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What's Next for Your High-Tech Home?
koreth asks: "You have the remote-controlled lighting. Your kitchen has speakers in the ceiling and a control panel to play your MP3s, your bedroom is wired for gigabit Ethernet, and you already record HDTV on your computer and watch it on a front-projection screen. You even have a robot to do your vacuuming. So now what? Is has all the nifty stuff been done already, or are there still some nifty homebrew projects out there? What's next on your list of high-tech home improvements? What have you had to cobble together yourself, because nobody sells it in a package yet? What gizmos and conveniences do you expect your home will have in a year or two?"
"A few years ago, there was a rush of innovation in household high-tech items for early adopter types. Hobbyists tinkered to get their PCs to act as DVD players, put their baby-cams on their private Web sites, and pieced together low-cost audio servers. But that rush seems to have largely evaporated, perhaps a victim of the .com bubble bursting. There are still lots of products coming out, but they're aimed squarely at late adopters who have yet to catch up with the latest stuff -- witness the huge number of PC media convergence products announced in the last six months, all of them with functionality that's been available in some form for years."
What gizmos and conveniences do you expect your home will have in a year or two?"
Broken gizmos. Lots of them. Warrantee expired.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
Unfortunately, wives compatible with hi-tech households are quite rare.
"Those french movies looked almost real on the DLP Projector I had"
Funny you should mention that -- my office which only has a couple of desktops and a laptop running in it, still manages to be several degrees warmer than the rest of the house. Too cold in your house? The obvious solution is a Beowulf cluster, of course!
You are posting to slashdot, so I'm guessing you mean your homemade DLP projector...
/get fucking drunk on good wine, eat good food and attempt to have fun with the pretty french girls. Guess which one I'll be thinking about on my death bed?\ Hah and why you are then registered user on slashdot ;)
So that why i guess you get that DLP and after you maby thinking these girls (why i dont travel) on your death bed ;)
www.granstrom.fi
You appear to be burning a pot of beans. Would you like assistance?
Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?
You REALLY need to think that thru. Just sit down and thing about what you say you want. If, after sitting and thinking for an hour or so, you still find nothing wrong with it do the rest of us a favor and never vote again.
Well, why don't you switch it on then?
-- Cheers!
Spare cat, or spare vac?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.