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A consortium of more than 40 UK tech companies funded by the Government has found a way for connected products to ‘talk’ to each other better without human intervention.
The UK’s Technology Strategy Board funded development teams from major firms including BT and IBM with £6.4 million one year ago, resulting in the development of HyperCat in a bid to ‘accelerate the widespread move to the Internet of Things (IoT)’.
HyperCat is a new open IoT specification that allows machines to work together over the internet and for applications to discover and make sense of data automatically without human intervention.
Major firms worked alongside UK start-ups and university departments to ‘break down vertical data silos’ and find a foundation for connected products and applications to interoperate.
"The HyperCat specification is an extremely simple yet powerful, thin interoperability layer for the IoT, which allows applications to explore what data and resources are available on a specific data hub, or search for particular types of resource across the Internet. For example, if an application only understands temperature measurements, HyperCat provide a means to search for and discover this type of data – buried amongst other data that the application may not understand," read a statement.
“The forces for the modularisation of IoT are creating a ground swell that will bring radical changes to the computer industry.” said Justin Anderson, CEO and Founder of IoT company Flexeye. “As new entrants to the IoT market strive to deliver revolutionary solutions at an extraordinary pace, HyperCat will help ensure that these players can securely speak a common language.
"I’m confident that the Technology Strategy Board’s investment in this interoperability initiative has helped put the UK in a global leadership position and will in turn support the UK economy by creating new jobs and attracting foreign investment to our shores.”
The Internet of Things is a much talked about trend – an idea that more and more products and ‘things’ will be connected to the internet in the future. For example, a smartfridge will know when milk is running low and inform the home owner via email, or it could automatically order more stock from a supermarket online. Read more about the Internet of Things here and our interview with Intel on its plans for the growing sector.
Earlier this year David Cameron announced the Government is investing more money into the Internet of Things.
