PARC Wants Devices To All Get Along

from the wouldn't-that-be-nice? dept

Tue, Mar 2nd 2004 12:30am — Mike Masnick

The folks over at PARC are announcing a series of technologies to make it easier for consumer electronics products to interact. The main offering is called Obje and would (in theory) let any device communicate with any other by creating a common language for them. They claim they've gotten it to work on some devices already. Another offering they're going to announce makes it easier to access wireless networks securely. The plan would be for wireless devices to first receive an authentication key via some other method (such as infrared), and then be allowed to access a network securely. The article doesn't have much in the way of details on how either of these things work. They're both interesting, but they're different approaches to problems that others are working on - and tossing yet another solution into the pile doesn't mean it's going to get accepted. And, of course, the cynical among you might point to PARC's storied history of inventing the future years ago and letting it collect dust in the corner while others come to market with successful ideas built off of the old PARC concepts.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

3 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

ObviousMan, 2 Mar 2004 @ 5:57am

Hasn't this been done already?
"The main offering is called Obje and would (in theory) let any device communicate with any other by creating a common language for them."

I thought this was supposed to be Java's ("Write Once, Run Anywhere") realm. And Java is running on a lot of devices, from servers to handhelds to cellphones.

[ link to this | view in thread ]
Mike (profile), 2 Mar 2004 @ 8:30am

Re: Hasn't this been done already?
Yeah, I was actually thinking the same thing, but Java's point was to "write once, run anywhere," wherease Obje's point seems to be more focused on the communication between two devices, as opposed to just allowing a single program to run anywhere.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
OldYeller, 2 Mar 2004 @ 10:02am

Re: Hasn't this been done already?
Actually, the Java-like offering in this space was Jini, conceived and developed by Bill Joy. There's a developer community at www.jini.org , but it obviously hasn't caught the imagination of the masses.

I wonder how the PARC proposal overlaps with it.
[ link to this | view in thread ]