Home Of The Future

BuckminsterFuller's Dymaxion house - the house the building industry won't let you purchase.

In the home of the future, I think the differences will fit into two categories:

Life Style Changes
Other stuff

Other stuff would be changes like structural and material changes to improve our homes environmental impact and energy efficiency. For the most part, I expect that this wouldn't impart our life styles too much.

I think that Lifestyle changes will mostly be driven by PervasiveComputing.

First, I think every house will have a central server. The server will probably run linux(or another commodity operating system), although the OS it runs will end up being as transparent to the user as the fact that the TiVo uses linux is to TiVo users.

The server will hold the files of the family and run group ware apps. It will coordinate appliances, and connections.

It may be augmented by additional more specialized servers (like a cigarette-sized print server on each printer, or a dedicated audio video server elsewhere). For simplicity, expansion to the server will probably be accomplished through clustering (ie, if the server is a CobaltQube, then hooking a second cube up to the cluster chain will automatically make the server appear more powerful).

We may find that a cluster consists of both CPU nodes and disk nodes (ala cubes and the new maxtor net disks).

We will also have workstations. The workstations of the future will be like today's PCs, except they might not get used in such a general way (like why use them for sound playback when there is already a sound playback system in the room. Just use the workstation to control the existing system).

So far, network access will be a lot more seamless, and having multiple computers will be more friendly, but the life style won't really be that different.

The real difference will come from the smaller computers. Like perhaps a touch screen web terminal mounted in one of your cabinet doors in the kitchen to display the recipe that you are preparing. And a touch screen on the refrigerator door where you mark down things that you are out of.

The really cool stuff starts happening when we discuss embedded computers elsewhere.

I'll continue this later.

The upper-class HomeOfTheFuture will naturally have a robot butler, a NaturalThinkingMachine. When you first bring it home, it will know rudimentary protocol and English, but you will need to teach it the specifics of how to handle your friends, the dog, the cleaning, et cetera.

Curious: Why do you think consumers would put up with Linux? Linux is not a consumer OS. Don't you think people would prefer simpler solutions?

Are TiVo's consumer devices? They run linux. I don't think that the consumer would be given much of a view of what the OS was.

And why would we continue to have workstations like PCs? PCs are hideous ergonomically. Why not use computers to solve problems like we would without computers, except our tools would have more smarts? I think that would be the most interesting thing. ElectronicBook?s, WallScreen?s, interfaces like PenOnPaper, etc.

Of course, in the future, when you say, "Windows crashed!" you literally mean your windows crashed. This is HaHaOnlySerious. And a serious problem because all this crazy stuff is MagicTechnology. Think of the Time Guide to Home Repair now!

from above: ...[the domestic server] will coordinate appliances...

Coordinate them to do what, exactly? There are two pieces of automation in my flat: the alarm clock and the timer on the CH boiler. There doesn't seem to be any need for anything else.

Maybe you don't, but most people have things like VCRs, Coffee makers, water softeners, lights on timers, other things on timers, etc. And I'm sure some people will come up with more things to coordinate together.

Indeed, I do not have any of those things. That might make me quite unusual here in wealthy northern Europe, but not so very unusual globally. Quite a lot of people in the world have no reliable electricity supply. I suspect that they won't have a great need for groupware.

Isn't it this sort of wire-everything-up/what do you mean you don't have a VCR? approach that gives technology a bad name with the lefties and tree-huggers? Those of them that think about it at all deeply, I mean.

What would be an example of a typical, current, domestic problem that could be solved more effectively by this sort of PervasiveComputing than by other means?

Medical devices, both biometric recording like LifeVest? and smart beds that adjust themselves to the shape and support needed by the body. Medicine cabinets that will page you when it's time to take your drugs (Treatment compliance is known to be a problem even for motivated patients.'')

For one thing, I can envision a house in which the "home" knows where you are. This is handy for power management (lights on and off - and possibly heating and cooling that's space-specific) and for entertainment (piped music or video). Telephones might not be something you carry in your hand and might instead be integrated into the entertainment system. Entertainment? Information-and-entertainment?

I don't see any of this being done in a commercial/commodity OS environment. Embedded, yes. Some evolved form of QNX, possibly. Invisible to the customer, certainly. Your breadbox might be able to tell you when your baked goods have gone off (spoiled). In fact, a number of applications for particle sensors (sniffers) might be used.

But, whatever cute things we do with the technology, if we don't wind up with a net gain in free time, it was all pretty pointless.