SAN JOSE, Calif. — Aiming to ease the fragmentation in the emerging Internet of Things, a group founded by Atmel, Broadcom, Dell, Intel, and Samsung will create a specification for device-to-device communications. The Open Interconnect Consortium (OIC) sees its work as most directly competing with the AllSeen effort started by Qualcomm.
The OIC is the latest of many geared to link IoT devices to each other or the cloud. Another consortium is expected to announce a more narrowly focused effort this month.
For its part, the OIC plans to release this fall an implementation of open-source code targeting home and office devices and a general specification by early 2015. Versions for automotive, healthcare, and industrial markets will follow. It will also create a compliance test for vendors that want to develop their own code based on the spec.

For the full story, see EBN's sister site, EE Times.
— Rick Merritt is the Silicon Valley Bureau Chief of EE Times.
No, Rich. What is it?
-Susan
I'll bite too Rich — what ethics issue? I mean aside from the ethics of ensuring security of the location the IoT-connected device is in. But I wouldn't say engineers aren't thinking about that. Color me stumped.
“Aiming to ease the fragmentation in the emerging Internet of Things, a group founded by Atmel, Broadcom, Dell, Intel, and Samsung will create a specification for device-to-device communications. The Open Interconnect Consortium (OIC) sees its work as most directly competing with the AllSeen effort started by Qualcomm.”
Rick, that's a good initiative. If there is no standards and specification, then device to device communication and inter-operatability may be an issue.
Why can't there be an IEEE standard for such an important evolving technology ?
Instead of creating islands of comm standrads , a unified specification can be drafted by IEEE in my opinion.
Thanks @Rich for enlightening me on this subject.
It assures me that the things are in the right hands after all!