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 connectiv

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.