Not content with dominating the internet, Google is to set its sights on integrating with users' whole homes too.A new range of devices, to launch by the end of the year, will include light bulbs, dishwashers, thermostats and “almost anything electrical”.
Wireless technology will allow these devices to communicate with tablets, computers and phones for remote control and to record data.
Announcing the new initiative, codenamed Project Tungsten, at a software developers’ conference in San Francisco, Google said its aim was to let a range of devices “discover, connect and communicate” with each other.
In a series of demonstrations using its Android operating system and called Android@home, Google showed a tablet that could turn lights on and off, send music from the internet to a hifi and even a “near-field communications” chip which simply had to be touched on a set of speakers to start them playing an album.
Although entering the crowded “home automation” market is brave move by Google, the firm highlighted that 400,000 Android devices are now being activiated every day.
