Global Standards Organizations Collaborate On Governance and Interoperability Standards for the Spatial Web
Summary
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the worlds largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity, has collaborated with the Spatial Web Foundation (SWF), the principal international standards organization responsible for developing and promoting ethically aligned technical standards for the next era of global network computing aka the “Spatial Web.” The Spatial Web incorporates technologies that enable future Smart Cities and Virtual Worlds colloquially known as the Metaverse. It is a hyper-connected, contextually-aware, network of humans, machines, and AI that integrates exponentially powerful technologies such as IoT (internet of things), ML (machine learning), XR (extended reality, aka MR/AR/VR), Autonomous Vehicles, Drones and Robots, Distributed Ledgers (cryptographic) and Edge Computing (edge) into a unified cyber-physical network. As billions of connected devices and services come online, collectively sensing, navigating, and performing physical activities in the world, machine-readable governance of data (policies, permissions, and rights management) is critical to aligning these powerful and pervasive technologies with a 21st Century society’s ethical and environmental needs. The specifications will also include mechanisms for quantifying and credentialing context-specific levels of trust, interoperability, privacy, and security required for both virtual and digitally-mediated physical activities. And as such, it is crucial that it incorporates the input and perspective from stakeholders across the globe, including privacy advocates, technology ethicists, scientists, climate researchers, and policy-makers, and social justice experts as well as device manufacturers, software developers, system integrators, telecoms, semiconductor manufacturers and cybersecurity experts all of whom are encouraged to participate.