Sun making user interaction intuitive through SPOT sensors [San Jose Mercury News]

What if you could transfer the address book from your old cell phone to a new one by tilting the old phone like a pitcher and wirelessly pouring hundreds of numbers into the new phone — instead of punching in each one?

Life would be a bit easier. Enabling sensor networks to do these types of tasks is expected to become easier now that Sun Microsystems’ research lab has developed wireless sensors that run Java programming applications.

The Santa Clara-based server-and-software company is announcing today that the research and development community will be able to experiment with the Java-based Sun SPOT sensors starting in May.

The Sun SPOT developer’s kit could change the way consumers interact with their home entertainment systems.

“In consumer electronics, they have a lot of knobs and a lot of dials. Consumers are really intimidated by a lot of this stuff,” said Randy Giusto, group vice president of Mobility, Computing and Consumer at the IDC research firm. But hand gesture technology that uses wireless sensors may mean Guisto will no longer “have to grab one of the 20 remotes that I have in my house that never seem to work right to control this stuff.”

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