Editor's Note: We built a new home that has Internet, cable and satellite connections facilitating present and future smart systems. http://house.seniorwomen.com/
Janna Quitney Anderson, Elon University
Lee Rainie, Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project
Overview
Science fiction scenarios have long prophesied a gee-whiz Home of the Future complete with automated appliances, chore-performing robots, and jetpacks. In recent years, technologists and corporate officials have expanded that idea with visions of utility systems, buildings, and even entire cities where sensors, ubiquitous smartphones, and real-time data analytics allow traffic to flow more smoothly, electricity and water systems to adjust efficiently to customer needs, and buildings or bridges that tell their overseers when they are in need of repair.
Cisco predicts that there will be 25 billion connected devices in 2015 and 50 billion by 2020, each generating data and insights that might prove helpful to those who monitor and collect such things.
This profusion of connectivity and data should facilitate a new understanding of
how living environments can be improved.
To some degree, that future already exists or is being plotted now. Here are some of the things that are occurring now or are being planned for implementation in the foreseeable future:
- In 2008, IBM declared that it was going to make a big push into the “industrial Internet” in an initiative called “Smarter Planet.”
- There are now more than 2,000 projects in the company’s initiative. The New York Times reported: “In Dubuque, Iowa, for example, IBM has embarked on a long-term program with the local government to use sensors, software, and Internet computing to improve the city’s use of water, electricity, and transportation. In a pilot project in 2011, digital water meters were installed in 151 homes, and software monitored water use and patterns, informing residents about ways to consume less and alerting them to likely leaks. In Rio de Janeiro, IBM is employing ground and airborne sensors, along with artificial intelligence software, for neighborhood-level disaster preparedness. The system … aims to predict heavy rains and mudslides up to 48 hours in advance and conduct evacuations before they occur.”
- Google and other companies have created driverless cars that have successfully navigated the streets of San Francisco and interstate highways.
- One of the newest “smart appliances” will enter the market this month. It is a rice cooker made by Panasonic and sold in Japan that downloads an Android app that then allows the cooker itself to search for recipes. The app is capable of sending emails to the owner about the ingredients that are needed for certain recipes.
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