Monday, October 02, 2006

The world of next Tuesday.

I am pretty confident I am going to have to start hiding my identity to keep getting into venues. I admit I do have a particularly jaded view of technology. It is so cheap and accessible that things that used to be super wiz-bang are fairly routine.

This is my review of the Sunset Magazine innovation house. Probably the most detailed review you will find. I wasn't horribly impressed. More hype than real function. The other oddity. You have to be bused into this place. Which almost made me cratch going. I am horrible at waiting for things. At any rate.. the occupants of the buses were basically Sunset Seniors. Mostly the elderly who read the magazine, but for which the technology would surely be lost on. Maybe there was a huge "wow factor" for that demographic.

So here we go....

The first thing you see when you walk in is the robo-mower by Kyodo America.



I am particularly interested in this product since I own a Friendly Robotics machine. There has been a ton of salivating that iRobot would make a mower to compliment their other line of products. I have seen the pictures of this machine on the web and assumed it was a huge machine. It isn't. It is actually half the size of the Friendly Robotics model.

As you can see, it also has a fairly obvious safety vulnerability. More concerning is an image on this site which shows you how far off the ground this machine gets when it is doing steep terrain.



Additionally. This is a single blade unit. I have seen so many pictures making it seem like a huge machine (here) that would mow a large expanse. I am telling you. This machine would take a very long time to mow a yard this size.



I would have loved to see it going to see what all these buttons were about. Although I pretty much knew it would be inoperable.



iRobot display.



There were one or two "futuristic" things in the house. Although this next item seemed gratuitous, and odd. A 3D printer.



Even though the technology has progressed since I last saw it here at RoboNexus. I think it will still a long time before people will find these thing practical. The price has come down considerably though.. so perhaps I am wrong. This model was between 20-21 grand. RoboNexus 2005 they were about 45 grand.

These were the products it was making at RoboNexus. Here, here and here. Below are the products it was making at the Innovation House.





This was the data-closet for this house.



For the amount of real technology, I'm guessing half of this closet runs this climate controlled wine cellar with a bar-code system to keep track of your vintages.



As you can see it is a massive structure. We are close to wine country... but still.



Here is a clever display (I think) of a more safe way to do electrical wiring. If any of you know how the system works now... you basically wire-nut all the wires together. Hope the wire-nuts don't slip off when you push everything back into the wire-boxes. This system snaps the connectors together. Much like the connector that is on the back of your disk drive.



In the future, bathrooms will be really small.







Note: I don't mind small bathrooms, but this house is being sold in the range of 5.5 million dollars after Sunset Magazine is done running this tour. For that kind of money I want a bigger bathroom.

But they will have really cool windows made of liquid crystals.





The bathrooms will come with faucets that look really cool, but make every woman on earth crazy. When I first saw this I thought it looked great, but the water would drip on the mirror constantly making it look like crap. Sure enough.. turn the water off and you are left with drips on the mirror.



The office of the future will really not look much different than it does now.



And the media-room doesn't even have a TIVO.



And we still wont be able to figure out any art that is friendly to the earth without it being made from those plastic 6 pack can holders.



I was hugely interested in the solar installation. After the last blackout, we have been seriously looking hard at this technology.





In the future you will not need to use your legs. Maybe in this neighborhood you need a bicycle that runs like a motorcycle. Although I think a Vespa might be more hip.





The real reason to buy this house is the BBQ area. Honestly, it is the most fantastic space on the property.





And these fabulous views.



If you can make out the for-sale sign, this house could be yours. Just know, you can have most of this technology for way way under the 5.5 mil price-tag.

1 comment:

  1. Great pics of the house - and your commentary is GREAT!

    Two things:
    -for that price I want to sit on a toilet that doesn't look like it is the biohazard disposal at my Dr.'s office (yeah & the size)
    -WTF is up with the soda can holder art? Perhaps a little color behind it would've have set it off differently, but seriously - who would hang that on their wall except someone with an overabundance of them and a wont to not harm waterfowl while fishing (think PC alcoholic)

    Thanks for the link you left me today - and I love the ideas about the pets visiting....My sis' is a registered therapy dog, but then again, she would have to stay with her....so your help was great!

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