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I want, I want, I want. How about you propose how this should be done? It's harder than it looks, and no, Unix is not the one-and-all answer to everything. Tak

by bkudria 17y ago

I want, I want, I want. How about you propose how this should be done? It's harder than it looks, and no, Unix is not the one-and-all answer to everything. Take one of his example scenarios: "When my alarm clock goes off in the morning, get the latest tech news podcast (downloaded overnight) from my computer via WiFi or a wired network connection. Play the podcast through the alarm clock’s speaker/s. If I hit “snooze” on the alarm clock, pause the podcast. Once I stop the alarm, remember where I was up to in the podcast and give that information back to my computer. Now when I go to listen to the podcast while I’m eating breakfast, it will continue playing where it left off." This has a number of hidden assumptions: * What is "the latest news podcast"? One user-selected source, or a blended filtered combination, or a crawled set selected based on previous behavior? * How does a (not the!) computer know how to talk to the alarm clock? I hope I don't have to create a home network myself, cause I know my Mom certainly can't. How is this connection authorized? What happens if the power goes out on the computer - what will the clock do? What if the clock batteries fail - will the computer play the podcast instead? * Is the saved position synced only the one source computer (I hope not). What if the network to the computer is down - can the alarm clock sync somewhere else? * Can I resume listening to the podcast on a different computer at breakfast? My partner/sibling/friend's computer? How do I log in? How is the position data saved along with my identity? How does the breakfast computer address the first computer, or the alarm clock? The problem here is not access to the external APIs (not that hard) but federation, identity management, authorization, privacy considerations, and addressing between these disparate systems. Proposal adopting existing standards for these requirements, or new proposals for standards are, of course, appreciated.

scottjackson 17y ago
Here's the thing -- I could come up with individual answers to those questions based on arbitrary decisions that I make ("the user selects the source", "it's implied that a WiFi network already operates in the house", "the position is only synced to the source computer", "you can listen to the podcast at a different computer"), but you're totally right -- arbitrarily-decided-on answers doth not a standard make. Like I said in another thread, I am just a peon with access to a keyboard. I trust that there are developers and system-setter-upper-ers much smarter than I who could put this into place.
noste 17y ago
On the existing standard front, there is Universal Plug and Play (http://www.upnp.org/ http://www.upnp.org/) that aims to "to enable simple and robust connectivity among consumer electronics, intelligent appliances and mobile devices from many different vendors." I haven't played with this stuff at all, but there appears to be fair amount activity in this space: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UPnP_AV_MediaServers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UPnP_AV_MediaServers I don't know how much of the example scenario you could implement within the confines of UPnP, but perhaps it could be part of the solution.

by bkudria 17y ago

scottjackson 17y ago

Here's the thing -- I could come up with individual answers to those questions based on arbitrary decisions that I make ("the user selects the source", "it's implied that a WiFi network already operates in the house", "the position is only synced to the source computer", "you can listen to the podcast at a different computer"), but you're totally right -- arbitrarily-decided-on answers doth not a standard make. Like I said in another thread, I am just a peon with access to a keyboard. I trust that there are developers and system-setter-upper-ers much smarter than I who could put this into place.

noste 17y ago

On the existing standard front, there is Universal Plug and Play (http://www.upnp.org/ http://www.upnp.org/) that aims to "to enable simple and robust connectivity among consumer electronics, intelligent appliances and mobile devices from many different vendors." I haven't played with this stuff at all, but there appears to be fair amount activity in this space: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UPnP_AV_MediaServers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UPnP_AV_MediaServers I don't know how much of the example scenario you could implement within the confines of UPnP, but perhaps it could be part of the solution.