Smart Homes and Real.

One of the things I've always liked about SecondLife is how many people make interesting homes. Granted, nobody really needs a home, but the homes are full of features. Privacy windows that work on 'voice', security systems which respond to the owner, doors with access lists. While many of these things are useless within SecondLife, it indicates a certain level of interest in having an automated home. Of course, it's always worth a chuckle when you go to someone's place and they shout 'Hide' to conceal their poseballs before you enter.

Years ago, my father and I were involved with a system which didn't quite work out for us financially - but which was a good idea. Mastervoice. Looking back, I'm not sure why it didn't work out. Maybe it was the market and timing, maybe it was just too much for most people to understand or maybe they just plain didn't like us. Still, the product worked fairly well 10 years ago.

So when I saw 'Smart homes a reality in S Korea, I was pretty thrilled. A taste:

...It is a concept that is now a reality, but the next house we saw was a mock up of what things could be like.

In South Korea's vision of the home of the future we will all wear mini-PCs on our wrists, which turns things on or off, opens doors, and tracks the wearer's position in the house at all times.

Here, everything is voice activated, and the fridge can provide you with recipes which use the ingredients inside, and let you know if your food is out of date.

It relies on the food packaging containing radio tags, or RFID labels, which can be read by the fridge each time it passes through the door...

Toss in some solar energy - and that's a possibility with air conditioning and refrigeration - the costs go up... and maybe the pollution goes down while giving people more control of their lives. It sure looks cool so far. And in South Korea, too. Things seem to be happening faster and faster over there in Asia.