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Other Standards

Jini is a Sun Java-based initiative that will allow devices to connect to networks with no central repository, drivers or services.

The Home API working group is establishing an open specification including a standard set of services and application-programming interfaces for home control. This is a purely software-oriented effort (and Microsoft is the force behind it) which would eventually allow compatible application software to work with a number of underlying networks.

HomeRF working group is concetrated on wireless telecommunications via its Shared Wireless Access Protocol (SWAP) technology. It is proposing a wireless data channel in homes that would allow multiple computers to share peripherals and a single Internet connection, linking all other electronics devices in the house.

Universal Plug and Play is defining a way to transparently connect electronic appliances by extending Plug and Play to support networks, peer-to-peer discovery, and configuration. UPnP device carries its own device driver, eliminating the need for central host or user intervention.

Home Audio/Visual Interoperability group is driven by Sony, with a goal of defining a home-network standard for audio-visual electronics that ensures that different components will connect seamlessly and interoperate, regardless of the manufacturer.

Research

The Essex Intelligent-Buildings Group at the University of Essex has been active since 1995. It takes the definition of an Intelligent-Building as being "one that utilizes computer technology to autonomously govern the building environment so as to optimize user comfort, energy-consumption, safety and work efficiency". Their researchers are examining how intelligent multi-agent systems can be applied to the control of intelligent buildings. Other projects include Embedded-Internet, investigating the computational aspects of creating embedded architectures that could provide the underlying technology for Intelligent-Building, and novel sensors for area/activity identification and non-intrusive person ID.

Hal: The Next Generation Intelligent Room is a project at The Human-Computer Interaction Group, MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. As an offshoot of the AI Lab's Intelligent Room, it features a highly interactive environment that uses embedded computation to observe and participate in the normal, everyday events occurring in the world around it. Rather than view a computer as a stand-alone box good only for word processing or e-mail, researchers at MIT are embedding computers in ordinary environments so that people can interact with them the way they do with other people, by speech, gesture, movement, affect, and context.

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