Smart Earth: From Pervasive Observation to Trusted Information

We introduce a model for information management in a world where information from the physical environment is gathered through a ubiquitous wireless infrastructure. Thus the Internet information space and the physical environment become increasingly entangled in what we call a smart Earth. We illustrate technical challenges and applications from the work of the Swiss national competence centre of research in mobile information and communication systems (NCCR-MICS). We identify the three layers of data access networks, semantic overlay networks and social networks as essential building blocks and observe that each of these network layers will be largely self-organized. Finally we argue that understanding the interplay among these self-organizing network layers will be an important research challenge for the future.