Categories
Environment

Why there is no such thing as green ICT

This article was originally published at http://archive.eurescom.eu/message/messageNov2010/Is-there-an-Internet-of-Things.asp in November 2008

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) constitute an industry sector of its own that has pervaded all other sectors of our economy having a profound impact on economic, societal and environmental indicators. Today, it has become fashionable to talk about green ICT, although most of the discussion merely concentrates on the greenhouse gas emissions, like CO2, related directly or indirectly to the use of ICT. In this article I prefer to use the term more widely and include in the discussion the overall environmental impact, in particular to point out that green ICT is a very immature definition, when it comes to environmental sustainability of the sector.

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Categories
Future Internet

Is there an Internet of Things?

This article was originally published at http://archive.eurescom.eu/message/messageNov2010/Is-there-an-Internet-of-Things.asp in November 2010

In the late 1980s, the term ubiquitous computing was coined by Mark Weiser, chief scientist at Xerox PARC. He advocated that the best computer is a quiet, invisible servant. In his vision, he described several scenarios that are still reference scenarios for what is generally called the Internet of Things (IoT). How much closer are we today to Mark Weiser’s vision, and to what extend is IoT a new technology or just an evolution?

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