is your house smarter than you are?

So-called "smart homes" are back in the media once again, this time in a series of articles in the Style section of last weekend's New York Times Magazine (reg req'd). James Gleick and Cory Doctorow are among the writers that weigh in on various aspects of the digital, networked, sensor-enhanced domicile and lifestyle. Since the above link will probably be wrong by next weekend, here are the articles with hopefully more durable links.

UPDATE: All the NYT links have slipped into pay-per-view obscurity, at a larcenous $2.95 per article, argh. Guess in future I'll know better than to blog their stupid site.

Gleick's piece, "When the House Starts Talking to Itself", illustrates with humorous examples the problematic complexity that accompanies our many of today's home 'automation' systems. Gleick ruminates, "Once you've entered the future, be prepared for a double-edged question: Is your house smarter than you are?"

In "Youve Got Mail...From the Microwave", Paul Boutin describes the emergence of consumer appliances as connected citizens of the home network. The self-inventorying refrigerator, the living room PC, the oven remotely controllable via mobile phone, and the RFID-reading washing machine, all making their way to a big box retailer near you.

Ted Fishman writes about the proliferation of displays large and small, in "Coming to a Location Very Near You".

Johanna Berkman's "Hit Replay" covers the new venture Roku, from the founder of ReplayTV. Roku's first product is an HDTV companion device which enables media on your PC to display on a TV, similar to many other media receivers in the market except in HD quality.

Cory's piece "Domesticating the (Electronic) Help" is a short and fun bit on the reality of home robotics, with (surprise) an eye toward the robot hacker culture. He includes a mention of a personal favorite of mine, Natalie Jeremijenko's feral robotic dogs project at Yale.

Finally, an article by Clive Thompson called "Remote Possibilities" touches on some of the new uses that mobile phones are being put to, such as a remote controlled pet feeder, SMS/texting, and of course cameraphones. I'm happy to see Thompson did some homework, for instance getting informed quotes from social scientists including Genevieve Bell and Mimi Ito.

Whenever I see this kind of feature, I immediately think of Rich Gold's evocative 1994 rant on smart homes, "How Smart Does Your Bed Have To Be, Before You Are Afraid To Go To Sleep At Night?" At the time, Rich was working with Mark Weiser at PARC on the original ubicomp research program and wrestling with the implications of "invisible, everywhere computing that does not live on a personal device of any sort, but is in the woodwork everywhere." If you have never encountered Rich's work, you owe it to yourself to spend several hours with his legacy of unique writings. If you have been there, go back and do it again.

Posted by Gene at November 19, 2003 05:29 PM | TrackBack