Today Cisco Systems said it plans to spend $120 million to buy Seattle-based Pure Networks, a company that makes software to manage home networks. Pure’s network management software and underlying protocols, which make a connected device visible to a network, are becoming more important now that devices beyond computers and their peripherals are networked in the home.

Cisco has already tried to address this trend by using Pure’s technology in its Linksys Easy Link Advisor program, which was introduced on Linksys routers in April and is aimed at making it easier to manage multiple PCs and equipment. Today’s acquisition was driven, in part, by vendor and consumer satisfaction with those routers. It’s also because Cisco is trying to drive its vision of an intelligent network as the hub of the connected digital home. Pure’s software and HNAP protocol, which works with any IP network, from Wi-Fi to Ethernet, will underlie that intelligent network.

In contrast with Intel, which views the home network as a group of devices centered around a PC, Cisco’s Chris Dobrec, director of worldwide strategy for Linksys, says networked devices can and should have the level of intelligence built into them to recognize and talk to one another without using the PC as an intermediary. That’s a common enough vision, one that would allow you to take a photo with a digital camera and easily send it to your friend’s camera without ever using a PC. The days of standing there for 8 minutes at a family reunion while 10 people pass along their cameras to snag a shot would be over.

The problem with that scenario is that intelligence in devices doesn’t come cheap. In addition to a networking chip, certain protocols require a lot of CPU power or memory in order to identify and disclose themselves to a network. Dobrec says the HNAP protocol is light enough that it doesn’t need additional chips and could easily be embedded on existing hardware. Cisco plans to push the HNAP protocol as a standard and get device makers on board.

Eliminating the PC as a middleman won’t be easy with Intel pushing its own consumer networking technology, Cliffside, which uses Wi-Fi to connect devices and is scheduled to be introduced next year. The capability is already built into Intel’s Centrino chips, and will be activated with a software update in about eight months. Both HNPA and Intel’s Cliffside project will network Internet-connected devices as well as those that aren’t connected to the Internet.

AMD isn’t going after the mobile Internet device market that Intel and other chip vendors are eying. AMD’s senior VP and chief marketing officer, Nigel Dessau, told eWeek, “What we are saying is that we are a smaller company and we have to focus on what we do well at this point. We are watching that segment rather than playing in it, but as it matures we’ll see where it goes.” Sounds like a good plan for AMD, which already has chips that might work for Netbooks and needs to focus on righting itself.

As the debate rages over who can access the white spaces between licensed digital television spectrum, the Federal Communications Commission itself has emerged as a hot ticket. Everyone from the NFL to Lollapalooza is clamoring to have its events be used as a staging ground by the agency for the testing of devices aimed at utilizing portions of the DTV spectrum for wireless Internet access. The FCC has said it will test interference of the white space devices in 10 geographic locations or buildings in the DC area; it’s looking for other venues as well.

At issue is the ability of these proposed white space devices to operate in the spectrum, which will become available after the conversion to digital TV signals next year. Companies such as Google, Motorola, Microsoft and Intel all would like to see that spectrum used for wireless broadband access. However users of wireless microphones — everyone from recording stars to preachers at megachurches — are against that plan as they’re worried about interference on their wireless mics. The National Association of Broadcasters is opposing the efforts as well, arguing that such devices could interfere with the transmission of DTV channels.

The FCC is expected to make a decision about them later this year. Depending on the summer concert lineup, it may want to hold off doing its field tests until Madonna’s latest tour starts in October or until Led Zeppelin reunites — might as well enjoy the music along the way.

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