{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,11,11]],"date-time":"2025-11-11T13:25:00Z","timestamp":1762867500614,"version":"build-2065373602"},"reference-count":51,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"8","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2018,8,6]],"date-time":"2018-08-06T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1533513600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"COMPETE 2020, Portugal 2020 - Operational Program for Competitiveness and Internationalization (POCI),","award":["SCR\/2072\/2014 and P2020 SAICTPAC\/0011\/2015"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["SCR\/2072\/2014 and P2020 SAICTPAC\/0011\/2015"]}]},{"name":"European Union\u2019s ERDF (European Regional Development Fund)","award":["SCR\/2072\/2014 and P2020 SAICTPAC\/0011\/2015"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["SCR\/2072\/2014 and P2020 SAICTPAC\/0011\/2015"]}]},{"name":"Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT)","award":["SCR\/2072\/2014 and P2020 SAICTPAC\/0011\/2015"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["SCR\/2072\/2014 and P2020 SAICTPAC\/0011\/2015"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Sensors"],"abstract":"<jats:p>The Internet keeps changing at a rapid pace, driven mainly by the emerging concepts and applications that make it aware of the physical world and responsive to user context. The Internet of Things (IoT) concept is quickly giving way to more advanced and highly interactive environments that go well beyond the mere sensing of the physical world. Today, in addition to traditional electronic devices, IoT sensing\/actuating includes both software and human-based entities. This paper provides an outlook on the future of sensing\/actuating approaches on the Internet at large, which we see increasingly related to all kinds of socially interactive technologies. With these objectives in mind, we propose a taxonomy to deal with the heterogeneity of sensing\/actuating approaches in IoT. We also analyse the state-of-the-art of Social Sensing. Finally, we identify open issues and associated research opportunities, the main ones being the integration of all sensing approaches, the combination of social sciences, engineering, and computing as enablers of context-aware, cognitive applications and, last but not least, the unified management of large sets of very heterogeneous sensors\/actuators.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/s18082578","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2018,8,7]],"date-time":"2018-08-07T03:44:18Z","timestamp":1533613458000},"page":"2578","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":17,"title":["An Outlook on Physical and Virtual Sensors for a Socially Interactive Internet"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"18","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-7493-4365","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Ngombo","family":"Armando","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Centre for Informatics and Systems of the University of Coimbra (CISUC), University of Coimbra, 3030-290 Coimbra, Portugal"},{"name":"Escola Superior Polit\u00e9cnica do U\u00edge, Universidade Kimpa Vita, Kondo Benze, U\u00edge, Angola"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-3849-5515","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Andr\u00e9","family":"Rodrigues","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Centre for Informatics and Systems of the University of Coimbra (CISUC), University of Coimbra, 3030-290 Coimbra, Portugal"},{"name":"Polytechnic Institute of Coimbra, ISCAC, 3040-316 Coimbra, Portugal"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-4225-9075","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Vasco","family":"Pereira","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Centre for Informatics and Systems of the University of Coimbra (CISUC), University of Coimbra, 3030-290 Coimbra, Portugal"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-6273-1285","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Jorge","family":"S\u00e1 Silva","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Centre for Informatics and Systems of the University of Coimbra (CISUC), University of Coimbra, 3030-290 Coimbra, Portugal"}]},{"given":"Fernando","family":"Boavida","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Centre for Informatics and Systems of the University of Coimbra (CISUC), University of Coimbra, 3030-290 Coimbra, Portugal"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2018,8,6]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"686","DOI":"10.1016\/j.future.2018.05.074","article-title":"Recent advances in security and privacy in Social Big Data","volume":"87","author":"Zhang","year":"2018","journal-title":"Futur. 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