14 C O M P U T E R P U B L I S H E D B Y T H E I E E E C O M P U T E R S O C I E T Y 0 0 1 8 - 9 1 6 2 / 1 5 / $ 3 1 . 0 0 © 2 0 1 5 I E E E

Ron Vetter, University of North Carolina Wilmington

San Murugesan, BRITE Professional Services and University of Western Sydney

COVER FEATURE GUEST EDITORS’ INTRODUCTION

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Share your thoughts on the future of the Web and how it might influence us, as well as what we as computing professionals could do to help shape the future Web to be more exciting and serve society still better. Join the discussion at http://linkd.in/1GlSWFh.

In its first 25 years, the Web exhibited an impres-sive evolution from a niche information man-agement system1 to a platform so ubiquitous and universal that it drives and empowers our

digital lives.2 Redefining the way we live, communi-cate, socialize, and transact, Web tools and services enable us to gain and share knowledge and infor-mation in new ways. And Web- enabled applica-tions continue to transform businesses, education, healthcare, banking, government, and many other key sectors. So what about the Web’s next 25 years? As George Burns once said, “I look to the future because that’s where I’m going to spend the rest of my life.” Of course, as we examine what the new Web landscape will look like, we recognize that the Web is a means to an end rather than the end itself.

In this special issue of Computer, we explore a variety of perspectives on the Web’s evolution and advancement in the coming quarter-century. By exploring important issues including privacy, security, equal access, Net neutrality, and Web reg-ulation, this issue’s three feature articles and an expert roundtable give us insight into the antici-pated advances and features that the future Web will bring, as well as the influence it will have on our society.

A VISION FOR THE FUTURE The Web is poised for significant further develop-ment, and it will become an even more dominant and exciting platform than it is today. This is in no small part due to the Web’s potential for reaching billions of people at the bottom of the socioeco-nomic pyramid who have not yet had the opportu-nity to embrace it and benefit from it. The new era

of the Web is being driven by growth in a multitude of areas:

› advances such as Web 3.0, the Semantic Web, the 3D Web, and the Real- Time Web;

› open standards, open data, and open source software;

› the Internet of Things (IoT); › multimodal access and multilingual presentation;

› the growing use of Internet- enabled smart-phones, gadgets, and consumer electronics;

› smarter search engines and question- answering systems;

› integrated, context- aware, collaborative apps;

› cloud computing and cloudlets; and › the demand for an open, neutral, equal- access Internet, and for it to be declared a public utility.

Although the Web’s future seems bright and promising, realizing its full potential remains a bit uncertain. What do we want the Web to be? To answer this with any clarity, we must address a range of technical, developmental, operational, organizational, political, and societal issues and challenges. They include:

› interoperability of Web applications— integration of data, knowledge, and apps to make the Web a more meaningful and col-laborative platform;

› cybersecurity—securing data on the Web and in Web applications remains a major

The disruption is not over—the Web’s transformation

of the world as we know it has only just begun.

YOUR THOUGHTS?

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GUEST EDITORS’ INTRODUCTION

challenge due to increasing and sophisticated attacks;

› a smarter Web—realization of a fully Semantic Web in which programs can analyze and syn-thesize Web- based information;

› information overload— better context awareness, easier nav-igation, and smarter search engines for all kinds of data and information on the Web;

› an open Web—fostering open data, open standards, and an open/ neutral Internet; and

› societal and social issues—addressing the Web’s dark side, such as insufficient privacy controls and incorrect or poor information quality.

To better understand the Web’s eco-system from technical, societal, and other perspectives, we need coherent and comprehensive interdisciplinary studies. A new discipline, known as Web science, focuses on the Web’s evo-lution and impact on society, business, and government. As Tim O’Reilly and John Battelle wrote in their white paper Web Squared: Web 2.0 Five Years On:

The Web is no longer an indus-try unto itself—the Web is now the world. And the world needs our help. If we are going to solve the world’s most pressing prob-lems, we must put the power of the Web to work—its technol-ogies, its business models, and

perhaps most importantly, its philosophies of openness, collec-tive intelligence, and transpar-ency. And to do that, we must take the Web to another level.3

Bringing this about will require coor-dination among the Web’s different stakeholders.

IN THIS ISSUEIn the first article, “The Web That Extends beyond the World,” Vishnu S. Pendyala, Simon S.Y. Shim, and Christoph Bussler describe the Web’s evolution from an interconnection of static information to a dynamic com-munication infrastructure for people, communities, things, and, eventually, planets. The authors anticipate an explosion of applications based on the Web of Things that includes machine- to- machine interactions and advanced machine learning that would bring growth in applications, humanitarian activities, interplanetary Web proj-ects, politics, and augmented reality.

In “The Web of Things: Challenges and Opportunities,” Dave Raggett postulates that there will be a range of really simple things to really smart things connected on the Web. These “things” are proxies for physical or abstract realities, and the “Web” infers that these things are accessible via Web technologies. As Web services become smarter, we can expect that the things will have a near- human–level under-standing—so such things can bet-ter relate to and serve the people who use them. Achieving this will require interdisciplinary efforts—including cognitive psychology, linguistics, and facial recognition, among others—but will lead to the realization of many new ideas and applications in an immersive 3D Web. Raggett concludes by inviting

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

RON VETTER, Computer’s editor-in-chief emeritus, is a professor of computer

science, the associate provost for research, and dean of the Graduate School

at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. He is also cofounder of Mobile

Education, LLC (www.mymobed.com), a technology company specializing in

developing interactive short message service applications. Vetter received a

PhD in computer science from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. He

is a member of the IEEE Computer Society and ACM. Contact him at vetterr@

uncw.edu.

SAN MURUGESAN is director of BRITE Professional Services and an adjunct

professor at the University of Western Sydney, Australia. His research interests

include cloud computing, green IT, the Internet of Things, and IT applications.

Murugesan is the editor in chief of IT Professional, an editorial board member

of Computer, a co-editor of the forthcoming Encyclopedia of Cloud Computing

(Wiley, 2015), and the editor of Computer’s Cloud Cover column. He received a

PhD in computer science and automation from the Indian Institute of Science,

Bangalore. He is a fellow of the Australian Computer Society and the Institution

of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineers (IETE), and a Distinguished

Visitor of the IEEE Computer Society. Contact him at san@computer.org, or visit

http://bitly.com/sanprofile.

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readers to think about the societal ramifications of the envisaged Web.

In the next article, “Toward the Web of Things: Applying Web Technologies to the Physical World,” Jörg Heuer, Johannes Hund, and Oliver Pfaff describe a future based on the inter-action among devices, systems, users, and applications. In this vision of the Web, new applications and access pat-terns are based on applying Web tech-nologies to physical devices enabled with multiple processors and commu-nication interfaces. The authors pre-dict that the Web will reach into the physical world, allowing for the cre-ation of new applications that will har-ness physical devices and cause funda-mental changes to the physical world and our interaction with the cyber- physical world.

Finally, in Computer’s roundtable with panelists David Alan Grier from George Washington University, Jeff Jaffe from the World Wide Web Con-sortium, and Lee Rainie from the Pew

Research Center, we explore the Web’s potential evolution and where it might lead us over the next 25 years. The pan-elists discuss key issues such as Net neutrality, accessibility, and govern-ment regulations, as well as what we as computer professionals can do to shape the future of the Web, ensuring that future developments make the world a better place.

The Web will continue its evolu-tion, offer new capabilities, and extend its reach and utility. As

it becomes even more ubiquitous and embedded in our lives and goods, the Web’s influence will be even more sig-nificant and widespread in the years to come. The opportunities it presents will continue to outweigh associated risks and limitations. It certainly has not reached its zenith, so we must rec-ognize and harness its full potential.

As a community, we must build a better, safer, more open Web that

addresses the needs of all segments of society. With the help of the Web and our coordinated efforts, we can address the coming technical, opera-tional, organizational, political, and societal issues and challenges. We hope the articles in this issue will inspire you to think about what the Web could and should be, and that you will join us in working toward realiz-ing the Web that we want.

REFERENCES1. T. Berners- Lee, “Information Man-

agement: A Proposal,” Mar. 1989; http://info.cern.ch/Proposal.html.

2. S. Murugesan, “The Web @ 25 and Beyond,” Computing Now, vol. 7, no. 7, Jul. 2014; www.computer.org/web /computingnow/archive/july2014.

3. T. O’Reilly and J. Battelle, Web Squared: Web 2.0 Five Years On, white paper, O’Reilly Media, 2009; http://assets .en.oreilly.com/1/event/28/web2009 _websquared- whitepaper.pdf.

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defending Internet Privacyhaptics and Intelligent Navigationbalancing algorithms and

Individuals

Want more know more about the Internet?This magazine covers all aspects of Internet computing,

from programming and standards to security and networking.

www.computer.org/internet

Selected CS articles and columns are also available for free at http://ComputingNow.computer.org.

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