Content-centric, publish-subscribe service model for the Internet

CONVERGENCE aims at enhancing the Internet with a content-centric, publish-subscribe service model, based on a common container for any kind of digital data, including representations of people and Real World Objects. The CONVERGENCE system is based on the concept of a Versatile Digital Item (VDI), a "package" of digital information with a unique identifier, independent of the machine where the VDI is hosted. VDIs have been designed to handle all possible kinds of digital information, from media to information about services, people and physical objects, independently of the structure or geographical location of the content. The CONVERGENCE architecture provides scalable mechanisms allowing professional providers and individual users to publish VDIs, maintain access to VDIs when they move from one host to another or when hosts fail; search for and subscribe to VDIs, and to update and delete VDIs which have already been published. CONVERGENCE allows providers and users to define their own policies for authenticating and protecting VDIs and supporting "digital forgetting" (deleting VDIs when they pass a user-defined expiry date).