I had an enjoyable drink with some IT wonks here in Kosovo last night - my last night. A really international group - Kosovars, Romanians, Canadians, Turks, Thais. We talked about the takeover of the computer as a communication tool but also as an energy source and more than that as the central hub in our home. The clinching moment in the discussion came when one of the group informed everyone that he got an email today advertising the first USB Fridge. You plug it into your USB and off you go. It holds one can of coke but it cannot be long before we run household fridges, cookers, microwaves (I am proud to say I have never owned one of these) and so on. One of the key household devices - music systems - are being utilised more and more in this way and the next logical step will be to power the home through this central source.
With Bill Gates announcing yesterday that a key Microsoft development in the next year or two is the removal of traditional computer interaction devices such as the mouse and the keyboard where does the imagination take you? Using voice and touch to communicate with the hub (what we currently call a computer) to direct all activities in the home. Billing through one source that monitors everything in your domestic environment.
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About Me
- Douglas Miller
- Author for the BBC and Pearson (7 books published)and motivational speaker and trainer
2 comments:
What challenges do you reckon this throws up for our way of living? I'm thinking particularly the shift from the TV to the PC as a core machine in the house. And, of course, the balance between our virtual and real living.
A good question Arkangel. Very soon now we will all be watching telly on our PC's (or is it the other way round?)and because we are used to hopping about on our PC even more than we do on the multi-channel TV zapper it presents real challenges to the TV programmers as they need to be even more ingenious to grab attention.
Does the TV win or does the PC win is another question. I tend to think they merge rather than one being ahead of the other. I rather like the idea of the central communication hub monitoring our viewing, our virtual worlds, our energy sources and soon enough our brains.
However, I read in Time Magazine that the Japanese have developed bacteria with storage capacity well in excess of our PC at the moment. Maybe the winner in the end game will be the fridge. Now I know why I always head for the fridge before I put the telly on...
The challenges for us depend on how we look ahead. Neuroimaging has given us a sound basis to understand emotion and emotional reactions and I guess we will soon be looking at 'entertainment' in the home based on a machine's reading of our current emotional state. Advertisers are looking at this very seriously now after breakthrough UCLA research - can you imagine bespoke programming and advertising according to mood?
Get back to you after more considered thought.
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