Sun's Jini promises Internet dial tone

By Richard Morochove

First published July 30, 1998

Connecting your PC to the Internet is one of the most difficult tasks faced by home PC users. Even after you install the necessary software, you need to enter a phone number, network user name, password, install a dial-up script and worry about other nagging details that can leave you scratching your head.

But suppose hooking up to the network was as easy as plugging in a new telephone and making a call?

Easy as pie networking has proven an elusive goal for computer researchers over the past couple of decades. But now companies such as Sun Microsystems, Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard say the reality of network dial tone is just around the corner.

Sun's technology, called Jini (pronounced GEE-nee), is aimed at allowing a broad range of electronic devices to hook up to a universal network. You wouldn't need a computer. While computer components such as disk drives and the microprocessor are all controlled by the operating system today, in this vision they'll be part of the network community.

Jini will make all sorts of things we don't think of as computing devices today into citizens of tomorrow's network. Printers, disk drives, cellular phones, televisions, stereos, digital cameras and even cars could connect to the network and share information.

A device on a Jini network will have just two cables: a power cord and one to plug into the phone jack. Even the phone line will disappear in wireless versions of the networking system.

Jini, an outgrowth of Sun's work with the Java programming language, is designed to be lean and mean. The entire Jini network system requires just 48K of software code.

Jini will also let computing power be distributed over the network. For example, you could be sitting on a park bench with your wireless handheld device and reach out over the network to "borrow" a supercomputer for a faction of a second to complete a calculation. Then, you could tap into the daycare's Webcam to see what your daughter is doing.

A key element of Jini is an electronic bulletin board known as a Lookup service. Once plugged in, a device announces its capabilities to the rest of the network using this Lookup service. For example, a printer would announce its colour capabilities, print resolution and speed.

A surveillance camera plugged into the Jini network could automatically send images to a printer and have them archived on a recordable DVD.

Each Jini-enabled car could report wirelessly to the network, delivering information such as traffic congestion. A connected car would receive weather and traffic reports, alerting the driver to take another route to avoid an accident, for example.

Jini could add value to otherwise mundane devices. For example, hard disk drives have become low-priced commodities. A manufacturer could sell a package of a Jini-enabled hard drive and a tape backup drive. The tape drive could automatically create backups of the hard drive on the tape cartridge.

Rather than re-invent the wheel, Sun's system is designed to make use of existing technology standards. The Jini software will initially run on the Windows, Macintosh and Solaris operating systems.

Jini is in limited beta testing today. Some big names are involved in developing Jini services, including Canon, Epson, Ericsson, Mitsubishi, Novell, Oki, Seagate and Toshiba. It's expected the first round of Jini devices will be available to the public sometime in 1999.

If Jini takes off, the home computer of tomorrow may hold little resemblance to today's PC. The PC may evolve from a self-sufficient box that contains all the processing power, memory and storage it needs, into a network citizen that belongs to a community, taking advantage of the capabilities of other computers and electronics devices as required.

Sun is once again butting heads with Microsoft with this technology. Microsoft also advocates pervasive computing, but believes the best way to accomplish this is to build the capabilities into the Windows operating system.

Potentially, Microsoft has a lot to lose if Jini becomes pervasive. The network device and not the operating system would control the network. As long as you had a Jini-compatible device, it wouldn't matter if you used Windows.

Microsoft is working on a similar system called Millennium. Yet given Microsoft's penchant for bloatware, I'll bet the logo alone will require more storage than Jini's 48K system.

Hewlett-Packard hasn't formally announced its system, but HP Labs is working on its vision of pervasive computing. Given HP's commanding position in printing technology, the company is looking at how today's print and distribute model could be replaced by tomorrow's distribute and print model. For example, would it be feasible for this newspaper to be delivered electronically to your printer, rather than dropped off at your doorstep? CW