Soumya Kanti Datta

Mobile-Edge Computing and the Internet of Things for Consumers: Extending cloud computing and services to the edge of the network.

Current activities in the Internet of Things (IoT) are focused on architectures, protocols, and networking for the efficient interconnection of heterogeneous things, infrastructure deployment, and creation of value-added services. The majority of the IoT products, services, and platforms are supported by cloud-computing platforms. With the IoT being a multidisciplinary ecosystem, it is now being utilized in connection with scenarios demanding real-time data processing and feedback, for example, connected and autonomous vehicles scenarios. Cloud platforms are not suitable for scenarios involving real-time operation, low latency requirements, and high quality of service (QoS). Recently, mobile-edge computing (MEC) has gained momentum from the industry to address the mentioned requirements. MEC is a novel paradigm that extends cloud-computing capabilities and services to the edge of the network. Due to dense geographical distribution, proximity to consumers, support for high mobility, and open platform, MEC can support applications and services with reduced latency and improved QoS. Thus, MEC is becoming an important enabler of consumer-centric IoT applications and services that demand real-time operations. The OpenFog Consortium and standards development organizations like ETSI have also recognized the benefits the IoT and MEC can bring to consumers. Potential applications for MEC-enabled IoT include smart mobility, connected vehicles, emergency response, smart cities, content distribution, and location-based services.

Consumer Health Care: Current Trends in Consumer Health Monitoring

The term health care has a very wide scope that ranges from lifestyle and wellness to care for acute conditions. With the availability of digital accessories for monitoring basic biological functions, the potential for obtaining detailed data on the lifestyle, habits, and behavior of an individual exists. Such data can enable the diagnosis of the causes for a condition with higher accuracy. Recently, a large number of devices have become available on the market that can monitor various aspects of lifestyle and biological functions. Such data provide feedback to an individual for compliance with healthy guidelines as well as contributing information to the health-care provider for use in the diagnosis of an ailment. In this article, we identify the various aspects of care that can benefit from consumer-grade health-monitoring devices and present the overall landscape in the context of self-care. We qualify the term consumer health care, assigning the context to it and identifying the services available in that context.

Reporting from IEEE GCCE 2015 Future Directions

The special sessions from the IEEE Consumer Electronics (CE) Society Future Directions on the Internet of Things (FDIoT) team moved from Madrid, Spain (IEEE ISCE 2015), to Osaka, Japan, for IEEE GCCE 2015. The GCCE 2015 organizing committee accepted the proposal from the team. The first session was successful at GCCE 2014 with Tom Coughlin as the chair. For the second edition (called OS-IoT), Soumya Kanti Datta acted as chair while Tom Coughlin, Thinagaran Perumal, and Joseph Wei joined as cochairs.

W3C Web of Things Interest Group Face-to-Face Meeting at EURECOM [Future Directions]

Presents information on the the W3C Web of Things Interest Group Face-to-Face Meeting that will be held at EURECOM.

Reporting from IEEE WF-IoT 2015 Future Directions

International Workshop on Consumer-Centric Internet of Things T he IEEE Consumer Electronics (CE) Society Future Directions (FD) team on the Internet of Things (IoT) successfully organized a special session on IoT and fog computing during the IEEE World Forum (WF)-IoT 2015 in Milan, Italy. The session, “S17: IoT and Mobile Edge Computing,” was held on Wednesday, 16 December 2015, from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m., and consisted of six research paper presentations and attracted approximately 65 participants. The proposal was prepared by the FD-IoT team to answer the call for special sessions during IEEE WF-IoT 2015. Tom Coughlin, Peter Corcoran, and I were responsible for the session. This special session was the fourth in a series of such events from the team. This time, the focus of the session was equally on IoT and fog computing. Fog is a new paradigm, where the capabilities of cloud computing are pushed to the edge of networks. Fog, or mobile-edge computing (MEC), takes advantage of the huge volume of intelligent devices present at the edge of the network. MEC promotes a distributed architecture and promises less round-trip delay and increased quality of service. These features are critical for providing real-time consumer-centric IoT services. Recognizing the benefits MEC can bring to the consumer IoT space, the FD-IoT team proposed and organized the session. The session began with Nicklas Beijar (Ericsson Research, Finland) discussing how capillary networks are bridging cellular and IoT networks. This was followed by Angelos-Christos G. Anadiotis (CNIT Research Unit at the University of Catania, Italy), who discussed his work on a software-defined network operating system for the IoT. Carlo Vallati (University of Pisa, Italy) was the third speaker and spoke about deployment and practical issues in relation to exploiting the deviceto-device communications in machine-tomachine (M2M) fog platforms. Ivan Farris (University Mediterranea of Reggio Calabria, Italy) shared interesting insights about federated edge-assisted mobile clouds for service provisioning in heterogeneous IoT environments. Mohamed Imran Jameel (McGill University and ReelyActive, Canada) and Jeffrey Dungen (ReelyActive, Canada) participated in a dual presentation on low-power wireless advertising software library for distributed M2M and contextual IoT. The final speaker, Ali Chehab (American University of Beirut, Lebanon), identified key points related to how edge computing is enabling IoT scenarios. Each presentation was followed by a discussion with the audience. I’d like to thank and congratulate the entire Organizing Committee of IEEE WF-IoT 2015, which was an awesome conference. The FD-IoT team will continue with similar sessions in future IEEE conferences.