Gizmodo

Looks kinda neat almost Jetsonlike

the house of the future moons your neighbors for you, nice, very nice

Onion Newspaper Headline Brief:

House of the future made from cheese wheel:
Prospective homeowners move to Wisconsin for cheap housing and natural refrigeration.

Walt Disney FTW. R.I.P. my friend.

the problem is that the original house designers used creativity and imagination to think of what a future house could look like.

The new house just uses current tech with lots of chrome or stainless steel and calls it the house of the future. Nothing exciting, original, or creative. Fun, yes. But definitely uninspired.

I went to Disney Land in 1958. I was a tad of a lad, and I remember that house blew me away. That and the submarine ride, which the bastards took out.

it looks like a tilted car

*looking from afar

is that a house or a steamed bun? Either way...d.e.l.i.c.i.o.u.s.

Oh. This Old House (of the future). Or how about "Flip This House of the Future.

I always liked that house at Disneyland.

@Amiash: how far back from the monitor should I stand?

@ferment78: @Amiash:

when I first looked at the tiny thumbnail on the main page, I thought it was a car too

@ferment78: use thy imagination

"Welcome to the...House of Tomorrow!!!!

And by that I literally mean tomorrow. Most of this stuff will be on sale tomorrow, so be sure to check out our corporate partners at www.hp.com, www.ms...."

More information about this awesome part of Disneyland's History:
[www.yesterland.com]

Even though this house was made by Monsanto (now an "evil megacorp" with a huge rap sheet) it is still an impressive feature.

The totally plastic '58 house was amazing..not that I ever saw it in person, but boingboing.net's obsession with Disneyland has led me to many a gallery of the plastic fantastic look into the future.

"Legend has it that the planned one-day demolition of the House of Future ended up taking two weeks as the wrecking ball just bounced off the exterior. Workers painstakingly cut the house into pieces with hacksaws." (from [www.yesterland.com] with heaps more pics).

I also read that it looked immaculate- despite the millions who would've trawled through it daily. All that plastic never scuffed or aged. Back when everyone wanted everything to last forever, now its all about biodegradable materials.

This new one... not so excited. Sounds more like a showroom for expensive "cutting edge" products from the sponsors - alot of which will be redundant or dropped by the wayside for more practical tech in less than a decade.

Correction: millions of people didn't visit it daily, millions would've over it's lifespan. Duh.

The DRMed furniture from Microsoft beats the DRMed furniture from Apple.

At least you can sit on the Microsoft stuff without wearing Apple pants.

@geschmidtt: Dude, how long has it been since you visited Disneyland? The submarine ride was NEVER taken out of Disneyland. Sure, it stopped running for several years, but it has always been there. Shoot, it's running again for crying out loud, albeit it now has a different theme. In essence though it's still the same ride.

Plastic toilet paper? Can you imagine trying to wipe your ass with Reynolds Wrapp? Slippery. MESSY.

Here is what I wrote in to Disneyland via e-mail :

Dear Disneyland Resort,

I just came across this, and was flabbergasted -

[gizmodo.com]

It definitely sounds extremely dull, and totally unimaginative.

Why don't you get Apple to design a House of the Future for you?

Whomever is reading this, I am sure, can agree that any piece of technology from Apple any day (been to an Apple Store lately, and seen their brilliant designs?)
FAR beats out any beige, or black boring boxes from the P.C. realm.

As well, since Microsoft can't make a decent piece of software to save their lives -

[gizmodo.com]

what makes you think they can design furniture?

You have OBVIOUSLY trusted Steve Jobs' Pixar enough to purchase them. Why not attend to Apple?

Thank you for your time and consideration.

I come to Disneyland to be inspired. Not to see what I can get at home.

Sincerely,

Daniel Rappaport

@ferment78: Look at the thumbnail, and think overhead view of a convertable...

@92BuickLeSabre: Spot on... The house of tomorrow.. one day early.
Someone on the design team was taking it too literally...

That combined with some stupid desire to not look silly (like the 50's people saying "Your home will be cleaned with healthy radiation and atomic powered robots")

I work for the company that designed the structure of the original House of the Future. We were also the structural engineer for the geodesic sphere at EPCOT for Disney in the 1980s (the geodesic structure originally developed by Fuller to solve a housing problem).

I haven't seen an image of the new house but it sounds like a missed opportunity to do something truly advance which addresses many of today's real issues. Disney seem to have a very short-sighted view of the future...

To Desinewiz - who did you email at Disney? We'd like to get in touch with them to suggest there's a better way of doing a new House of the Future than a $15million 5,000 sq ft American suburban home.

@dezinewiz: Yes, but what you don't understand is that HP/Compaq has been a sponsor of the parks since 1996. As well, Microsoft/HP/Lifeware is not just displaying stuff you can buy now, but their plans and ideas for the future (enhancements to the eHome project, etc). The space that they are using is the bottom floor of Innoventtions, and the contract is only for 2 years. There's quite a bit of discussion on the various Disneyland forums.

@Mio: "The DRMed furniture from Microsoft beats the DRMed furniture from Apple. At least you can sit on the Microsoft stuff without wearing Apple pants."

True! But you cannot set the Microsoft end table next to the couch because they aren't compatible. One is based on the RelaxForSure(tm) DRM technology which is incompatible with the various other Microsoft DRMs. And if you move to a new house, the license to use the furniture doesn't move with you. You need to buy new stuff all over again.

@DocGratis: "That combined with some stupid desire to not look silly (like the 50's people saying 'Your home will be cleaned with healthy radiation and atomic powered robots')"

As opposed to your food preserved via healthy radiation and your floors cleaned by atomic powered Roomba robots Which we have today. Of course the atomic power flows in through your home wires and isn't generated directly inside the Roomba, but that has more to do with economies of scale than anything else.

Wasn't there an article posted a few months back about a Japanese firm (Mitsubishi?) selling atomic generators for "home" use?

I think the reason they went with modern-day tech instead of really stretching their imaginations into the future is because:

A) At this point, the best future would look quite boring (sustainable, natural, locally-sourced, modern-chic)

B) ...and the worst future would look quite scary (climate change, haves vs. have-nots, homeland security, unchecked sprawl, modern-bunker)

"Here's two visions of our future home."

Do you mean "Here're two visions..."?

One future house I'd love live in is the one on the AI movie. Swell.