Marc Fleury of JBoss fame blogged about his new project, OpenRemote. OpenRemote aims to build open source middleware, UI, and hardware for home automation while working hard on interoperability with all existing protocols and systems. Also working on the project is Mark Spencer, the creator of Asterisk.
At O’Reilly we’re watching the move of computing from desktop computers out into the world, and this encompasses everything from the iPhone-inspired new mobile web to the Nike+ and, yes, home automation. The interest of alphageeks like Mark and Marc (not to be confused with Marky Mark) is a significant sign. Other items of proliferated computing interest seen lately: the projects that everyone recreates when they get into hardware hacking, Zigbee’s killer app may well turn out to be smart power meters, detecting ill elders via abnormal power use, and a clever system using hi-res weight as unique primary key. And don’t forget IBM “Master Inventor” Andy Stanford-Clark‘s house, which Twitters its energy use among other things.