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Microsoft Forges Ahead With New Home-Automation OS
suraj.sun writes "More than a decade ago, Microsoft execs, led by Chairman Bill Gates, were touting a future where .Net coffee pots, bulletin boards, and refrigerator magnets would be part of homes where smart devices would communicate and inter-operate. Microsoft hasn't given up on that dream. In 2010, Microsoft researchers published a white paper about their work on a HomeOS and a HomeStore — early concepts around a Microsoft Research-developed home-automation system. Those concepts have morphed into prototypes since then, based on a white paper, 'An Operating System for the Home,' (PDF) published this month on the Microsoft Research site. The core of HomeOS is described in the white paper as a kernel that is agnostic to the devices to which it provides access, allowing easy incorporation of new devices and applications. The HomeOS itself 'runs on a dedicated computer in the home (e.g., the gateway) and does not require any modifications to commodity devices,' the paper added. Microsoft has been testing HomeOS in 12 real homes over the past four to eight months, according to the latest updates. As is true with all Microsoft Research projects, there's no guarantee when and if HomeOS will be commercialized, or even be 'adopted' by a Microsoft product group."
It wasn't only a decade ago when Microsoft and Bill Gates talked about this. In Bill Gates' book The Road Ahead , published back in 1995, he was already having visions of interconnected home devices and appliances. I think this has been long time innovative thought of Mr. Gates. You have to remember that even Microsoft was still a relatively small player in the industry and had only starting to gain momentum.
I was still a teenager back then but I found many of his ideas quite fascinating, especially the ones that resolved around similar stuff to HomeOS. While many Slashdotters say that Bill Gates merely copied his best ideas like BASIC, he also did have a very large amount of original ideas and thoughts. He described in good details about his visions for the future and how and why something like this would be great for everyones home.
In that sense, and despite what many slashdotters think, Bill Gates was quite a hacker. Actually, he really was and still is, and he got lucky to have parents with business background so he could mix those two capabilities. This ultimately led him to build the largest and greatest software company the world has ever seen, Microsoft.
If you haven't read the book, and even if you have something against Gates in your mind, I highly recommend to read it. It's a great read and truly lets you get into the innovative mindset of Bill Gates. Back when he was a young hacker and like with many other young people, he had tons of ideas in his mind.
Used to be really interested in home automation. Had an x10 setup for a while (terrible system by the way) and played around with some custom software.
There was a time when everyone thought this was the future (along with virtual reality and other such things). I bought into it. I figured by now I’d be casually shouting orders at the various appliances in my house.
We now have the technology to do all the cool stuff we dreamed about in the early 90s. The big problem however, is once you automate the lights, temperature, and coffee pot what else is there that makes any sense (and even the lights are more of a novelty than much practical benefit). The “house of the future” feeling is cool and it’s fun to play with... but most of it is impractical and would seem to add very little benefit for a whole lot of complexity.
Please tell me when it's safe to come out from behind the sofa. My HomeOS appliances all got malware and have formed a botnet. My DVD player is trundling around the living room with a steak knife demanding my credit card details and my fridge has ejected spam all over the kitchen. I knew I should have installed Norton!
The core of HomeOS is described in the white paper as a kernel that is agnostic to the devices to which it provides access,
I'm impressed with the major advances in AI that Microsoft is introducing. Not only does this OS seem to be sentient, but it is also apparently programmed to ponder deep metaphysical concepts.
The kernel must be thinking: "These devices I work with may indeed physically exist. Or they may just be something like a software simulation that's being fed to me. As a humble computer program, I really don't have enough evidence to make a final conclusion either way."
It is my understanding that Microsoft Research does more or less whatever the hell they want. Very occasionally, their stuff ends up in actual Microsoft products, at which point it relentlessly marches in lockstep with the needs of Windows and Office once again. Heck, some time ago we were discussing an MS research project that used a gumstix module, running linux(not even the WinCE port that is available!) for some sort of low-power quasi-persistent network connection scheme...
And implement the Hyper Text Coffe Pot Control Protocol and not a closed standard. Huh, who said that was an April 1st joke?
Sounds kinda gay.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Or maybe they're using the right tool for the job? LaTeX was specifically designed to automate typesetting, so authors can concentrate purely on the semantic content. Word was designed for non-tech users who want to make gaudy documents that liberally abuse WordArt.
No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
But my understanding is the actual VALUES of those masking patterns differ, so there is the possibility of a GUID overlapping with a UUID, even though they both use the same string format for printing.
There's more to a value than it's display format, and the fact that the two id generation algorithms are different is where I see the possible data conflicts arising in production systems. Despite the sameness of the string format of GUIDs and UUIDs, I think you'd be risking some issues if you allow .Net/GUID systems and Java/C/C++/Unix/UUID systems to cohabit the same id space.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
The really ugly problem with 'Home Automation' doesn't seem to be purely technological(ie. PIRs, contact switches, reed switchs, and relays are antedeluvian, adequate-speed interconnect over assorted wires also ancient, over RF also pretty old, and computers capable of crunching rulesets based on some combination of sensor outputs and RTCs are 80s stuff); but in the fact that the low-hanging fruit is too boring to be worth the trouble and the higher-hanging fruit would be massively complex and require a continual morass of several-industries-wide cooperation...
Boring case, you can drop a relay on each of your light switches, get your thermostat under control, and put some PIR presence detectors in place. If security is a concern, put up some cameras and stash a DVR somewhere. All easy; but not as inexpensive as one might like(especially in jurisdictions where touching mains current means bringing in electricians and permits and stuff), and you really have to want your bitchin' home theatre system to automatically close the drapes and dim the lights, or be very prone to leaving the stove on to fork over the additional money for the ability to remote control those things(and we are all familiar with the office comedy that is frantically waving your arms to make the 'smart' lights turn back on...)
Now, interesting case is where you expose every detail of all the devices in the home, quite possibly adding more sensors depending on the device category, and start having them cooperate intelligently to achieve various objectives. However, this is where the complexity gets ugly. Consider the history of ACPI: They wanted a way to allow computers to be more intelligent about power use, peripheral idle states, and environmental monitoring. Despite being hammered out in a near-duopoly environment(with MS on the software side and Intel on hardware), ACPI was a screaming pile of shit that barely worked properly even on mainstream OEM wintels until comparatively recently(and, even today, there are vendor-specific quirk packages, messy hacks, and peripherals that don't play quite right), never mind the poor bastards who dabbled in DIY or alternate OSes.
Now, you want the Home Of The Future? See to it that your utility meters, consumer appliances, home entertainment electronics, computers, water heaters, plumbing fixtures, climate control and thermostat systems, entry detection and security systems, and who knows what else all expose their sensors and capabilities in a standardized way. Don't let the fact that most of the items on that list have one or more industry consortia squabbling about the details of how their own little fiefdoms will be semi-standardized within themselves, much less on a broader basis, worry you.
Once you have the data to look at and the buttons and knobs to fiddle with, you just need some rulesets that make the devices collaborate intelligently and a set of interfaces that expose the power, but hide most of the complexity, to a degree sufficient that the fancy new hotness is actually worth the trouble.
Basically, you've got a problem whose complexity is fairly similar in scale to the sort of thing that smallish networking/datacenter entities would have an SNMP jocky on hand for, except that none of the hardware actually has management support yet, and the end result has to be easy enough for Joe Consumer to use. Also, it should ideally not be a dystopian surveillance nightmare or a script-kiddie playground. Not an easy problem....
I for one welcome Microsoft Home Automation Line of products...
I feel safe with their Home automation Line
Or H.A.L. for short.......
ermmmm...
on second thoughts...
Laters Sol "Have you found the secrets of the universe? Asked Zebade "I'm sure I left them here somewhere"
If the Ford Sync system is any indication, Microsoft seems to be able to pull off something like this quite well.
You're kidding right? I have the Ford Sync system from Microsoft in my new F150. And you do, literally, have to reboot the truck sometimes to get the USB interface to sync up. I mean come to a stop, turn off the ignition, wait for a few seconds and then turn it back on and pray to the sync-gods that it works this time so you can finally be on your way.
The cheapest solution would probably be to have a small camera inside the fridge, and get someone on Mechanical Turk to fill out an inventory for you. And that's just sad.
I always wanted to make my own Java Toaster. It burns the weather forecast into your toast in the morning.
Now the *smart* fridge lays in a huge order of crap because you obviously can't get enough of it. And since your birthday is coming up, your smartfridge *suggests* to your friends that you'd really like some presents that mesh with your new-found zeal for crap, and a crap-themed party. So you all end up at some restaurant where you're all secretly grossed out eating the crap, but nobody wants to hurt each others feelings and say "this is crap!" and you don't want to hurt theirs either.
After a few weeks w/o eating anything much, because there's only crap left in the fridge, even though you throw it out every day, your smarttoilet notifies your insurer that you're losing weight, and there must be something wrong with you. You get an email saying that your insurance premiums have now doubled, and that you are required to submit daily test results from your smarttoilet to maintain coverage.
In frustration, you flush the crap from the smartfridge down the smarttoilet, which obviously can't handle it - collaborating with the smartfidge, they come to the conclusion that if you're flushing your favourite crap down the toilet, you might be a danger to yourself or others, notifies the police and locks all the doors.
During your psychiatric evaluation, you refuse to eat crap, even though the smartfidge has reported that you LOVE crap. The shrinks label you as being uncooperative and possibly schizo, since you are obviously not the same crap-loving person you were before you "lost it." They recommend you be held indefinitely for your own protection.
The judge agrees. In frustration, you shout out "Would YOU eat this crap???" The judge says, "of course I do, every day." After all, he's seen too many consequences of rage against the machine to know that resistance is futile. He eats the crap the fridge serves every day, because he knows who the real overlords are.
Let's call it what it is, Anti-Social Media.
By most accounts, Gates never wrote any code for DOS. He simply stole CP/M, and used a binary editor to rename some things. They way he has gained market share, created an illegal monopoly, bought out politicians to keep his monopoly, I'm pretty sure his character fits the type to start out illegally.
What people tend to forget (especially the shills) is that Windows did not have TCP/IP drivers included until Windows 95B which came out in 98 since Windows 98 was late. Microsoft stated very publicly that the Internet was just a fad and that no business would ever adopt an open technology. Win 95, 98, and even the NT series NT 3.x and 4.x were developed to run with primarily NetBUI which was a proprietary non-routable protocol by Microsoft.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
By most accounts, Gates never wrote any code for DOS. He simply stole CP/M, and used a binary editor to rename some things.
By most accounts, Gates purchased QDOS, which was a fairly primitive clone (i.e. a from-scratch rewrite) of CP/M - much like Linux was originally a primitive clone of Unix.