WebAlive: a new paradigm for bringing things to life on the web

In this poster, we propose WebAlive, a new paradigm that brings any Thing in the realm of reality to `life' on the Web by creating an entangled virtual existence for it. For example, consider a physical object like the lamp on your desk. As a human, you are aware of its existence. You can see it, touch it, feel it, interact with it (turn it on, o, etc.), investigate its attributes (color, material, etc.). You can even alter or trash it. Now, imagine that the lamp had a virtual counterpart on the Web such that the two of them were entangled with each other. A software agent on the Web can now become aware of its existence, it can perform actions on it, learn about its attributes and even (with the right capability) alter it just how it was accessible to you. Referring to the most broadest definition of the word Thing, we can extend this entanglement concept beyond physical things like devices, objects, people, etc. to all intelligible things like entities, processes, concepts, ideas, etc. By doing so, we can open a new realm of possibilities where we could have digital access to the world around us. This poster provides an introduction to the paradigm and presents an approach to realize it using Web standards.