JavaWorld have a new column starting this month - jiniology (yes it's awful). The first article introduces the basic concepts behind Jini and attempts to explain how it will fit into the future of networked consumer level devices.

"Jini is a set of APIs and network protocols that can help you build and deploy distributed systems that are organized as federations of services. A service can be anything that sits on the network and is ready to perform a useful function. Hardware devices, software, communications channels -- even human users themselves -- can be services. A Jini-enabled disk drive, for example, could offer a "storage" service. A Jini-enabled printer could offer a "printing" service. A federation of services, then, is a set of services, currently available on the network, that a client (meaning a program, service, or user) can bring together to help it accomplish some goal. "