We finish our overview of new home networking technology and standards. In previous weeks we looked at systems designed around both wired and wireless networks. It is intended to allow general consumers who already have utilities services to gain more control over how these services are used in the home.
Products are still in development.
That means you can just plug appliances into the network and they can autonomously figure out how to talk to each other. This standard is based on Sun Microsystems proprietary Jini technology. The Jini technology has been finalized, but UPnP is still in development. Either standard could combine with a physical media standard, such as IEEE1394 or a powerline-based standard, to network other kinds of products. This is another system for device and appliance control at home.