Thingful – The Internet Of All Things

Slowly but surely, our devices are "talking" to each other, with each other. Yes, for the unitiated, this may sound bizarre but it's a fact. Television sets, fridges, even fish are now equipped with sensors that send off signals, to be received somewhere. It is estimated that in just six years' time there will be 50 billion devices spewing out data online. There's now a site called Thingful, a "discoverability engine" that organises 'things' around locations and categories, and structures ownership around Twitter profiles, either personal or of organisations, enabling citizens to discuss why and how they are using their devices and data. Because, the 'who', 'why' and 'where' are ultimately far more important in The Public Internet of Things than the 'what', believe the guys at Thingful. Think of Thingful as a kinda public search engine that can be used to look into aspects of the IoT that are out in the open, that others, people or organisations, want to be discovered. It follows the Public Internet of Things, providing a geographical index of where things are, who owns them, and how and why they are used. Today, millions of people and organisations around the world already have and use connected 'things', ranging from energy monitors, weather stations and pollution sensors to animal trackers, geiger counters and shipping containers. Many choose to, or would like to, make their data available to third parties – either directly as a public resource or channeled through apps and analytical tools. Launched last week, Thingful.net, created by technology firm Umbrellium, is a map-based interface that aims to unlock the potential of all that chatter. Whereas other Internet of Things sites often focus on the stories of individual items, or providing large datasets, Thingful collates information from numerous external Internet of Things data sets such as Xively, which stores sensor data in the Cloud, the USGS Earthquake Hazard Program, which documents seismic activity and Marinetraffic.com, which displays where the world's ships are, and of course sharks. Thingful then displays all this data geographically on a map. You can search for locations by typing in the name of the place, as well as dragging and zooming in on the map. The data type is indexed by colour, and clicking on a particular point provides a link to the site the data originally came from. Like we said earlier, Thingful is explicitly built for people, communities, companies and cities that want to make the data from these 'things' available and useful to others. Thingful aggregates and indexes public information from some of the major IoT platforms and data infrastructures around the world, providing direct links to datasets and profile pages for the public things that it knows about. Image Credit: Thingful - Advertising Message -

Tag: Thingful

A discoverability engine comes online for Internet of Things called Thingful