Digital Economy IT as a Utility Network+

智能手机应用程序表明，人们对易于使用的IT功能有需求，但易于使用的IT的潜在范围和影响要大得多。这一网络将促进研究如何提供更广泛的易于使用的信息技术设施，而用户只需要知道这些服务是可用的和可以安全使用的，而不需要知道这些服务来自哪里和如何提供。然而，仅仅提供服务和安全使用服务的手段是不够的。该网络将发展对这些服务的人的方面的理解：阻碍新用户使用这些服务的障碍，无论是感觉上的还是真实的。我们对其他事物的依赖是不言而喻的，比如我们的汽车和电力供应，因此网络的一个主要方面将是“我们如何鼓励对IT服务的同等程度的信任”;网络将从用户的角度解决问题。对于水，我们确实关心实际的产品，因为我们在一定程度上直接消耗它！我们还用它来驱动一系列其他流程。对于电，虽然我们确实测量了我们消耗的量，但大多数人实际上并不考虑流经主电路的电流，而是考虑烧水壶或电视机上的开关-这是我们关注的电力服务（至少在停电之前）。对于IT来说，这一点更是如此;几乎所有的时间，我们都不关心基础设施，而是关心这个基础设施可以提供的服务。因此，在网络中将强烈关注这种服务的提供以及它们的操作管理协议。IT驱动技术，并由技术驱动，不可避免的硬件也是IT，它现在是商品化的，因此是实用的，并有能力通过以具有成本效益的方式合并物理和数字空间来显着改变人们与周围空间的互动方式。智能空间、响应式环境和位置相关服务可以从根本上改变人与人之间的互动以及他们周围的空间。这些服务的核心依赖于信息和数据。因此，ITaaU网络+将与政府和研究理事会关于开放数据的倡议密切互动，更广泛地说，通过采用开放和链接的数据标准，以及随着更多数据的可用而开发的新服务，数据的使用和再使用变得可行。

Smart phone apps have shown that there is a demand for easy-to-use IT functions, yet the potential scope and impact of easy to use IT is much greater. This network will promote research into providing access to a wider range of IT facilities that are simple to use, while users need know only that these services are available and safe to use, not where they come from and how they are provided. However, it is not enough to provide the services and the means of using them securely. The network will develop the understanding of the human aspects of such services: the barriers, perceived as well as real, that inhibit new users of the services. We rely implicitly on other things, such as our cars and our electricity supply, so a major Network facet will be in the area of "how can we encourage the same level of trust in IT services"; the network will tackle the the issues from a user perspective.An analogy with the traditional utilities of Power and Water is interesting. With Water we do care about the actual product as we do in part consume it directly! We also use it to drive a range of other processes. With electricity, while we do measure the amount we consume, most people don't actually think in terms of the current flowing though their mains circuits but in terms of boiling the kettle or switch on the TV - it is the service that the power enables that we focus on (at least until the power goes out). For IT this is even more true; for almost all the time we are not concerned with the infrastructure but with the services that this infrastructure can provide. Therefore there will be a strong focus in the network on such the provision of such services and also their operational management protocols. IT drives and is driven by technology, inescapably hardware is also IT and that it is now commoditised and therefore utilitarian and has the capability to alter dramatically the way people interact with the space around them by merging physical and digital spaces in a cost effective manner. Smart spaces, responsive environments, and location dependent services can fundamentally alter interactions between people as well as the space around them.These services depend at their heart on information and data. The ITaaU Network+ will therefore interact closely with governmental and research council initiatives on Open Data, and more generally on use and re-use of data, made feasible by the adoption of open and linked data standards, and new services which can be developed as more data becomes available.