Interesting announcements from Arkados and the HomePlug space

Powerline should be worth watching in 2009 as we see the progression of the IEEE and the ITU standards that hopefully can resolve the massive confusion that has existed with multiple specifications on the market.

Arkados made several interesting powerline-related announcements last week that indicate to me the wide potential that this networking can serve for not only AV type of configurations, but also control. Here's a sampling of what news I received:

• Checkolite International, a world-leading supplier of fashion forward lighting designs, and Arkados®, a leading supplier of system-on-chip solutions for powerline networking, are bringing easy-to-use multiroom audio and lighting control to the home.
• Freescale Semiconductor and Arkados join forces at this week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas to debut the “whole-house audio in a box.” The versatile platform uses Arkados’ HomePlug® based best-in-class multimedia streaming technology, which has been adopted by audio market leaders for custom home installations, and Freescale’s Synkro wireless communications technology, enabling untethered devices to control and monitor the system and display live data.