Disney Takes Another Stab at the House of the Future 277
Disney has announced that they are going to take another stab at showing us the "House of the Future". The 5000-square-foot house will appear normal from the outside but will house gadgets like lights and thermostats that automatically adjust when someone enters the room and countertops that can identify food placed on it and suggest recipes. "Millions of Disneyland visitors lined up a half-century ago to catch a glimpse of the future: a home teeming with mind-blowing gadgets such as handsfree phones, wall-sized televisions, plastic chairs, and electric razors and toothbrushes. [...] The $15 million home is a collaboration of The Walt Disney Co., Microsoft Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co., software maker LifeWare and homebuilder Taylor Morrison. Visitors will experience the look of tomorrow by watching Disney actors playing a family of four preparing for a trip to China."
Don't forget the most important feature! (Score:5, Informative)
China makes sense (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I would like to see...TWO BRICKS BEING SMASHED (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Home of the future... (Score:4, Informative)
Indeed. And, really, at what cost? Surely the current counter tops that most us have at under $10 / running foot aren't going to be something we replace with stuff which is as expensive as Corion or marble at more like $100 / running foot.
Since nobody will ever be able to afford this level of technical indulgence, who the heck do they think will be buying it? Honestly, sometimes I think futurists are engaging in the worst sort of intellectual masturbation -- here's something which is completely impractical, that will never be wide spread or affordable, but let's pretend that in 20 years we'll all be using it.
In the mean time, no flying cars, and the average schmuck still hasn't paid for his TV he bought on credit. Counter tops which suggest recipes will be something that only someone who can hire kitchen staff will be able to afford; in which case, they won't exactly need a suggestion, will they?
The simple reality is, this is never going to be the house of the future, it's purely an intellectual exercise of what you can do with a boat load of someone else's money when you can charge someone admission to look at it. It's about as divorced from reality as you can get.
Cheers
My House of the Future (Score:3, Informative)
My house wouldn't be built around gimmicky crap like auto moodlighting or suggesting recipies. Mine would be more practical innovation. Bathrooms and kitchens coated in titanium dioxide treated to dissapate dirt and mildew [popsci.com]. It'll have a 3D fabrication Printer [popsci.com] to print out dishes or maybe even chair parts when we have extra company. Automated machines to cut the grass [lawnbott.com] (if I don't go with bio-engineered no-mow grass [wired.com].) The construction itself will be steel framed and built using modular panels but build to be reconfigurable (relativly.) Replacing drywall with bolted or snap-in-place steel-backed panels (the exposed surface side could be bare steel, have wood glued on, wallpapered, etc.) allowing for me to access the interior portions of the wall with ease. My particular aesthetic would be bare steel panels, with cables run along the outside in bundles, but it would be easy to reconfigure it to appear 'classical' with the wires hidden behind the now covered panels. I want my home of the future to be flexable, low(er) maintenance, and something that will last.