At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) Sun unveiled the .com Home which introduces consumers to a broad range of innovative everyday appliances, products, technologies and services using Java and Jini technologies that are expected to revolutionize the way that people work and play.

The .com Home exhibit demonstrates Internet-enabled solutions using Sun's technologies from leading industry partners and manufacturers in the wireless, interactive television and home gateway markets.

Sun's .com Home demonstrates how dozens of different consumer appliances and services can interact seamlessly into a smart home network, offering a high level of consumer convenience.

Scott McNealy, chairman and chief executive officer of Sun Microsystems, delivered a keynote address at CES discussing how open, network technologies, such as Sun's, are making the service-driven network and the .com Home a reality for consumers. You can view a web cast of this talk on Sun's web site at: http://www.sun.com/webcast/ces2000/

Making the .com Home a Reality

Sun's .com Home demonstration was created largely in conjunction with GTE and Cisco Systems as part of an overall initiative to create a "Connected Family" environment. The exhibit highlights networked products and services in a kitchen, interactive entertainment center, home control and security system and office setup.

Industry partners including Bosch Siemens, GTE, Cisco, Oracle, Echelon, Motorola, Nokia, Sony, Sears, Whirlpool and others are utilizing Sun's open consumer technologies to design and develop products and services. These innovative new products and prototypes leverage Sun's Java and Jini technologies and are designed to take advantage of consumer and business services being dynamically downloaded from the Internet. Products that were once standalone now not only have the ability to work together, but also the ability to leverage new features that manufacturers can provide after the product is purchased -- providing new capabilities that benefit the consumer.

The growing interactive television market is clearly an area where content developers are looking for a reliable software platform upon which to build the next generation of interactive television services, such as Electronic Programming Guide, Video-on-Demand and Enhanced Broadcasting. The Java platform, along with the Java TV application programming interface (API), provides an ideal development and deployment platform for emerging interactive services for content developers.

The development of consumer products and services using Java and Jini technologies has increased as Sun's consumer technologies have been embraced as a standard for a wide range of devices across multiple industries. Java technology's open, cross-platform capabilities appeal to device manufacturers and service providers, allowing them to develop and deploy products for consumers rapidly and cost-effectively. Several industry and standards groups including Home Audio/Video Interoperability (HAVi), Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) and the Open Services Gateway Initiative (OSGi ) have adopted the Java platform into their development specifications.

Additionally, more than a dozen wireless industry manufacturers and service providers have joined together to develop and define an open standard for wireless devices using Sun's Java platform.

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