Access has announced a middleware suite aimed at enabling mobile phones and other embedded devices to interoperate with digital consumer appliances such as storage devices, TVs, cameras, hard-disk recorders, and printers. The NetFront Living Connect middleware suite supports Linux, and complies with DLNA v1.5 specs, Access said.

According to Access, the Living Connect middleware suite lets developers create devices capable of interconnecting with other DLNA v1.5 compliant devices. The stack is said to integrate with Access's NetFront browser and media player, and to be supplied as a modular SDK (software development kit) with example code and a GUI application stack implemented for Linux and the GTK2 graphics framework.

Netfront Living Connect diagram
(Click to enlarge)
APIs (application programming interfaces) available in the modular middleware suite are said to include:

• Digital Media Server (DMS)
• Digital Media Player (DMP)
• Digital Media Controller (DMC)
• Digital Media Renderer (DMR)
• Mobile Digital Media Server (M-DMS)
• Mobile Digital Media Player (M-DMP)
• Mobile Digital Media Controller (M-DMC)
• Mobile Digital Media Uploader (M-DMU)
• Mobile Digital Media Downloader (M-DMD)
• Upload Controller (+UP+)
• Download Controller (+DN+)
• Digital Media Printer (DMPr) (support planned)
• Printing Controller-1 (+PR1+) (support planned)
• Printing Controller-2 (+PR2+) (support planned)

The diagrams below illustrate some of the potential applications for the NetFront Living Connect middleware.

Player

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Upload/download

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Controller

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Print

According to Access CEO Toru Arakawa, “As more and more Internet-enabled devices become connected, it is increasingly important to develop standards that ensure these devices can share information, resources and content seamlessly and transparently.”

The Living Connect middleware appears to be available now. It is architecture- and OS-agnostic, and in addition to Linux, supports ITRON, Windows Mobile 5, BREW, and Symbian.

Access is demonstrating the Living Connect middleware suite at the DLNA booth this week at CEATEC, located near Tokyo.

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