Hardware Geeks

On Monday I had the chance to visit with HP at the Innovations Dream Home in Disneyland, which is in Anaheim California. I have been looking forward to checking out the Dream Home since I first told you guys about it back on the 16th of June.

The Innovations Dream Home (located in Tomorrow Land) is a futuristic home, where RFID tags, Touchscreens and Wireless connectivity rule. Where you can look into your own magic mirror and see how you’d look in one of your outfits with out putting it on,or better yet grab a souvenir from a trip to Disneyland and have pictures from that trip displayed through ot the house on your LCD picture frames.

While the Dream Home is supposed to give you an idea of what he home of the future has instore, a lot of the technology in the home is assailable today while some technology isn’t.

I don’t want to ruin the story line or spoil it for those who haven’t visited the Dream Home at Disneyland so I will only say that when you visit the home you are treated like guest and there is a big party going on because of the youngest son did something pretty amazing. You are allowed to walk through the house and the family, tells you a story about each room, each family member has a different story for each room and the stories are pretty funny, and while the exhibit isn’t as thrilling as Space Mountain it’s fun and it showed by the huge line that formed outside.

I took tons of pictures, and right now I am asking my self should I show you the pictures or should I keep them to my self. I really don’t want to ruin the experience for those of you who haven’t seen the Dream Home by showing loads of pictures of the Dream Home. I think it is a great exhibit and worth visiting and I don’t want any of you to feel as if it can be skipped because you seen pictures of it.

So when you enter the Exhibit you are greeted by a Robotic Man named Tom Morrow (Tomorrow you have to get that) who kind of looks familiar to me but I am not sure. He tells you about different technologies and basically prepares you for the exhibit. In true Disney Fashion the Robot looked as real as you could probably get it to look, and I have to say I felt like a little kid again, I was totally into it and couldn’t wait for what I was about to see.

After the brief greeting that lasted about 3 minutes or so by the Robotic Man, we were walked to the front door of the house, where we were greeted by Brittany one of the sisters. She told us about the party and why there was a party and also told us about their dog which I assume has an RFID tag in his color (who knows maybe its implanted) and can enter the house through a locked doggy door. As long as it didn’t run too fast and crashed into it. So right away we are told about RFID tags.

RFID stands for Radio Frequency Identification, and think of it as an electronic bar code, big retailers such as wal-mart want to use this technology to prevent theft, change the check out process and help keep in-store inventory. Would save them lots of money, and hopefully they would be passed on those savings to us the consumer. So if a big retailer could implement RFID tags on their products just imagine if you could use that already present tag to keep your own inventory.

When I entered the house I headed to the right and entered a Den of sorts, there was a huge Microsoft Surface (total rip of the HP Misto) table. The table had four screens and allowed visitors to put video puzzles together. The uncle in the house also gave a quick demo on how to get your pictures from a camera or smart phone such as the iPaq 910 (the phone they used) onto the Surface using RFID tags and Wireless connectivity.

Next to the Microsoft Surface Table which again I say is a copy cat of HP Misto, was a wall with 5 picture frames in the middle and several above it, there were also frames around the house, around the 5 central frames were cabinets and in each cabinet there was some memento or souvenir with an RFID tag attached. When any of the mementos were placed under the 5 central frames the pictures on the frames would change to show pictures that went along with that moment or souvenir.

Picture 1: Microsoft Surface Picture Puzzle | Picture 2: Statue of Liberty Snow Glob surrounded by NYC pictures.

The next room I visited was the Kitchen and I have to say, if you’re married and your wife is bugging you to remodel the kitchen, keep her far away from the Kitchen in the Dream Home, as it has a talking computer, a Touchsmart computer really cool appliances and a large touch screen that responds to your fingers of course and RFID tags.

The Kitchen in the Innovations Dream Home also uses RFID tags, so lets say you went shopping at Wal-Mart and bought a jar of Spaghetti Sauce, a box of Spaghetti, Onions, Hot Dogs and a pack of Hot Dog buns, and just for the sake of discussion lets say every single item is pre tagged with an RFID tag by Wal-Mart. The RFID tag has the following information: Price, Calorie count, What the Item is, Expiration Date and the Day you bought it.

So when you get home and put it in the Kitchen your talking computer (Named Lillian in the Dream Home) will be able to tell you what you can make for dinner with those items you purchased. The directions are laid out for you on the counter from an overhead projector. It only shows recipes for what you have ingredients for, and or if you suk at cooking you can use a business card from the local take out joint which would have an RFID tag also to pull up their website and make a quick order. Check out the pictures below for an example of the recipe projection on the kitchen counter and the online ordering on the Giant Touch Screen.

Pictures of the Kitchen Counter

Big Touch Screen in Kitchen

Another cool thing about the Kitchen was the HP Touchsmart PC in the Kitchen. A lot of us and I know I do use the refrigerator as a memo board, using magnets to attach little notes and even grocery list on the refrigerators doors, but now with the Touchsmart (unboxing photos | Review soon) you don’t need to leave those notes on the refrigerators door, you can do it on the Touchsmart, you can even leave video messages and with special software even control your homes lighting, window shades a

The next room I visited was the younger daughters room, which was probably the coolest room in the house. The oldest daughter was reading the youngest daughter a story, and while reading peter pan a projector projected the story onto the wall, and various sound effects went ito play. It was pretty cool.

But the oldest daughters room was more fun and I had a tour of it by her oldest brother who seems to be into Cross Dressing. Her room had a Magic Mirror of sorts and interactive wallpaper, which pulled content from her computer to display it on her wall. Check the pictures out.

One of the brothers trying on his sisters clothes n the Magic Mirror.

Interactive Wallpaper notice the playlist

The final room I visited was the family room, it had a large flat tv, which had rear projection but the projector was not attached to the tv but built into the wall and just projected onto the screen. The screen was glass and you literally could walk behind it and maybe even do a hand puppet show if you wanted.

As you can see there are no cables or anything except for the cables from the ceiling holding it in place. It looks really cool, and whats even cooler is that everything is controlled by Windows Media Center, and an extender like the HP MediaSmart connect is used to send the video and pictures among other things to the television for easy viewing.

I loved the Dream home and when I am filthy rich I plan to create my home just like it, and although I may not be able to have a magic mirror or a talking kitchen computer that feeds me recipes, I can get a HP Touchsmart, a Media Center PC, HP MediaSmart Connect and the HP MediaSmart Homeserver now. So the Dream Home is a dream home that can come true sooner rather than later.

For more info on the Dream Home click here.

By the way just wanted to thank Brandon (http://www.windowsvistablog) and Mike (http://www.missingremote.com) for the fun time in Disneyland.

Mike, Brandon and I!

Post Tags: microsoft  hp  windows  touchsmart  media center  disneyland  tomorrow land  inovations dream home  disney  surface 

Next entry: IE 8 Beta 2 Available for Public Download Previous entry: Headed to Dineyland