RBR has joined the Smart Ocean Sensor Consortium (SOSC) as a founding member. The SOSC is a group of key manufacturers and users of Oceanographic instruments dedicated to improving the reliability, utility and cost-effectiveness of hydrographic sensor networks through the adoption, development, and promotion of appropriate standard interfaces and protocols. Manufacturing members will supply a universal unique identifier (UUID) with each compliant instrument, and will comply with a group-defined interface to retrieve the UUID from the device's serial port. The SOSC will work towards a sponsored submission to the Open Geospatial Consortium process as one of its goals for wider acceptance and dissemination. Ph. +1 709 778 0200, Fax.