[Embedlets-dev] Global Light Blinker update (it works!)

[Ted K. <tk...@ya...>]

After putting in the standard 'amazing amount of work' in over the past 3 weeks
I am pleased to announce that:

1) The Global Light Blinker project has now been officially accepted by the
JXTA community:

http://globallightblinker.jxta.org


2) The software actually works!  At 9:51 PM EST on Monday the latest version of
the software successfully controlled a remote simulated light through the
internet.  The amazing thing is that the light was at a friend's house, I was
at my house and we were both behind NAT boxes!  To me the success of this
experiment means that we can now monitor and control any device in almost any
home or business from out on the internet.  If we switch to JXTA's secure
transport then we can also do this securely.  As far as I am aware, we are the
first group on the planet to achieve this using an open, secure and scalable
networking technology and I think that we are well-poised to meet the demand of
the potentially huge market that we have just opened up.


The software is currently in the project's CVS (at jxta.org) and I hope to have
the first alpha release ready to go by the end of the week.


Andrzej:  Thanks for all of the work you did on submitting well-thought-out and
well-documented build.xml files (Ant Rocks!  ;-) and directory structures for
Embedlets, Outpost and Outhouse.  I used these as models for the
GlobalLightBlinker project with excellent results!  I also relied heavily on
your 'programming guidelines' document which I think made a significant
difference too.  The code still needs to be cleaned up a bit but this cleanup
should be done by the end of the week. 


Chris:  I had promised that as soon as I had the GLB project and software
running that I would get back to you about the Embedlets software and ideas
that you have submitted recently.  I will be ready to pick this thread back up
as soon as the GLB alpha release is finished later this week.

My next area to focus on is to create a JXTA/Outpost interface and to build an
Outpost based application that can be used to remotely monitor and control
physical devices in the home (or business).  I think that we need to work
through the materials and issues you submitted earlier before we can move
forward with this.


James:  It is still looking like an RS232/muvium based appliance controller is
a good initial inexpensive way to go for the open lamp/appliance controller
hardware.  My thought is to make and disseminate an initial batch of 10 boxes,
then follow this up with 100 boxes, then 1000 boxes.  If we can actually hit
the 1000 box goal I suppose that any further goals will take care of
themselves.


Bruce:  In my mind the next logical step beyond the RS232/muvium boxes is
Ethernet/TStik based boxes using HTTP based JXME.  I think that as soon as
people see the RS232 based boxes remotely controlling and monitoring things
inside their homes (and businesses) that they will come up with all sorts of
ideas for things to be remotely monitored and controlled that RS232 can not
easily reach.  TStik seems to be an excellent way to meet this need. 


Anyway, project JXTA's 'marketeer' has contacted me about doing a front page
'spotlight' article on the Global Blinker Project as soon as I am ready to
submit the information.  I think that the GLB project is extremely marketable
and that it will be fairly easy to get articles about it into almost any or all
of the major Java news sites (Java.net, JavaWorld, JavaLobby, etc.) and
probably many non-Java news sites (like slashdot), but not just yet.  I want
move forward step-by-step so that if and when large numbers of people start
taking notice of us that we have rock-solid software and hardware technologies
to give them.


Ted

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