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Digital Lifestyle

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the but-whats-wrong-with-the-analog-kind dept.

Gingerman writes "The BBC is running a story about a full automated lifestyle centre in Wokingham UK. The centre has everything from the home to the office and includes shops too." It's a little thin on details, but its a mix of practical things that could be around the corner, and stuff that may be a little further down a 6 lane interstate.

9 of 141 comments (clear)

  1. Not this world... by Howie · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Too bad that a big assumption of the project is that providers of information on the web want to provide it in a format that is useful to an automated agent, when in reality they seem to do all they can to stop you making useful tools like these automated agents. Despite the development of things like XML, JINI and WSDL - all technologies designed to minimise the amount of customisation needed between strangers - the people who have this type of info aren't exactly jumping on those technologies.

    --
    "don't fall into the fallacy of believing that Perl can solve social problems. Maybe Perl 6 can, but that's a ways off"
    1. Re:Not this world... by Snodgrass · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You're exactly right, and (for some reason) I was thinking about this very thing the other day.

      It seems to me the solution would be to make it worth it to the providers of that information. It's all about money, and providers don't play nice with automated agents because they take without giving back (clicking ads, etc.).

      I mean, maybe it could be setup in a way that you can pay a small subscription for certain services. Of course, it would have to be really convenient/neato for me to pay for something that I can get for free, but it's possible.

      As an example: I can jump on weather.com for free and see what the forecast is for the next couple of days, but I might pay $5 a month to be able to say "computer: what's the weather look like for this week" and get a detailed response spoken back to me. (that ranks pretty high on the neato scale :) )

      When it comes to convenience, it seems we as a society spare no expense. That seems to me to be the only way that this would ever really work.

  2. Don't know about you but... by nixadmin · · Score: 5, Funny

    Any digital lifestyle assistant that woke me up early for ANY reason would find itself in little peices on the floor. Better: "I know you had a rough one last night, so I called your boss and convinced him to give you a Work From Home day. Go back to sleep."

  3. Simulated lifestyle? by somethingwicked · · Score: 4, Funny
    This thing offers a simulated lifestyle?

    /.ers will scurry from it like programmers from soap...*grin*

    Now, if they invent a device that washes your clothes when they are thrown on the floor and you can buy it for 50plat EQ currency, then they will have a geekhit on their hands...

    --

    ---"What did I say that sounded like 'Tell me about your day?'"---

    1. Re:Simulated lifestyle? by BigJim.fr · · Score: 5, Funny

      > Now, if they invent a device that washes your
      > clothes when they are thrown on the floor and you
      > can buy it for 50plat EQ currency

      I've got one, it's called a wife. But it's much more expensive than the price point you're aiming for.

  4. Uh oh! by NiftyNews · · Score: 5, Funny

    Can you imagine if your lifestyle agent got a virus?

    Suddenly you come home and find 8000 pieces of French Toast on the floor (all cut neatly into quadrangles), your cat has been painted green and yellow, and you are now the proud owner of every pay-per-view movie every listed!

    No thanks, I'll just check the weather online instead.

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    Today's Top Deals
  5. Call it flame bait...but... by Em+Emalb · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There are times when I want nothing more than to get away from anything computer related. I enjoy fly fishing for example. Just a rod,reel, and hopefully, some fish. I work on computers all damned day, and when I go home, the LAST thing I want is to have to interact with yet another computer. The tech is really cool, and I like the idea of seperating each into areas, work, home, etc...but what happens if you want to get away from it all? If this is their vision of the future, (and what else can it be?) then I hope they allow for those of us that don't *WANT* to be tied into the system all the time. Ok, now mod at your discretion.

    --
    Sent from your iPad.
  6. Cooltown, RIAA/MPAA style by Dan+Crash · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's five o'clock in the morning. The alarm beeps to life and a soft female voice with an American accent comes over the speakers:

    "I'm waking you 30 minutes early so you can change into your grey suit before the Copyright Police arrive to detain you. I've alerted them to the unauthorized copies of several Universal film properties I detected on your portable drive after you docked it last night, as required by the Intellectual Property Theft Act of 2009. Would you like me to play you some light rock as you get dressed? Current prices are $4.99 per half hour."

    --
    He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
  7. HP has much more info than the article... by bahtama · · Score: 5, Informative
    Well, you know that they obviously have a webpage about it:

    http://www.cooltown.hp.com/

    Here is the open source codebase for some of it.
    http://www.cooltown.hp.com/dev/

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    Oh bother.