Microsoft is working on a new home communication standard called Simple Control Protocol (SCP), intended to allow home products to communicate with and control each other. SCP is designed to allow everything from coffee makers to refrigerators find each other over a network and communicate. Microsoft is working with Itran Communications to release an SCP developer kit by year’s end. The developer kit will be instrumental in Microsoft’s plans to provide system architecture not just for PCs and digital cameras, but such objects as garage doors, thermostats and even security systems. Microsoft hopes that SCP will add less than $5 to the cost of a device. It won’t require that users own a PC, but a PC will increase functionality. SCP will be licensed royalty-free. SCP is intended to contain three levels of security in order to prevent hacking.
Published: May 7, 2002