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The Obje™ Software
Architecture
The Obje™ software
architecture is an interconnection technology
that enables digital
devices and services
to easily interoperate over both wired and wireless
networks. It provides a simple "meta standard"
for interoperation that enables people to access
information and services from anywhere, in a completely
hassle-free, ad hoc manner.
"Thirty
years ago, PARC reinvented the software
industry with the notion of object-oriented
programming. Today the most famous
of research labs is applying many
of the same ideas to mobile hardware,
and the results could be just as
revolutionary."
-
Cade Metz, PC Magazine |
By providing a uniform solution
to interoperation, the Obje platform
makes it easier for
suppliers to build devices and services that work
together. Putting assembly control into the hands
of end-users also reduces the burden of developing
applications, because particular customization
can
be performed in context.
Standards-Independent
The Obje platform works with all standards, including
those
that
have not yet been defined. It requires no central
coordination, pre-configuring, or special set-up,
and can be easily used by people with no technical
expertise.
It provides users a way
to combine devices to build simple solutions for
hundreds of problems – easily assembling
their particular applications from available devices
and
services. It offers manufacturers a simple, fast,
and timely solution to the increasing requirement
to connect products.
The Obje platform works with devices
of all kinds – including cell phones, computers,
personal digital assistants (PDAs), printers, set-top
boxes, bar-code scanners, video displays, and others
– from any manufacturer.
How It Works
Typically, communication among
devices or services is structured into layers of
protocols. Agreement on all layers is required before
the devices and services are built. Developing and
gaining acceptance of these agreements is a long,
costly process that depends on broad industry consensus.
The Obje Interoperability Platform builds
upon other industry standards. For example, it
can run on top of any mobile code
mechanism, such as Jini.
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Instead of working out all agreements
in advance, The Obje platform specifies
a few very general agreements in the form of domain-independent
programmatic
"meta-interfaces".
These meta-interfaces use mobile code to allow
new agreements to be put in
place at run-time, enabling devices and services
to dynamically extend the capabilities of their
clients.
The Obje meta-interfaces reduce
the number of agreements that must be made between
communicating entities. All
Obje devices
or services, which are called
“components,” implement and make use
of one or more of these meta-interfaces.
Applications
The PARC research team
has developed a wide variety of components and
applications that
require the architecture to cope with diverse performance,
security, and usability requirements, as well as
a variety of data types.
Applications include a multimedia
set top box, a public display system, and a system
called “Casca,” which enables members
of a team to share documents and device resources
such as cameras, printers, and speakers.
While Casca was designed to be
a collaborative tool, no component functionality
was hardwired into it. For example, Casca was not
specifically written to support video conferencing,
but it could acquire that functionality as soon
as members of the group shared cameras, speakers,
and microphones.
These applications demonstrate
that the Obje platform supports
a wide range of applications and components.
The Obje platform is a key enabler for
PARC’s vision of ubiquitous computing, in
which people are able to connect with the computation
that is all around them, no matter where they are
or what type of device they are using. It overcomes
the problem of multiple, incompatible standards
that prevents ubiquitous computing from becoming
a reality.
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