Networked appliances in home entertainment

Abstract

In recent years, advances in multimedia applications, services and intelligent networked appliances have been making ubiquitous home environments a reality. As broadband becomes part of our household infrastructure, in the same way we receive water, gas and electricity, it is envisaged that every device will have a network interface that allows it to be accessed and controlled from anywhere in the world. This idea is generating a great deal of interest where sound business models are being developed to realise such applications, based on market and user needs, that will map the future direction of Internet and home technologies. In this paper we present the current European research projects and initiatives within the area of networked appliances and home networking. These initiatives address a number of key requirements, which include on-demand multimedia services, home automation and home healthcare monitoring using sensors and global communications. We also present our framework on self-adaptive networked appliances and illustrate how services can be described semantically, and automatically composed using high level descriptions, which relate to the what part of the service composition rather than the how.