Project Sun SPOT (Sun; Small Programmable Object Technology) is a snapshot of ongoing research in Sun Microsystems Laboratories.

Project Sun SPOT began at Sun Labs in late 2003 as an exploration of wireless transducer technologies. Since then, the project team has been investigating new ways to make small devices smarter, more secure, and more capable-with considerable success. For example, the "Squawk VM" (a small JME virtual machine) provides the ability to run wireless transducer applications "on the metal," saving overhead and improving performance; "SPOTworld" simplifies development by providing a single tool for programming, configuring, managing and monitoring Sun SPOT devices; and the use of Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) dramatically improves device security.

Over time, as innovation continues, as the Sun SPOT hardware platform gets even smaller and as more powerful processors, new sensors, new radios, and new power supplies are developed, the platform will inspire a growing number of real-world applications.

Today, the SunSPOT team is focusing its ongoing research and innovation efforts on:

• Operating Environment
  By basing the Sun SPOT platform on Java technology-top to bottom, hardware and software-the Sun SPOT team has made it easier to write code for small wireless transducers, sensors, and other consumer electronics devices. Developers can write a program in Java, load it on a device, run it, and debug it with standard Java IDEs.
  
  
• Development Tools: NetBeans and SPOTWorld
  Unlike other embedded systems, SunSPOT developers are able to use industry standard Java development tools such as Netbeans or Eclipse to programs and debug their applications. Sun SPOT developers find extra productivity and power from the tight integration with NetBeans, the Sun-sponsored, open integrated development environment (IDE) tool for Java development. NetBeans is available for download free of charge at www.netbeans.org.
  
  The SunSPOT team is supplementing NetBeans with SPOTWorld -- a single tool for programming, configuring, managing and monitoring SPOT devices. SPOTWorld allows developers on the SunSPOT platform to address the issues of programming and managing hundreds of devices spread out over a large area.
  
  
• Security
  By using ECC technology developed at Sun Labs, the Sun SPOT team has made it possible to add strong security without compromising the limited memory and processing capabilities of small devices. Sun Labs' ECC implementations power a small-footprint, secure Web server stack (including HTTP and SSL), nicknamed Sizzle, that can be embedded inside a wide array of small devices, so you can monitor and control them securely via a Web browser.
  
  
• Scalability
  Any device or technology created on the Sun SPOT platform will be capable of leveraging the massive scalability of Sun infrastructure (vertically integrated systems from one to thousands of processors; horizontally scalable grids incorporating thousands of nodes; storage scalability to petabytes of capacity, etc.), so deployments can be carried out on virtually any scale with ease.
  
  

With Project Sun SPOT, Sun is giving developers a platform for inspiration and innovation on the device side.

" We've created a platform that greatly simplifies development and experimentation with small wireless devices, and we've opened it up to the development community ", said Roger Meike, research director for Project Sun SPOT. " There will be tremendous opportunities to apply and expand this technology in all sorts of new and exciting ways. "