Table of Contents Introduction: Your Future Home 3 THE DIGITAL HOME: FIRST FLOOR 6 THE DIGITAL HOME: SECOND FLOOR 9 Building the Digital Home 10 LAYING THE FOUNDATION 10 AUDIO VIDEO FOUNDATION 12 HOME AUTOMATION 14 TRANSFORMING YOUR LIVING ROOM 16 HIGH-TECH HOME OFFICE 18 HIGH-TECH KITCHEN 21 DESIGN, EDITING & PRODUCTION HIGH-TECH BEDROOM 23 ADAM GILLITT, [email protected] THE BATHROOM 24 THE OUTSIDE 26 WRITERS Your Digital Home 28 JOEL DURHAM JR., BILL HOWAR, JAN OZER, GALEN FOTT, EMILE JETSONIZE YOUR HOME 30 MENASCHÉ, MATTHEW D. SARRE, SEBASTIAN RUPLEY, CADE YOUR PC 33 METZ, OLIVER KAVEN, MOLLY K. MCLAUGHLIN, STEPHANIE WATCHING VIDEO 39 CHANG, CAROL A. MANGIS, DAVIS D. JANOWSKI, KONSTANTINOS CREATING VIDEO 44 KARAGIANNIS, SARAH E. ANDERSON, MATTHEW P. GRAVEN, YOUR MUSIC 50 DANIEL S. EVANS, ERIK RHEY, JIM LOUDERBACK YOUR PHOTOS 54 YOUR GAMES 62 ALL CONTENTS © 2003-2005 TYING IT ALL TOGETHER 65 ZIFF DAVIS MEDIA. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Counterpoint: PC is Wrong for the Digital Home 72 WWW.PCMAG.COM • WWW.EXTREMETECH.COM ith the arrival of networking and broadband networking an entire home wirelessly with Win the home, one thing has become one inexpensive 802.11n access point. crystal clear: The future digital home will have even better connections and devices, and Analysts foresee many new kinds of home will serve its owners in new and fascinating applications resulting from these range and ways—especially in the field of entertainment. performance improvements. “I think as 802.11n becomes hardened as a standard, and if it uses intro- Experts agree that wireless technology is the things like MIMO antenna technology, it could key enabler you’ll find in homes a few years transform the digital home,” says Mike Wolf, from now. But today’s 802.11b and 802.11g senior analyst at In-Stat/MDR. “The reason most wireless networking standards don’t have people who are doing things like distributed duction: the range or speed to do distributed, wireless digital video are using analog instead of wireless video and entertainment in any real sense, digital technology is because the networking especially in bigger, multilevel American technology we have is still far too slow.” homes. A very promising next-generation version of Wi-Fi, though, is 802.11n. “Our partners have asked for four or five Your times current Wi-Fi speeds from 802.11n, Although a ratified standard for 802.11n isn’t so that people will replace their equipment, expected until late 2006, many companies and we would like to see one access point are talking about delivering access points and cover the whole house,” says Mary Cramer, Future other products in 2005 that will be software- strategic marketing manager at Agere. She upgradable to the standard. That trickle of foresees multiple HDTV video streams traveling products is likely to become a flood by 2007. wirelessly in the home of the future, and very The players involved with 802.11n are talking fast downloading of entertainment content Home about quoted data rates of up to 250 Mbps and to multiple devices around the house. actual data rates of up to 175 Mbps. (To put these numbers into perspective, current 802.11g But 802.11n is hardly the only wireless technology offers a quoted rate of 54 Mbps, and technology that could transform tomorrow’s actual data rates tend to be less than half that.) smart homes; ultra wideband (UWB) is another. It works by dispersing many small bursts of Agere Systems, for example, has considered high-speed radio signals over a wide radio using multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) spectrum, instead of issuing an extended antenna technology in 802.11n products and radio signal over a smaller frequency range, doubling current Wi-Fi channel bandwidth to as do other wireless technologies. Some 40 MHz. The company has also discussed the ultra-wideband developers, such as Intel, possibility—thanks to range improvements—of have demonstrated that the technology can produce data rates faster than 200 Mbps. Then there’s a prototype connectivity down for a computer gaming session on the find numerous wirelessly connected cameras technology, backed by Intel and others, that is a large flat-panel display, the LED lights will inside and outside a home, each with its own subset of ultra wideband: wireless USB (WUSB). respond to events in the game and enhance IP address, motion sensor, remote tilt and It’s intended to bring data rates comparable to the experience. All around the house are wall- swivel controls, and Web server features. From those of USB 2.0 to such tasks as trafficking mounted computers about the size of PDAs that a cell phone or a Web browser, you’ll be able multiple video and media streams wirelessly control lighting, temperature, music, and more. to view live streaming video and control the between consumer electronics devices, PCs, camera remotely, or have the system alert and peripherals. The expected data rate of Although Microsoft strategists would like you wirelessly if there is an emergency. wireless USB is 480 Mbps at a range of 2 the digital home of the future to have a meters and 110 Mbps at 10 meters, according PC as the central mediating device, others And what’s a home of the future without to Jeff Ravencraft, Intel technology strategist imagine many mediators and see them smart appliances? Robotic vacuums, digital and USB-IF chairman. These very high data being consumer electronics devices. “I think washing machines that can control water rates at close range would enable you to do you’ll see several different kinds of devices flow for different kinds of loads, and things like point a camcorder at a PC and controlling content,” says Charlie Gonsalves, refrigerators with built-in LCDs already exist, stream video wirelessly to the computer. business development manager in Texas but haven’t found their niche quite yet. They Instruments’ streaming media group. “You’ll will surely get much smarter over time. While the wireless wars rage on, others find a sophisticated audio server, a PVR, and are approaching the digital home of the a PC or other kind of hub.” Gonsalves also Here you’ll find our annotated version of future in imaginative, conceptual ways. notes that the National Association of Home what we see as the digital home of the near At the Microsoft campus in Redmond, Builders has been considering plans that include future. Its central artery is exponentially Washington, Pam Heath is the project a dedicated closet serving as a data center faster wireless technology that will automate leader in charge of the Microsoft Home—an for a home. “You might have redundant hard and speed up many tasks. You’ll also find actual house where researchers demonstrate drives in the closet, and devices for streaming it loaded with innovative devices and and test technologies of the future. media, controlling wireless bandwidth, technologies. It’s a smart place to live. and serving the communication needs of “One conceptual thing we work with a lot is a telecommuter who lives in the home.” that any surface in the home is potentially a display surface, such as a kitchen countertop or In home security, futurists see devices such a wall,” says Heath. In the Microsoft Home, you as smart, Web-connected cameras and robots can say the name of a recipe, and the recipe playing a role. White Box Robotics, for example, will be displayed on the counter in front of you. has produced a prototype robot that looks If you have a bag of RFID-tagged groceries, like R2-D2 and can perform facial recognition you can swipe products past an RFID reader on anyone who walks through the front door. on the counter, and a display on the counter JVC, Linksys, Sony, and others are at work will show what you can cook. In the living developing next-generation IP cameras that room, intelligent LED lights of various colors can help homeowners keep an eye on their are embedded in the walls, so that if you sit houses from wherever they are. You might The Digital Home First Floor CAR / GARAGE 1. Flat-panel LCDs on seat-backs for passenger entertainment. 2. A satellite radio/mapping/ entertainment system that can read e-mails aloud. 3. A Wi-Fi jukebox in the trunk syncs wirelessly with the entertainment center in the living room to download playlists. It can also download movie and educational TV content for passengers. 4. A sensor on the front of the car alerts you if other objects are too close or if you’re approaching at too great a speed. ROOF 5. An HDTV/satellite/premium services dish. FRONT HALL 6. A software-customizable robot recognizes faces at the door and sends wireless alerts if an intruder enters. 7. A closet houses wirelessly connected storage system arrays for entertainment content, digital photography archives, and backup data. DEN / OFFICE 21. A PC-based videoconferencing session with full-duplex Internet audio. 22. An IP phone places calls over the Internet or cellular network—whichever is cheaper. 23. A tablet PC with speech recognition for dictation, automatic text transcription of meetings, and portable videoconferencing. 24. A notebook PC enabled with wireless USB technology; you can stream video to it from a camcorder at 480 Mbps. 25. A wireless USB photo printer and paper-fed text-to-speech translator. KITCHEN 8. A speech-recognizing, cabinet-mounted PC displays recipes, directions, and other information right on the counter. 9. A wireless broadband videophone, portable gamind device, and movie player with an 8-megapixel digital camera, and a speech-recognizing 802.11n Wi-Fi tablet PC.