OT IBM lab simulates home of the future
By The Associated Press
Special to CNET News.com
July 27, 2001, 11:05 a.m. PT
Refrigerators that offer spoiled-milk alerts. Porch lights that home owners can turn off when they're away on vacation. Bathroom counters that announce whether it's safe to mix two medications.
Such a future is now on display at an IBM lab in Austin, Texas, where researchers are testing new technology in a fully furnished living room, kitchen and garage.
In the kitchen, a screen on the refrigerator door tells what's inside. Digital stoves and microwaves cook automatically, following recipes downloaded from the Internet. In the living room, a miniature, mobile wireless touch-screen replaces remote controls.
Servers are built into the decor, allowing wireless devices, appliances, thermostats, security systems and computers to communicate with one another from anywhere.
Parents can monitor the babysitter via a secure Internet site. The thermostat can be linked to a weather Web site, firing up the furnace if the forecast calls for snow. And the digital peek into the fridge--that too, could be done away from home.
"Everything, absolutely everything is connected," Bill Bodin, an IBM researcher, said as he showed off the lab Thursday.
Other tech giants, such as Hewlett-Packard, have created similar labs.
For now, IBM's "smart house" is home to constantly evolving ideas. But as IBM's Michael Rhodin tells it, the technology being developed and tested at the Austin lab is the next big thing.
It may be only two years away.
"It's almost a threshold of where the computer is going to change completely," said Rhodin, vice president of the Pervasive Computing Division's development department. "People need to feel connected 24 hours a day."
That means the next era of home computing will be to integrate computing in the home, "making technology real for people," Rhodin said.
IBM, based in Armonk, N.Y., wants to create a stable infrastructure and to simplify wireless technology. "That's the kind of stuff that IBM is known for," Rhodin said.
The payoff could be huge. Like many other computer companies, IBM has seen its PC sales decline. Meanwhile, Rhodin said, wireless and network technology has endless consumer possibilities. Just this week, a Coke machine complete with both Internet access and a movie-ticket dispenser was shipped out of the lab.
But constant connection also raises questions, Rhodin acknowledged. "There are going to be a lot of interesting debates over the issue of privacy."
Privacy is something businesses, consumers and government should carefully discuss, said Philip Doty, an associate professor at the University of Texas who studies technology and privacy.
"This kind of scrutiny of an individual or a family might be extremely oppressive," he said.
For example, businesses could use data to customize advertising or offer discounts if consumers agree to allow personal information to be accessed by companies, Doty said. "That tends to commoditize privacy."
