrid sensorial ecosystem challenges us to rethink how we tap into big data, mostly unstructured, representing the status of water systems, and how we extract relevant information.

In this chapter, the importance and benefits of scale and velocity in Big Data are illustrated through cases studies of Yelp and TripAdvisor, which have established best-in-class approaches to achieving scale through the functionality of their sites, the timeliness of the information shared, and the free availability to users. Big Data’s ability to also manage complexity, improve decision-making, and minimize risk is examined. The movements to new and higher velocity data transfer and automated data creation are examined, along with the technological trends to embed sensors in all devices including wearable devices, as seen in the Internet of Things. Presented are strategies for capturing value from high scale and high velocity data. Specific recommendations on achieving high returns with Big Data are presented, using Amazon as an example.

“Information is power” is true, at times, but not universally so. The trends in developing technologies and strategies will influence the relationship between information and power in the decades ahead. Positive results can come from new assistive technologies in fields like medical decision-making, or from everyday applications like wearable technology. Advances can promote citizen participation, but can also lead to additional fragmentation and privacy concerns.

Bebo White, the physicist and computational scientist at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Stanford University, was one of the first people to get involved in Web technology as a result of his stay at CERN in the group developing the hypertext transfer protocol, HTTP. Almost immediately following this, he became part of the dedicated team who published the first web page in the USA, - and the first outside Europe -, and he is considered the first ‘webmaster’ in history. He agrees that IT is an approximate science but points out that this discipline, combined with web technology, has a huge impact on ‘what is going on’ at present in scientific research. Bebo then moves on to argument why one of the greatest threats for the future of the Web, - and for internet to reach its full potential -, is to ignore or shun open standards.

Cloud computing is an enabling technology for automation and abstraction. This places it in a unique position to effect paradigm shifts related to your work, society, and life. This chapter discusses some emerging technologies and trends related to cloud computing; they are the catalysts of change for the future technology landscape. Some of these trends, as with predictions in general, may not all come to pass. Nevertheless, extrapolations are made to consider the future outlook in terms of the following: Internet of Things and Services; Cloud of Things and Services; Personal Clouds; Cloud Service Exchange.

This chapter discusses how SDOs have mitigated the targeting of protocol vulnerabilities by security agencies. It begins with protocols identified by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). In this context, the chapter explains legal measures underpinning state surveillance such as the 2018 renewal of Section 702 of the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The latter part of the chapter looks at the action of states with development of government positions in the United Kingdom and United States, most notably against the company Huawei. It examines the position of the engineering community and technology companies in relation to these conditions.