New Jini Lets Appliances Communicate

Sun Microsystems will try to put more muscle into its slogan, “The network is the computer,” today when it formally announces Jini, software that lets a wide range of devices--from PCs to cars to TVs to dishwashers--communicate with one another automatically or on command.

Jini, which Sun has promoted in the industry for about six months, works with Sun’s Java programming language. The company hopes the two technologies will usher in an era in which network-centric appliances supersede PCs as the primary computing devices, and do so automatically and in a way that’s often invisible to the user.

“It’s way too hard to get my parents using computers,” said Mike Clary, Sun’s general manager for Jini. “Jini is about simplicity for the consumer.”

A number of other companies will demonstrate a range of Jini-compliant devices at the San Francisco announcement, including cell phones from Nokia, computer disk drives from Seagate and Quantum, printers from Canon and Epson, consumer electronic devices from Sony and Philips, digital cameras from Kodak and a dishwasher from Bosch-Seimens.

A dishwasher?

Sun Jini engineer Richard Gabriel used a car analogy to explain: “Your grandfather’s Model T worked fine, but by putting microprocessors in cars, they increased fuel efficiency and improved power,” he said, adding that embedded processors now fine-tune performance in a wide range of everyday devices. Jini software, he said, can make dishwashers more efficient by regulating functions such as water temperature and flow and alerting a service company for repairs.

Although many consumers might prefer a computer that works as reliably as a dishwasher to a computer network in a dishwasher, Sun predicts that networked kitchen appliances will soon be commonplace. But Clary expects office products to be the first Jini stronghold. Ready to print directly from your camera or Palm Pilot? Coming soon.