Jini

(pronounced GEE-nee; loosely derived from the Arabic for magician) Software from Sun Microsystems that seeks to simplify the connection and sharing of devices, such as printers and disk drives, on a network. Currently adding such devices to a computer or network requires installation and boot-up, but a device that incorporates Jini will announce itself to the network, provide some details about its capabilities, and immediately become accessible to other devices on the network. Under this technology it would be possible to create distributed computing, whereby capabilities are shared among the machines on a common network. This would allow users to access the power and features of any device on the network and would free the desktop computer from holding all the memory, storage and processing power it needs for any job. For example, if a disk drive on a network had Jini capabilities, any computer on that network could use the drive as though it were its own. Because Jini has the potential to make operating systems incidental to the power of networks, some have seen Jini as an attempt to reduce the influence of Windows.