"Imagine being paged with word that the milk in the refrigerator has spoiled. Imagine turning off the porch light at home while vacationing at the beach. In the future, when the words "home computer" take on new meaning, it might be possible. That future is on display now at an IBM lab, where researchers are testing new technology in a fully furnished living room, kitchen and garage. In the kitchen, a screen on the refrigerator tells what's inside - without opening the door. Digital stoves and microwaves cook automatically, following recipes downloaded from the Internet."

redux [01.03.01]

Feed No Place Like the Future

"IF THE JETSONS expressed post-war America's subconscious desire to live in an effortless, gadget-filled future, the Microsoft house is today's Internet economy version. Filled with PCs, wireless gizmos, and digital music players (all networked together) the Microsoft Home sets the stage "for families to begin adopting technologies into their homes that simplify daily tasks, enhance their entertainment experiences, and increase communication at home and away." At least that's what the press release says. "

"This bit of publicist theater feels like nothing so much as a weirdly flawed version of those kitschy fifties industrial films that heralded the "House of Tomorrow" -- magical, futuristic places where hausfraus in pastel dresses prance around praising the inherent liberation of the robotic kitchen. But where the older films perfectly captured the mix of consumer desire and social anxiety that characterized the newly modern home, Redmond's vision of the future gives the viewer a bad case of cognitive dissonance."

redux [12.18.00]

Context Magazine Smart Homes? A Stupid Idea

"A blind enthusiasm for technological advances is a very costly habit to indulge. It ignores the real nature of peoples? busy lives, the scarcity of their attention, and the rising irritation we all have with devices that clutter our homes and confuse us. Yet, periodically, companies manage to convince one another that some big new trend is simply unstoppable. The last time this happened was in the postwar period when the hot theme was convenience. So, firms rushed to sell us electric knives and can openers, mixers, ice cream makers, electric knife sharpeners, and popcorn poppers. Did this deliver on the promise of convenience? No way.

"Smart homes" aren?t inevitable. Homes will continue to get smarter, of course. But they will do so by being more responsive to our activities?directly, respectfully, gently, in ways that amuse and beguile. Above all else, in ways that are gracefully accommodating. If you want to build a really hot product, start there."

redux [12.18.00]

The Standard Home on the Web

"Home networking is nothing new. Homes are already thoroughly wired for lighting, security, phones and more. The Internet home will connect all of the in-home networks, then connect each with any number of outside networks. For the fridge to talk to the computer, at least two networks ? the home electrical network into which the fridge is plugged, and the telephone, firewire or wireless network into which the computer is connected ? need some way of interfacing. And if the fridge needs to send you e-mail at work, it needs some way to communicate outside the home network.

But the obvious question is, do consumers want all this interconnectivity? Will we ever really need our fridge to e-mail us that our milk is past its prime?"

"After IBM ran a series of ads in which a dishwasher repairman shows up at a home because the dishwasher contacted him for service, Parks Associates held focus groups to gauge reaction to the commercial. "Consumers absolutely hated that," says Scherf. "People want more control of their lives, not less; they want to be the one to make the call, not the dishwasher."

redux [06.15.00]

Fast Company Design Vision

""We know how to do amazing things," [Thackara] says, "and we're filling the world with amazing devices. But we cannot answer the most important question: What is this stuff really for?""

"The time has also come, he says, to shift some of the focus of innovation away from work and toward everyday life. The early users of digital devices are almost always business users, so product designers have a natural inclination to create and design products with the workplace in mind. But that tendency can make for bad design, especially when those products migrate beyond business. People put up with technical difficulties in their work lives that they would never tolerate in their personal lives. So forget "personal" computing, Thackara says, and embrace "social" computing. "As computing migrates from ugly boxes on our desks to something that suffuses everything around us, a new relationship will emerge between what's real and what's virtual, what's mental and what's material. There are few limits to the number of services that we could develop if we simply took an aspect of daily life and looked for ways to make it better.""