Microsoft - X10

["Mark McCall" <mark@xxxxxxx>]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/cn/20020417/tc_cn/microsoft_w
orks_to_network_entire_home

Microsoft works to network entire home
Wed Apr 17,12:01 AM ET
Stephen Shankland CNET News.com

SEATTLE--Microsoft is nearing its goal to have all manner of home
equipment
join a network, with a hardware and software developer kit due by the end
of
the year to let companies link everything from light switches to
refrigerators to computers.

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To accomplish this task, Microsoft advocates use of a standard called
Simple
Control Protocol (SCP), a communication method that lets different
devices
find each other and control each other. In combination with
Israel-based
Itran Communications, Microsoft will release an SCP developer kit by the
end
of the year, said Larry Buerk, a lead program manager of Microsoft's
eHome
division.

The developer kit will be a key milestone in Microsoft's plan to extend
its
domain from controlling not PC-oriented devices such as printers and
digital
cameras but also home security systems, garage doors and thermostats. Such
a
move could help make PCs as mandatory as telephones while amplifying
Microsoft's influence with a new collection of companies.

Microsoft's initial goal is to have SCP add less than $5 to the cost of
a
device, a price that means it's more likely to show up first in more
expensive systems such as furnaces than in light switches.

Though SCP doesn't require a PC, it would elevate the status of a PC in
the
electronic pecking order. Microsoft will support SCP in its Windows XP
(news - web sites), code-named Longhorn and due in the second half of
2004,
the company said Tuesday at its WinHEC, a conference to try to align
hardware engineers from business partners with Microsoft's software
agenda.

Microsoft will license SCP to others royalty-free, Buerk said. "We're
trying
to make that the standard in the market," though there are competitors
such
as the years old but very basic X10, the more recent Cebus and Sun
Microsystems' Jini. While Jini attracted early partners such as
Whirlpool,
Sun has been recasting Jini as better for governing software processes
on
servers than gadgets.

Microsoft believes SCP will prevail because it's an extension of the
Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) technology it ships in Window Me and XP.

UPnP emerged in 1999 as a counter to Jini and a way to let electronic
gadgets find each other on the network. SCP, though, is a variation
that's
designed especially for devices that don't have the computing horsepower
of
even a comparatively feeble machine such as a printer.

UPnP speaks the networking standard of the Internet, TCP/IP, but SCP
won't
require that, Buerk said. It's designed to work on a system with as
little
as 512 bytes of memory--about as much space as it takes to store 64
letters.
For connecting to the broader UPnP networks, SCP devices will need a PC
that
can front for the devices, he said.

Itran's chip, the IT800, is expected to be in production in the third
quarter or early fourth quarter of 2002, Buerk added. The
Microsoft-Itran
development kit that developers can use to test the SCP waters will be
available in beta form by June and in final form by the end of the
year.

SCP has three levels of security, he said, to ensure that the next door
neighbors can't mess with your thermostat or, worse, a hacker on the
Internet cracking a PC and using the UPnP connection can't shut down
your
home security alarm. Security is an important consideration, given the
high-profile problem that afflicted UPnP in 2001.

All SCP communications have 128-bit encryption, with the lowest
security
level using a standard key. The "private" mode uses a security
key based on
the device's serial number transmitted over the network, and the
"secure"
mode uses a key that's never transmitted.

Meanwhile, Microsoft also is trying to let people control more devices
with
remote controls through its "Freestyle" plan. Freestyle will ship
near the
end of the year, but Microsoft will enable the first remote control
support
in the Windows XP service patch 1, due mid-2002, said Michelle Niethammer,
a
program manager in the eHome division.

The first support will give Windows the ability to understand a few
basic
commands--play, pause, record, fast-forward, rewind, channel up and
channel
down. Through an infrared emitter, those commands can be relayed to
control
set-top boxes, Niethammer said, a first step in Microsoft's hope to have
a
universal remote control that would make the PC the hub for all
commands
issued to DVD players, TVs, radio receivers and other remote-controlled
devices.

Niethammer encouraged computer manufacturing partners to start
including
remote controls along with their systems or to make them available as
add-on
components.

As reported, Microsoft has licensed Philips remote control technology
and
will let partners use it in Windows-branded remote controls.


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