Recently, Disney announced the grand opening of their new Innoventions Dream Home located in Tomorrowland in Anaheim, Calif. The construction was a collaborative effort between Disneyland, Microsoft, HP, Life|ware and home-builder Taylor Morrison-so naturally the home functions more as a big advertising campaign for current products than an actual "home of the future." Still, I wouldn't mind booting out the fictional Elias family from their 5000-square-foot home to get my hands on some of this tech.
Microsoft:
In addition to Microsoft technology we are already familiar with like Surface, Home Server, Vista, the Zune , Xbox 360 and the like (the home of the future is still running the 360?), there are a number of future technologies installed in the home that were inspired by innovations from their prototyping lab:
•Magic Mirror: A mirror projects different clothes, accessories and hairstyles onto each family member's image when they stand before it. The clothes not only morph to the contours of the body, but also sway as the person in front of the mirror moves.
•Kitchen of Your Dreams: The kitchen recognizes ingredients as a family member sets them on the counter, suggesting recipes for those items and providing instructions once a recipe is selected.
•Story Time: Visit the child's room to be transported to Neverland. Read "Peter Pan" aloud to absorb a full multimedia experience, as cues in the story set off lights, sounds, colors and video.
HP:
In the kitchen, HP has their TouchSmart PC keeping things organized and the iPAQ 510 Voice Messenger is available to make calls. In the living room the aforementioned iPAQ is connected to the Surface table to transfer and display photos. They can also be transferred wirelessly to any number of HP digital photo frames in the house as well as to the MediaSmart TV.
As for Life|ware, they provided much of the RFID technology and media center solutions that tied all of the technology together.
To get the full scoop on the home of the semi-present, hit the following press releases. [HP and Microsoft and Life|ware and Disney via Hemagazine]