This kind of flew under the radar, but Oasis, the international open standards consortium, announced on July 21st that its members have approved three related Web services protocol standards that make it easier to find, share, and control devices on a network. The standards are Web Services Dynamic Discovery (WS-Discovery), SOAP Over User Datagram Protocol (UDP), and Devices Profile for Web Services (DPWS).

This is great news for us and all of our partners who are working to make DPWS a standard for home control and automation.

Check out the whole press release here.

A study newly released by Parks Associates indicates you should. The market for residential energy management technology is out there, and it’s growing, with over 8 million smart meters currently deployed, and millions more planned–and the federal stimulus bill allocates $11 billion for smart grid initiatives through 2010.

Get more information at Parks Associates.