KIFFER.be


News from KIFFER

KIFFER partners with Acreo for OSGi resource management

KIFFER has signed an agreement with the research institute Swedish ICT - Acreo to investigate the problem of monitoring and management of shared computing resources using the software technology OSGi. The main area of study will be the “residential gateway”, but the results are expected to have implications for many other fields. “The gateway which connects today's homes to the broadband internet has evolved from a mere ‘modem’ to a powerful multimedia computing platform”, explains KIFFER founder Chris Gray. “This opens up the prospect of using this platform as the nerve-centre of a digital home, providing for example eHealth or smart energy services or – most importantly – services which no one has even thought of yet. To use this potential fully it is essential that parties other than the communication service provider are able to install software on the gateway without risk to the smooth operation of the gateway. OSGi technology addresses many aspects of this challenge, such as isolation between software modules and flexible control over access rights, but one thorny problem remains: that of ensuring that a module will not render the system unusable by consuming too much memory or CPU time, opening too many network sockets, etc.”. Together Acreo and KIFFER will explore the possibilities using KIFFER's MikaMax runtime environment as a testbed, and drawing on KIFFER's extensive experience of working with OSGi technology.

/K/ Embedded Java Solutions becomes KIFFER.be

After almost ten years of trading as /K/ Embedded Java Solutions, we decided to change our name. For one thing the typographical oddity of the “/k/”, while not without its merits, sometimes made us hard to find in a list or catalogue. The name was also too specific; the use of Java in embedded systems remains our main focus, but we also have skills in other areas such as Linux systems programming or SDK development which are not reflected in the old name.

For our customers nothing changes; we are still the same legal entity and still the same people with the same dedication to realising your vision of embedded and mobile systems driven by Java and OSGi technologies.