http://www.news24.com/News24/Technology/0,1113,2-13_1191748,00.html
Home of the future
Elinor Mills Abreu
Redmond - Welcome to the home of the future - at least the Microsoft version.
It has a front door that unlocks using biometrics instead of keys and a kitchen that reads recipes aloud, but no whiz-bang gadgetry in the bathroom.
In fact there's no bathroom at all. At least not yet.
Featuring technologies that are five to eight years away from being offered to the public, the prototype "Microsoft Home" at the company's Redmond, Washington, campus allows researchers to test concepts surrounding how people will use technology in their everyday lives in the future.
The home doesn't have a bathroom because it is housed in Microsoft's Executive Briefing Centre, which is a public facility. Its restroom would have to be built according to industrial building standards, Jonathan Cluts, director of consumer prototyping and strategy at Microsoft, said in a recent interview.
"We didn't build a real [bathroom] because it wouldn't be like the one you would have in your home," he said.
"The idea is to show how software can enhance peoples' lives in the future," Cluts said of the home, which was originally created in 1994 but moved to a new location in 2000.
Some people may not be ready for those enhancements, though. A recent survey from consulting firm Accenture found that more than half of some 5 000 consumers polled said they did not want a wired home network.
But Cluts wasn't too concerned about the survey.
"We are committed to building technology that adapts to people, not people having to adapt to technology and being controlled by technology," he said. "We believe that people will embrace any future technology because of its usefulness to their lives, not because it may have some specific network or protocol."
Modern-day Montecello
Except for the lack of a bathroom, or a master bedroom - which an earlier version had - the prototype is realistic, depending on your income bracket.
Outside the front entry, there are the sounds of birds twittering and a Japanese-inspired waterfall sculpture generates negative ions. An iris scanner next to the front door enables residents to get inside without fumbling for keys or disarming a home alarm system.
Visitors use a touch screen to ring the door "bell" and leave text or voice messages, while a smart card can provide access to a chute for leaving packages and mail in a secured area.
After a resident enters, the computer system can set the lights, blinds, temperature, music and TV to the individual's preferences automatically or upon voice commands.
The home computer system featured a female voice that sounded less personable than the cunning HAL spaceship computer from the film 2001: A Space Odyssey.
To summon the system, Cluts spoke aloud the letters "M-C", which he said stood for "Monticello", the Virginia home built by Thomas Jefferson in the late 18th century that was one of the first to feature indoor plumbing.
During a recent tour, Cluts demonstrated how telephone, front door, e-mail and other messages can be retrieved and read aloud through a control panel by the front door, or through televisions and PCs in other rooms. Residents can even see who is at the door without getting off the couch by viewing a video camera display on the TV or PC.
Control panels, various video screens and portable tablets scattered throughout the house, as well as vocal commands, can be used not only for setting preferences, but also for accessing household information, such as family member calendars, to-do lists, address books and messages.
Inside, the prototype home was decorated in a modern style with art from around the world, a computerised piano, Japanese thin-paper blinds, lighting that changes colour and cherry wood everywhere, including the furniture, walls and cabinets.
Mother's little helper
Not surprisingly, it was the kitchen, with most of its appliances networked, and Starbucks coffee jars, that turned out to be the most functional room.
A bar-code reader on the microwave oven picks up the vital information about the food and automatically configures the time and other cooking settings. A TV or PC in another room can be set to alert a cook who has stepped away.
Microsoft anticipates that small radio frequency identification stickers will replace bar codes on products and will also be used on other things, like personal items to identify an individual, for example, as they arrive home on their doorstep, Cluts said.
Radio frequency tags on refrigerator items will allow the appliance to easily inventory food and help create shopping lists.
The tags also enable the home system to help with mundane tasks like cooking. Placing food items and appliances on top of a large marble counter may trigger a ceiling projector to display in text on the counter a list of ingredients for a particular recipe.
As new items are added to the pile, they are checked off from the displayed list. The computer system can even read cooking instructions aloud.
Also in the kitchen, a resident can answer a call from a cell phone via a telephone or PC and translate one side of the conversation to text or have text e-mail read aloud.
In the office, which sports a trendy Aeron ergonomic desk chair, someone can log onto a PC using a corporate smart card and receive telephone calls placed to an outside office phone number without the caller knowing that the worker is actually working from home.
Keeping in touch
The room with the most atmosphere was the teenager's bedroom, with a loft bed, skateboard and snowboard, guitar, rock posters and jeans and T-shirts strewn about.
Cluts even got into character, pulling on a backward baseball cap to demonstrate a remote that allows teens to interact with their computers from 10 feet away.
The system can even be used to keep a pulse on happenings in other locations. For instance, it can provide information on the activities at a vacation home or elderly relative's home.
"A grandmother's home could notice that she turned on the coffee pot at the regular time," Cluts said. "It would use pattern matching with what she does on a normal day, without sharing specifics."
On the various TVs and PCs in the home, teens can see what TV shows or Internet radio stations their friends are watching and listening to and join live chats, or do text or voice instant messaging with them.
One technology that proved difficult to describe was the "Digital Memories Device," a lava lamp-like device that displays archived photographs that are catalogued based on time and place. A touch of the hand can shift the series being shown in what Cluts described as "an ethereal representation of things we might find in our past."
"That's a perfect example of a reason why we do the Home" - to create a tangible experience around a cool technology, Cluts said.
Home of the future
Elinor Mills Abreu
Redmond - Welcome to the home of the future - at least the Microsoft version.
It has a front door that unlocks using biometrics instead of keys and a kitchen that reads recipes aloud, but no whiz-bang gadgetry in the bathroom.
In fact there's no bathroom at all. At least not yet.
Featuring technologies that are five to eight years away from being offered to the public, the prototype "Microsoft Home" at the company's Redmond, Washington, campus allows researchers to test concepts surrounding how people will use technology in their everyday lives in the future.
The home doesn't have a bathroom because it is housed in Microsoft's Executive Briefing Centre, which is a public facility. Its restroom would have to be built according to industrial building standards, Jonathan Cluts, director of consumer prototyping and strategy at Microsoft, said in a recent interview.
"We didn't build a real [bathroom] because it wouldn't be like the one you would have in your home," he said.
"The idea is to show how software can enhance peoples' lives in the future," Cluts said of the home, which was originally created in 1994 but moved to a new location in 2000.
Some people may not be ready for those enhancements, though. A recent survey from consulting firm Accenture found that more than half of some 5 000 consumers polled said they did not want a wired home network.
But Cluts wasn't too concerned about the survey.
"We are committed to building technology that adapts to people, not people having to adapt to technology and being controlled by technology," he said. "We believe that people will embrace any future technology because of its usefulness to their lives, not because it may have some specific network or protocol."
Modern-day Montecello
Except for the lack of a bathroom, or a master bedroom - which an earlier version had - the prototype is realistic, depending on your income bracket.
Outside the front entry, there are the sounds of birds twittering and a Japanese-inspired waterfall sculpture generates negative ions. An iris scanner next to the front door enables residents to get inside without fumbling for keys or disarming a home alarm system.
Visitors use a touch screen to ring the door "bell" and leave text or voice messages, while a smart card can provide access to a chute for leaving packages and mail in a secured area.
After a resident enters, the computer system can set the lights, blinds, temperature, music and TV to the individual's preferences automatically or upon voice commands.
The home computer system featured a female voice that sounded less personable than the cunning HAL spaceship computer from the film 2001: A Space Odyssey.
To summon the system, Cluts spoke aloud the letters "M-C", which he said stood for "Monticello", the Virginia home built by Thomas Jefferson in the late 18th century that was one of the first to feature indoor plumbing.
During a recent tour, Cluts demonstrated how telephone, front door, e-mail and other messages can be retrieved and read aloud through a control panel by the front door, or through televisions and PCs in other rooms. Residents can even see who is at the door without getting off the couch by viewing a video camera display on the TV or PC.
Control panels, various video screens and portable tablets scattered throughout the house, as well as vocal commands, can be used not only for setting preferences, but also for accessing household information, such as family member calendars, to-do lists, address books and messages.
Inside, the prototype home was decorated in a modern style with art from around the world, a computerised piano, Japanese thin-paper blinds, lighting that changes colour and cherry wood everywhere, including the furniture, walls and cabinets.
Mother's little helper
Not surprisingly, it was the kitchen, with most of its appliances networked, and Starbucks coffee jars, that turned out to be the most functional room.
A bar-code reader on the microwave oven picks up the vital information about the food and automatically configures the time and other cooking settings. A TV or PC in another room can be set to alert a cook who has stepped away.
Microsoft anticipates that small radio frequency identification stickers will replace bar codes on products and will also be used on other things, like personal items to identify an individual, for example, as they arrive home on their doorstep, Cluts said.
Radio frequency tags on refrigerator items will allow the appliance to easily inventory food and help create shopping lists.
The tags also enable the home system to help with mundane tasks like cooking. Placing food items and appliances on top of a large marble counter may trigger a ceiling projector to display in text on the counter a list of ingredients for a particular recipe.
As new items are added to the pile, they are checked off from the displayed list. The computer system can even read cooking instructions aloud.
Also in the kitchen, a resident can answer a call from a cell phone via a telephone or PC and translate one side of the conversation to text or have text e-mail read aloud.
In the office, which sports a trendy Aeron ergonomic desk chair, someone can log onto a PC using a corporate smart card and receive telephone calls placed to an outside office phone number without the caller knowing that the worker is actually working from home.
Keeping in touch
The room with the most atmosphere was the teenager's bedroom, with a loft bed, skateboard and snowboard, guitar, rock posters and jeans and T-shirts strewn about.
Cluts even got into character, pulling on a backward baseball cap to demonstrate a remote that allows teens to interact with their computers from 10 feet away.
The system can even be used to keep a pulse on happenings in other locations. For instance, it can provide information on the activities at a vacation home or elderly relative's home.
"A grandmother's home could notice that she turned on the coffee pot at the regular time," Cluts said. "It would use pattern matching with what she does on a normal day, without sharing specifics."
On the various TVs and PCs in the home, teens can see what TV shows or Internet radio stations their friends are watching and listening to and join live chats, or do text or voice instant messaging with them.
One technology that proved difficult to describe was the "Digital Memories Device," a lava lamp-like device that displays archived photographs that are catalogued based on time and place. A touch of the hand can shift the series being shown in what Cluts described as "an ethereal representation of things we might find in our past."
"That's a perfect example of a reason why we do the Home" - to create a tangible experience around a cool technology, Cluts said.
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