This week’s Smart DevOps roundup features new grants to promote the development of  the Internet of Things (IoT), an initiative to interact with the Physical Web, and Near Field Communications for IoT.

Google’s Open Web of Things

Search giant Google is setting up an Internet of Things research and open innovation expedition to spur the development of IoT products and solutions. The Open Web of Things is being led by Vint Cerf, Google’s VP of Research and lead for System/Protocol.

The main goal is to find innovations that offer new experiences to users that were not previously possible with existing technology. The disciplines that developers will need to focus on, but are not limited to, include human-computer interaction, privacy and security, and systems & protocols.

There are two types of one-year seed research proposals that developers and researchers can choose from: the Expedition Lead Grant is intended for program management as well as funding mostly graduate-level research offering grants from $500,000 to $800,000, while the Individual Project Grant offers $50,000 to $150,000 to innovations that particularly pay attention to innovative solutions that support user-centric work practices around IoT.

The deadline for submissions of proposals is on January 21, 2015.

Building the Physical Web

Connecting things to the Internet is now made easier with Blesh opening up its PW Beacons and Blesh PW App to developers. Developers can also participate in a public project called “The Physical Web” where people can interact with physical objects on demand.

“We encourage developers to let their imaginations run wild,” said Devrim Sonmez, CEO of Blesh. “We see even non-smart phone devices such as wearables communicating with Blesh PW beacons making possible an ecosystem that blurs the edge between physical items and the web.”

The Physical Web beacons, which are tiny low-cost Physical Web stick-on devices, give everyday objects intelligence and allow them to deliver more than just advertisements, but can also broadcast a URL that is recognized by a person’s mobile device and work together with mobile search without the need to launch any custom apps.

Broadcom adds NFC for IoT

Semiconductor solutions provider Broadcom Corp. recently announced the integration Near Field Communication to its Wireless Internet Connectivity for Embedded Devices (WICED) software development kit (SDK) that would allow the company to support the need for NFC in a wider array of products and expand to IoT devices.

The integration of NFC to WICED simplifies the setup process between mobile and smart devices. The tap-to capabilities of NFC allows users to touch their smartphone to a smart device to activate a feature or control and interact with other connected devices. Developers can integrate NFC to create more complex products with a wider variety of use cases.

photo credit: fragmented via photopin cc