The KIT ─ Knowledge & Information Technology
No. 153 - 1 October 2015
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In This Issue
Highlights from OMG Week
Gartner's Hype Cycle 2015
IoT Systems Computing Challenges
Personal Computing in 2035
Seen Recently
Claude Baudoin

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Highlights from OMG Week
The Object Management Group held its quarterly meeting in Cambridge, Mass. last week. Among the interesting developments:
  • The Business Modeling and Integration Task Force is looking for case studies of the combined use of process models, case management models, and decision models in order to generate guidance on the combined use, or convergence of, the three modeling languages that cover these areas (respectively BPMN, CMMN and DMN). Let us know if you have stories to tell!
  • The Data Residency Working Group had its second meeting and will work toward issuing a Request for Information to prioritize its future work.
  • The Manufacturing and Technical Information Systems Task Force is working on the integration of Model-Based System Engineering (MBSE), based on using the SysML language, and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM).
  • An RFP was issued for a specification of a gateway between the OMG's Data Distribution Service (DDS) and the OPC-UA protocol from the OPC Foundation. This should be helpful to merge the traditional industrial SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) world with the emerging Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) systems. Interested suppliers and technologists can read the RFP here.

A parallel full-day "summit" by the Cloud Standards Customer Council discussed hybrid clouds with such well-known speakers in this field as Judith Hurwitz and David Linthicum. Presentations are available on the Council's Web site.  
Gartner's Hype Cycle 2015
Gartner published in August its updated "hype cycle for emerging technologies." The odd timing (middle of summer, past the middle of the reference year) is probably explained by the need to drum up registrations for the annual Gartner Symposium in Orlando on Oct. 4-8. Reader beware: the hype cycle, in spite of its catchy phase names, is famously hard to read and interpret (which is why Gartner will tell you that you must attend the Symposium, of course).
Systems Computing Challenges in the IoT
The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) just published a white paper that highlights the challenges inherent in the complexity and dynamic aspects of the Internet of Things. One of the key recommendations (music to our ears!) is:
"Support research on the unique challenges and opportunities in IoT security, such as minimal operating systems to create IoT devices with smaller attack surfaces, new ways detect and prevent anomalous network traffic, and high-level policy languages for specifying permissible communication patterns."
Man-Machine Symbiosis
It is famously risky to make predictions, although it is safer to make long-term ones than short-term ones since there is a good chance people will have forgotten them by the time they come due. Wired Magazine asked three academics and two industry experts to predict what a PC will be like in 2035, and all the answers focus on some sort of "melding" of human and machine capabilities through new types of interfaces or some way for the computer to tap into the user's brain. Some of the predictions seem far-fetched and dystopian as well. Besides the technology required to make these visions happen, a key question should be whether our culture will accept the invasive integration than some contributors envision.
Seen Recently...
"As a medium for the display of information, the printed page is superb [...] It affords enough resolution to meet the eye's demand. It presents enough information to occupy the reader for a convenient quantum of time. It offers great flexibility of font and format. It lets the reader control the mode and rate of inspection. It is small, light, movable, cuttable, clippable, pastable, replicable, disposable, and inexpensive."
-- J.C.R. Licklider, one of the scientists whose thoughts led to the
invention of the Internet, expressing early skepticism about
a paperless society in "Libraries of the Future" (1965)

"We want to see software done well, and we want everyone to have a good time doing it."
-- Cutter Senior Consultant Murray Cantor, at an executive roundtable
in Mexico City on Sep. 29 on software methods and software analytics