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Disney Takes Another Stab at the House of the Future
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."
...How integrated various forms of media are from each other in this house.
In addition to the standard house-of-the-future home automation, the house will also include its own micro-fusion electric generator (running on tap water), a landing pad for the flying car, and Duke Nukem Forever running on a secure update to Microsoft Windows.
Full support for multiple DRM technologies is built into everything!
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"Today is August 5, 2026. Today is August 5, 2026"
Visitors will experience the look of tomorrow by watching Disney actors playing a family of four preparing for a trip to China to welcome their new Chinese overlords. Fixt.
Also rumored to be incorporated into the walls of the kitchen is a Frosty Piss dispenser. A generous assortment of options includes the ability to pre-select steaming, foaming, or on-the-rocks varieties. In a press release, Michael Eisner claims "The Frosty Piss dispenser is one of the most innovative concepts we have seen yet in domestic technology. Gone are the days where you had to brew your own Frosty Piss -- now, you can enjoy a tall steaming mug at any time of the day." Retail prices of the Frosty Piss dispenser have not been set.
So, technology that's been around for decades but not popular in homes, and technology that is a solution looking for a problem (if I've chosen to buy food, bring it home, and set it one the counter [or take it out of the fridge and set it on the counter] chances are I already had a use in mind—countertops that suggest recipes for food placed on them seem about as useful as as a closet that suggest where I might want to go based on the clothes I take out.)
For $15 million, I'm not impressed.
Oh the possibilites... - What happens if I'm in the shower and the OS crashes? Will it never turn off? - Will the toilet only accept one kind of input? - Will the house "phone home" to let said manufacturers know what I do in the house? (For statistics only, no personal information of course) - Will my furniture be compatible with the floor? - What if the fridge is stuck in an infinite loop and keeps ordering me eggs? - Can it defrag my junk drawer?
You never expect irony, do you?
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I hope its not like the GE house they had/have in Pittsfield, MA. It was supposed to be some modern house, listening to you talk, automated curtains, etc, but really was a guy in a hidden closet listening, and throwing switches.
DRM? You just gotta wonder that if it's the "HOME OF TOMORROW", if it's going to have a DRM restriction policy inherently built in so that the RIAA/MPAA/IFPI/MAFIAA can keep track of all their material....Will it operate on Windows VISTA/Windows 7?
Of course, it makes sense that they are planning a trip to China, since all of the stuff in house was probably made there, and after the next big credit crunch, they might even be going overseas to pay forced-homage to the mortgage lender.
Toil is Stupid. Don't be Stupid.
As if we didn't hear enough "suggestions" in our daily lives. Didn't Ray Bradbury kill his house for this very same reason?
... countertops that can identify food placed on it and suggest recipes. Don't know why, but I think that was a suggestion from Microsoft..."I have seen that you have placed a glass of water on the counter. Would you like to view recipes containing 'water'?"
A flying car in the driveway or a collection of HD-DVDs in the living room...
The house of the future is a yurt.
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
Shouldn't a "house of the future" be smaller than current houses? If they are to be available to all humans, I mean.
Also, I still have hope that USians will start using the metric system someday... so overall, I'd suggest that a more sensible house of the future would be about 100 or 200 square metres.
What's not mentioned is that DRM will be built right into your house. It will prevent you from doing anything that Disney considers a violation of intellectual property (as Disney defines it). That means your VCR won't record. Your DVR will self-destruct. Your computer won't download music or videos. You CDs will be locked to the first player you use the disc in. Your original and priceless manuscript of Grimm's Fairy Tales will smolder and burn (Disney now owns all that). iPods and other MP3 players will have permanent memory corruption. You'll be sent a bill for royalties if it detects you singing copyrighted songs in the shower (and the "Happy Birthday" song you sing for your kid on his third birthday).
-- Will program for bandwidth
Wouldn't the house of the future be made up of easily interchangable parts that can be easily retrofitted to existing structures? It wouldn't be something designed from the ground up with today's bleeding-edge technologies. Part of the hassle of doing work in the houses of today are parts, fixtures, or even the location of holes, that are of a new standard and plain just don't work with anything else.
Twinstiq, game news
While I think it would be awesome to see the art and decor transform depending on who walks into a room...this just highlights to me that we may become more disconnected from each other as we optimize the digital world to our own personal likes. Not that it's bad...maybe we were all meant to relate to each other through screens, keyboards, and mice. Maybe the benefit of the digital world is that it provides a better way to share experience when we choose. Either way, it's good to recognize what's going on.
Would be a Chinese family going for a trip to the USA
It's the house of THEIR future. 'They' being the megalithic companies that sponsor this type of thing. I bet their won't be any Linux-based appliances (i.e. Tivos) in there. Or any Jonathan Coulton music playing. Or anything else that's open-source. Down with everything! Just don't take away my XBox....oh wait.
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
Grass Hut
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Every time you use the WC, your urine and/or feces could be checked for the early signs of health issues.
It'd be great 'til somebody flushed some spaghetti sauce instead of putting it in the trash bin.
I dunno... this all this sounds really annoying.
...does it run Linux?
"Visitors will experience the look of tomorrow by watching Disney actors playing a family of four preparing for a trip to China."
Probably just their normal daily commute to work.
When it comes to aesthetics, designers decided to stray from the Jetsons-style House of the Future - an all-plastic cross design with four wing-shaped bays that appeared to float. The house was so tough that wrecking balls bounced off it when Disney ripped it down in 1967.
... I kinda think a house tough enough to withstand a wrecking ball has a lot of forward thinking utility.
The new home will be made of wood and steel and finished in muted browns and beiges, said Sheryl Palmer, president and chief executive of Taylor Morrison in North America.
I dunno
The little guy just ain't getting it, is he?
Yes, an entire house programmed to second guess your every move...to "help" you. How could that not be terrific?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rB03aRifPLU
And built it just off-site. That way, they could have included something like an Orgasmatron without actually making anyone angry at Disney.
Did anyone else initially interpret the title as "Disney once again tries to lobby the candidates for the House of Representatives"?
That may work in the House of the Future, but it will never be approved by the Senate of the Future.
Think global, act loco
Nothing can beat the original, all plastic(!), Monsanto-sponsored House of the Future. Has Disney ever made anything as cool as that?
END OF LINE
Microsoft has a hand in it, so considering how they write their software I doubt you can remove or replace anything in thhe house without the walls turning blue, black, or crashing down.
If you remove the laser razor is it "House Of The Future Lite"? I'll bet you can only use Microsoft Light Bulbs and Microsoft Lamps because the bulb screws, light sockets, and wall plugs are all nonstandard and proprietary.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
I finally get to find out if that's real beef in those burritos!
There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
Go to China to clean hotel rooms and hopefully get pregrant so that your kids are Chinese and have a Real Future and can live the Chinese Dream.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
So that puts it where? Low-average home price for Southern California?
Microsoft-Redmond already has a "House of the Future" thats been there for years. It pretty much has all the stuff listed already.
"Microsoft has a hand in it..."
Additionally, compatibility and adherence to exiting standards allowing interoperability with other products in this house of the future will be zero.
The little cleaning robots from iRobot are cute; but they're Rod Brooks dumb. They navigate by bumping into the walls, and have no idea where they are. They're round, so they can't clean in corners. They're really only slightly better than the one in the GE kitchen of the future from 1956.
We need less home automation, and better building automation for meeting rooms of all sizes. Audio, video, lighting, and HVAC should be handled intelligently by the room control system, with next to no user input required.
Optimal HVAC control is well understood but rarely seen. It requires room sensors for temperature, humidity, C02, CO, fire, smoke, and room occupancy, all of which you can now get in one little box. You also need controllable dampers on the ducts, outside air sensors, fan speed control, and something really reliable to run the system. Once you have that, HVAC works far better. When a room is empty, airflow is reduced but temperature is maintained reasonably close to normal. When someone enters the room, airflow is stepped up a bit. Heating and cooling are adjusted. As more people enter the room, the CO2 reading goes up and the fan speeds increase to bring it back down. If humidity goes up, the HVAC system pumps in more dry air. If CO goes up, but fire alarms haven't tripped, indicating smokers, fan speeds go way up. When outside conditions are suitable, more air is brought in from outside without running it through the A/C or heating system. When this is all working, you'll never notice it.
Visitors will experience the look of tomorrow by watching Disney actors playing a family of four preparing for a trip to China." To look for work.
How do I turn this crap off? If I put a piece of food on the counter I'm either:
a) putting it there temporarily because I just bought it for future use in a recipe and haven't put it away or
b) putting it there to be used in a recipe I am currently making
I don't need something to tell me what I can make with whatever food is sitting on the counter. What if I leave my bananas sitting on the counter (which I do)? Will I be bombarded with a non-stop barrage of recipes or ideas on how to use those bananas until I eat them? What about that bottle of olive oil that sits there?
I realize there are those who will find this kind of stuff neat and are probably the same people who think having GPS systems permanently installed in ones new car is a good thing, but I don't. The more complicated you make something, the more chances there are for something to fail. Apparently the KISS principle has been abandoned by designers.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Father: Come on medicine cabinet! I need my insulin!
Automated medicine cabinet: The serial number on your refrigerator seems to be invalid. Please call 1-800-chinasoft for assistence.
Father: Alright but hurry up I have to get to work.
Phone: It appears your telephone service provider is not supported. Can I interest you in signing up for MSNfone?
Father: I knew I should have installed linux but I just couldn't find those drivers for my countertop and showercurtain .
http://greenobyl.com/ please.... think of the children!!
I'm surprised that's all they could come up with... It sounds like it was designed by whimsy than practicality. Nothing they mention sounds like an ideal house to me. Maybe thermostat, but I live in Southern California, so it's not like that fluctuates a lot...
In the "future", I'd really prefer a house that -
1) helps me keep it clean. I've always envisioned a carpet that has a vacuum system beneath it, and will suck up all the dirt and grim and little bits from below.
2) an in-sink dishwasher, where I can simply pile my dirty dishes into the sink, slide the top closed, and let it do it's thing without me having to clean by hand or pre-scrub and load them into a separate unit.
3) has an embedded software system that will help me track my chores and tasks for that day, wake me in the morning, remind me of events on certain dates... basically calendar software that can be accessed from any wall in the house. (probably the closest scenario to what they have in the article).
4) runs energy efficient! uses energy recycling tech to generate as much of it's own power supply as possible - i.e. solar power, walking around generates kinetic energy picked up through the floor, running tap and shower catch access energy as they drain, etc.
I don't know, I just made this up off the top of my head by looking around my apartment (you can guess what shape it's in), but I think Disney's little inventors are looking too much in the direction of luxury, and not enough in the direction of practicality and things that people would really want to help them live their lives more comfortably.
in Gulag America will also have a direct feed to The Minister of Propaganda.
Defend America: Make An Overseas Phone Call Now To Jam the Pipeline.
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Most of their ideas are cute but not especially helpful to anyone. I'd throw all those ideas out for a real laundry machine. I want to toss my dirty clothes in at night, and the next morning have them waiting for me, cleaned, dried, ironed, sorted, and folded.
They'll be making films next...
Those using pirated Tinysoft signatures(TM) are a real threat to society and should all be thrown in jail.
I read that as they should have let MirrorMask design it for them. Now that would be freaky!
"Unheard of means only it's undreamed of yet,
Impossible means not yet done." ~~ Julia Ecklar
5000 square feet? Thats not a house - thats a mansion! Are they going to China to find a full time cleaning crew to chase after the dust bunnies in their 8 bedrooms and 6 1/2 bathrooms?
Just the same - I'm a sucker for Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, and look forward to visiting the protype house of the Corporate Liege Lord in the future.
Look at the original Disney home of the future. would have cost you 50K+ to do it at the time. Now almost everything that was there is common place. It's a view of what might be. I am old enough to remember what a HUGE deal cordless phones where. Literally change things in the house. The were the gadget to have. Now there are common and not thought about, but the Disney home had them years earlier.
The advantage to the Ma Bell Monopoly was that it had an entrenched process and they considered RnD a good thing and went on to develop large amount of technology that is common place today.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Imagine a beowulf subdivision of these...
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
So... Microsoft Surface then. Haven't we seen this already? Aren't there hotels about to put these in their lobbies?
--- these days, what with business and stuff, you gotta get your emails...
"The 5000-square-foot house will appear normal from the outside".... just like everyone else's 5000 square foot homes ;-p
"countertops that can identify food placed on it and suggest recipes"
how stupid is that... when my food gets on the countertop, it's because I already know what I am going to do with it...
Will I need to empy my fridge on my countertop to know what to cook every day?
Anyway, it's been tried before and it's totally useless.... instead it should track what you have in the fridge and suggest what you can cook with what you have... or tell you what to buy to make a specific recipe...
Me: What can I cook ?
Fridge: Beer... beer chicken... beer hotdogs... beer cheese... beer...
Yeah - but the original House of the Future was in Disneyland/Magic Kingdom - so it makes sense just to update the ones that are already there.
I'll miss the old one - I think seeing the "future" through the eyes of someone 50, 30, 10 years ago was much more amusing than our current view of the "future".
A 5,000 square foot house that costs $15 million? And has a carbon footprint larger than some third-world cities?
The real house of the future will be small, will be built from recycled/recyclable materials, and will be energy efficient. And, will be affordable by someone who is not a CEO.
Popsci has another take on the Home of the the Future.
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. It'll have a 3D fabrication Printer to print out dishes or maybe even chair parts when we have extra company. Automated machines to cut the grass (if I don't go with bio-engineered no-mow grass.) 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.
Demented But Determined.
I got this from somewhere. p2pnet I think. What if the bad guys win? Going to the movies is not what it used to be. Security at the studio-owned theatres is heavy, it's not a trip to be taken lightly. But if you want to see the film everyone is talking about without waiting a year for the home release, you have little choice. When you enter the lobby the first thing you see are long ranks of tiny, thumbprint activated lockers. This is where you must leave all of your electronics, your personal server and peripherals, even your watch, and you had better not be wearing smart spectacles or contacts. As you enter the security zone you're scanned for anything you may have forgotten. Cochlea and optical implants must be capable of responding with a coded RF identification signal to indicate their systems are secure and cannot record. People with older models, or models implanted abroad where such interrogation is illegal, are turned away. Perhaps they would like to see one of the older releases? Once through the scanner you must submit to a biometric ID test - this is where the known bloggers, hackers and spoilers are ejected. Finally there is the non-disclosure agreement to be signed - these days most moviegoers choose to sign via the MPAAs annual subscription, just trying to take some of the hassle out of visiting the cinema. Finally you get to see the film. In the auditorium the audience is constantly scanned by an AI looking for suspicious activity, so don't rummage in your pockets for too long. It's strange that all this effort to protect the movie industry has done so little to improve the movies. You don't really own your home computer, or even the data you keep on it. Oh, you paid for it, just like you paid for the fibre-optic Internet connection that it can't function without, but now it squats under your TV using your electricity and does more work for the content industry than for you. The nightly security patches it downloads for itself don't secure your computer against attackers, they secure the system and software against you. TV-on-demand seemed like a dream come true when you first opted in and upgraded all your hardware, but the slowly encroaching charges are becoming a disincentive to turn on at all. Sometimes the last episode of a series makes up 50% of the cost of the whole season. The Internet is not what it used to be. It's expanded, naturally, the technology giving everyone mobile PCs with vast ad-hoc networking capabilities, it's faster, more efficient, and more available, but it's also more restrictive. Since the ISPs were made responsible for the content they deliver their filtering has become neurotic. Anti-terror, piracy, plagiarism and libel filters search every request and response for signs of illegal activity, always erring on the side of caution. Wikipedia's index has been decimated. Popular blogs like Boing Boing now have more lawyers involved than contributors (the one's that have survived that is). Even if you managed to get something illegal through the filters your operating system's regularly updated self-check mechanisms would eventually root it out, or report you to the authorities, usually both. These days it seems like every time you turn on one of your gadgets you have to fight with its DRM to get it to do what you want. The home movie of your daughter opening her birthday presents is ruined by a patch of grey fog that shifts with every movement of the camera, tracking sluggishly to keep the TV screen in the background obscured. From the codes embedded in TV's update pattern your camera had decided the show was not licensed for this form of reproduction and blocked it. You wish you had thought to turn it off at the time, but squinting into the camera's tiny screen it hadn't looked so bad. Even once recorded, your own media is not safe. Everything is stored on your home PC, trapped in the solid-state drive's proprietary filing system. Once there, the only reasonable way to transfer it is to another trusted drive from the same vendor - the DRM won't recognise any other brand of
The last think we need is a house that can thow chairs from one room to another. :)
It should be exciting to think about the vast majority of humans who need habitats. They will not have $15,000,000, as their average income rounds out around $60 per week. If you want to impress me with the home of the future, describe a place that can provide protection from the elements, including hurricanes, monsoons, etc. Provide warmth, cooling (for food), waste elimination and water filtration (see Dollar a day). All on an average yearly income of less than $3200 Per Capita Income
We have a lot of intelligent people in the world looking to make good things great while the vast, vast, majority of people are just looking to make horrible, merely bad.
Best janitor breakroom ever?
Just pray that you don't have the same type of error messages. The last thing you want to see while on the throne is a "stack overflow". On the plus side, that might be the only scenario where I would be tempted to click "Yes, I would like to send the contents of the error to Microsoft"
Just pray that the Clippy mentality hasn't been added as a feature. "We've noticed you haven't been eating enough fiber. Would you like assistance with this feature?" Queue the hypersonic bran muffin canon.
Cliche, but I have to say it...
Do the chairs throw themselves?
On the way out, visitors will have to opportunity to pick up an HP DeskJet or laptop preloaded with Windows Vista. Visitors will need to pay extra to have Windows XP installed, but can have the laptop delivered to their Disney hotel room (once finished) at no extra cost.
In otherwords they're taking us to Bill Gates' house?
Sure, this sounds like the future to someone who's easily impressed by gimmickry. Like someone else previously said, "Look at what we can do with unlimited resources that we don't have to pay for!". But given current trends such as *decreasing* resources, wouldn't the house of the future be starting more around what the average house can do, but requiring significantly less resources. In other words, having an incredibly small carbon footprint by using "futuristic" technologies, and then expand from there on all sorts of "practical" gimmickry.
Sure sounds realistic. In the future, a trip to a country with an oppressive government like China will look like a vacation compared to the U.S. of that time period.
Here:
http://flickr.com/photos/cantikfotos/sets/72157594230283909/
http://flickr.com/photos/cantikfotos/sets/72157594190669543/
Like they say, the future just ain't the same as it used to be.......
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
It's kind of funny, and somewhat scary, but does anyone else think of Bradbury's There Will Come Soft Rains ? Hmm... smart homes and the as-of-yet unfolding neo arms race between the west and the east.
The home of the future... 1,200-1,500 sq ft for $60-80K that uses 1/4-1/3 of the power current homes need to heat/cool the house, laundry/kitchen appliances, and TV/computer stuff.
The home of the future isn't a nagging bitch telling me that I need to move all my RFIDed stuff where it recommends or that I need to cook such and such recipes or and that I need to use exactly this type of soap in their app.
The ultimate app of the future would be a robot maid that does cooking, yard work, house hold cleaning, and running to the store to buy the recipes that you want even in home as old as one built in the 1950s.
I see the house of the future as an animal skin covered tent in a vast field of ice and radioactive waste.
The "future" has always been a significant component of their them parks and TV shows. I notice they changed their view of three times. (1) First, it was a machine future: better appliances, cars, space-ships, etc. This was the original tomorrow-land and the Pavilion of Innovation ride. (2) Second, was when epcot was built in the 1970s. The main Epcot(*) Dome ride strees ecology and psychology and was kind of new-agey. (3) Third, is the information age future. A lot of the refurbish tomorrowland exhibits are computers and multimedia. (4) A fourth candidate is "nostoglia" future. Some of the new rides in tomorrowland invoke 1930s art-deco (e.g.Brazil movie) or 1950s modernism. Movie directors often trnaslate past styles into the future.
(*) EPCOT means Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. Walt envisoned a World's Fair expositon combined with a lving-breathing 21st century community (with 19th century social values). A little bit of this made it into the Epcot park and additional components in the perverse Disney housing development called Celebration. The irony of Celebration is its residents sued Disney to prevent innovations that would hurt property values or their kids chances of get into ivy league colleges, so it became a rather conservative place.
"Microsoft's Home Of Tomorrow Has No Bathroom " http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?no_d2=1&sid=03/02/04/0033239
[+HAL9000 voice] Excuse me, Dave. It seems you have a large quantity of SPAM there, may I suggest a recipe? [-HAL9000 voice]
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
The point of Tomorrowland was the use of the imagination to conceptualize something far more than a modern house with a few extra computers. It was an entire arrangement of a community, a radical departure from anything at the time. Remember the hatch from Season 2 of "Lost"? That was based off of Tomorrowland. And it was still cool.
This new "House of the Future" is more about advertising for corporate sponsors, and less about actually showing anything interesting or imaginative. Kind of ironic the set designers for "Lost" did more for the concept than Disney did in recent years.
I think it also says a lot about our failure of imagination if our vision of the future is "a kitchen with a dishwasher... but the dishwasher has a *web browser*!" Even though most of the speculations back in the 1950s-70s were wrong they still were pretty great artistically and spurred development of a lot of technology.
Disney was supposed to be about the imagination and dreaming, not about incremental upgrades. This house is about as exciting as Windows security update, and just as Microsoft-centric.
The 5000-square-foot house
Houses of the future will be closer to 500 square-feet than 5,000.
Just when I thought it wasn't possible for Disney to get any more corporate, this happens.
In 2007, the average US single family home was 2,330 square feet. It would be nice to see a home of the future that isn't of a size current day mansion. I'd love a huge house, but realistically, very few of us can truly afford one.
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You can stand every human ni the world in Texas, and they still wouldn'e be able to touch each other without moving.
Room isn't a problem. Putting people in the optimal place has some social issues.
In fact, we could convert all usable land to farming, and still put every PERSON in their own 5000 Sq.Ft single floor house and your neighbors wouldn't be able top here you play loud music. With an intelligent management system, we could deliver food to all those people and still have mountains of food not used.
Technially, this can all be done. socially and politically is where the problems lie. By that I mean it's difficult to accomidate everyone not, kill all the problems...skynet I'm looking at you...
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
One thing I think is certain - the house of the future won't be 5000 square feet. I imagine that single people will be happy to live in 500 square feet, more likely couples will be living in this area. Families will survive within 1000 square feet.
Or maybe we will all move to the countryside.
Wake me when the house decides to start terrorizing Julie Christie.
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"If you remove the laser razor is it "House Of The Future Lite"? I'll bet you can only use Microsoft Light Bulbs and Microsoft Lamps because the bulb screws, light sockets, and wall plugs are all nonstandard and proprietary." That would be Apple...
Aren't you guys tired of crying, whining, and bitching about open source yet? For fuck sakes, give it a rest. Everytime MS is mentioned you people try to make some joke about crashing, blue screens, etc. You completely overlook the context of the article and go straight into a tirade about proprietary technology. You're surrounded by people who support your view, so what's the point?
Jesus... jsut get on with your day already.
"The need to build the internet comes from something inside us, something programmed... something we can't resist."
See, if you were running an operating system that didn't crash all the time, you wouldn't be so grumpy. :)
I want passive heating and cooling, tons of sound and thermal insulation, a radiant floor heating system for those days when the passive system can't handle it, water recycling, rainwater capture, and indoor plants. Oh, and I want it to be basically indestructible from, say, hurricanes and earthquakes.
Fortunately for me, it already exists.... www.earthship.org
In fact, my house is so futuristic, it looks normal on the inside too!
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
Microsoft house.
A house that doesn't let's it owner in but lets other people (read hackers) in. Al house that periodically (more often than not) crashes and goes to blue screen.
I like, embrace and use latest-greatest technology. But the subscription model kills me. Want a Tivo? Don't just buy it, pay them $$ every single month for the entire time you use it! Want OnStar? Same thing. This is a new trend that won't stop any time soon. Before you know it, you'll have monthly subscription fees for your refrigerator, washer, toaster oven, etc. And to top it all off, none of them will be integrated. ie. 20 monthly subscriptions with 20 companies translates to 20 different bills to pay and keep track of.
Geeesh.
Look at the whole picture, not just the hole in the picture.
The expensive, feasible house of the present!
Or even better yet, it checks the house for chemical signs of spoilage. From this it can tell that you smell like "leftover casserole" and that it's time to clean yourself.
I'll bet you can only use Microsoft Light Bulbs and Microsoft Lamps because the bulb screws, light sockets, and wall plugs are all nonstandard and proprietary.
I think you misspelled Sony.
It seems that in the future we'll have mastered some TARDIS technology. It will look like a normal 2,300 square-foot suburban house from the outside but will allow for 5,000 of living space on the inside.
... and Yul Brynner goes nuts and kills everybody.
My other car is a 1984 Nark Avenger.
Part of you just died for your lack of humor.
Half the time when I take food out of the refrigerator and put it on the counter, I can't identify it.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
Disney Takes Another Stab at the House of the Future
I hope they killed it this time. You ever notice how those houses are really hard to stop when they're after you?
Even this is a (much) better effort: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dymaxion_house (e.g. compare the practicality of that with the pointless previous disney 'house of the future', given they have a similar vintage).
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Yes it is utterly absurd that they're focusing on technology over-load. They should be focusing on improved construction techniques, heating and cooling design, water and waste collection and recycling (rainwater tanks, composting toilet), improved lighting (daylight from sun, night from low-energy), it goes on and on
There is a world of interesting and exciting things that could make a real difference out there. Instead it's full of computers which probably wont work properly and big screen tv's. Big bloody deal - there's nothing great or earth changing about that, and with technology moving so fast it will rapidly become so dated it will just become a quaint joke like their last effort.
_
\\/ are accustomed' - First Lensman
Wow, I've always wanted a countertop that can suggest creative deviations for Ramen Noodles and Beer.
Hrmm, "Might I suggest Microwaved Ramen?"
"With the full packet?"
"Without the packet?"
"How about you boil off all the alcohol from your beer, and drink the flavoring packet?"
Disney: Goofey hardware.
Microsoft: Mickey Mouse software.
Have gnu, will travel.
Don't forget the "Social" room where you and your friends can squirt tunez at each other. Wow, groovy daddyo. The future is ZUNE!!!!!
But on the tube amplifier which runs the audio system, which consists of two seven-watt SET power amps driven by a pair of Bottlehead preamps. With the lights out it creates an atmosphere similar to candle lighting. Oh, and those seven-watt amps coupled with high-efficiency speakers will be more than enough sound to fill the A/V space.
Who is this delectable creature with an insatiable love of the dead?
"You have inserted bread into Microsoft Toaster 1.0. This is a significant hardware change. Please re-register Microsoft Toaster."
The worst part is having to re-register again when it turns to toast...
Then under the new 21st century instant copyright conviction act, the house immediately goes into 'reduced functionality mode', the house doesn't allow anybody to enter or leave (except of course duly authorised harsh interrogation specialists, who will apply dully sanctioned, taser electro therapy and pepper spray chemo therapy), disables all content playback device, rations all services including lighting, heating, power and water. After all the instant prison, is not meant to be comfortable, and it is only fitting that the offender pays the full cost of their own incarceration.
In a police state it is only appropriate that a modern home should also serve double duty as a prison cell ;).
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Well for most people the house of the future will consist of corrugated sheet metal and cardboard. Running water will be from a nearby open sewage ditch when it rains.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
Aren't you Microsoft whiners tired of being laughed at? Did you see how the comment was modded? Did you see the Monty Pythoon reference in the subject line?
That's ok, if I were a Microsoft programmer or held Microsoft stock I'd be a little touchy about the subject too.
-mcgrew
PS- "funny" adds no karma. I have plenty, have some of mine cryboy.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Dude, Sony is a sore spot with me. I'd give up pot and hookers if it would make Sony go away.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Does anyone know how it was that people like these managed to get into positions of power and influence?
I run OSX. I don't have an OS that crashes all the time... and it's not linux; I don't have to spend 95% of my day configuring my fucking OS.
"The need to build the internet comes from something inside us, something programmed... something we can't resist."