PARC Wants Devices To All Get Along

(Mis)Uses of Technology

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

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.