http://www.knightfoundation.org/blogs/knightblog/2013/6/25/introducing-crosscloud-project-get-your-data-out-silos/
When Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, he imagined it being a better
way for people around the world to share knowledge and work together to solve
humanity's greatest problems. It’s often everything he hoped for, he says, but
it sometimes falls short when websites and applications lock away data. Too
often, people are stuck using a site because that's where their data is or
that's where their friends or co-workers are. Such restrictions stifle
innovation and cut off support for a new generation of vital tools for
knowledge sharing.
Today we are happy to announce a Prototype Fund grant to the Crosscloud
Project, an experimental effort led by Tim Berners-Lee and Sandro Hawke at
W3C/MIT. Crosscloud aims to give individuals control of their own data. It
consists of a set of protocols and tools that allows providers to give
individuals control of their data, choose who can access it and move it to
other systems as needed. Building on standard Semantic Web and Linked Data
Technologies, it allows people to communicate across boundaries.
With Crosscloud, users will be able to:
move easily between competing applications, even run them at the same time
using the same data;
move easily between platforms, working with the same information on their
phones and laptops (while using different software from different vendors);
move easily between social network platforms, migrating both data and social
connections; and
connect across social network boundaries: collaborate with people and groups
even if they prefer to use different applications and different service
providers.
The Crosscloud team is currently developing ways to expand the prototype and
build out some applications using the platform. Some ideas they are exploring
include applications that allow users to chart information about their health;
share and comment on web information; share photos and videos; and have
discussions with friends. In all cases, people can maintain their data and
share it as they like, applying it in any software built with the Crosscloud
open source toolkit.
A Crosscloud medical device, for example, would be configured to write its data
to the user's own Crosscloud space, where the data could be accessed by the
people and applications the user has chosen.
Crosscloud also allows software creators to more easily build social software.
Without Crosscloud, creators need to configure and program their own backend
systems and build a critical mass of users. With Crosscloud, the user picks
their own backend and the users can be shared among all the applications in a
particular space.
Crosscloud is one of seven prototypes announced at the MIT-Knight Civic Media
Conference and one of 12 announced by Knight in the last week. With the
Prototype Fund, Knight continues to set goals to speed up the pace of
innovation. By encouraging early-stage experiments for teams building new
projects, we can better serve the information needs of communities and test
human-centered approaches. Through prototyping teams are given the opportunity
to refine and iterate their projects, test core assumptions and make important
discoveries before attempting to scale. The strategy allows Knight to support
more ideas, gain and share valuable knowledge and learn what works and what
doesn’t. Ultimately, we are giving innovators a channel to act on their ideas
and keep them coming.
For more information about the Prototype Fund or to submit an idea, visit
prototypefund.org.
For more information and news, follow @crosscloudorg on Twitter.
By Chris Barr, media innovation associate at Knight Foundation, and Sandro
Hawke, technical staff and research scientist at W3C/MIT.
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