Posted on Nov 19, 2008 by Sam Costello at 2:36 am
Home Automation – a category of connected devices that allow for central, electronic management of key home functions like temperature, lights, and alarms – is one of those things that always seems just around the corner. In our increasingly digital and networked world, home automation seems a natural play, but prices and competing standards have prevented it so far.
Now, though, Engadget sees a potential break in the clogged space – the mPanel, from Embedded Automation. The US$1000 7-inch touchscreen LCD can control all kinds of aspects of your house and demonstrates that, in Engadget’s words:
a complete automated home is, for the first time, becoming affordable.
What catches my eye about it is that, much like the ecobee Smart Thermostat, it’s another network-connected LCD installed in multiple places in the house. With a little modification, devices like the mPanel could easily replace digital picture frames by incorporating their features. Maybe a more robust feature set could help get home automation systems on more walls?
Posted on Nov 17, 2008 by Sam Costello at 2:05 am
Microsoft’s Surface – the really cool touch- and device-aware tabletop computer – has previously only been available to limited groups: casinos, cell phone stores, and so forth. Now, though, Microsoft may be considering bringing out a consumer version of the potentially revolutionary information appliance. Microsoft is conducting consumer research about a product that it’s code-named “Oahu,” which it describes as:
a flat screen that sits horizontally like a table top. You can interact with Oahu by touching the screen, instead of using a mouse, and more than one person can interact with Oahu at the same time. You and others can move objects on the screen with your hands and touch icons to open up programs, games, or music. People using the device can also use their fingertips to expand and shrink objects on the screen. The screen recognizes people’s hand movements and touches and reacts accordingly. You can bring up an on-screen keyboard to input information. Oahu also works with other devices (such as digital cameras, cell phones, and MP3 players) by getting information from or sending information to them.
Sure sounds like Surface to me. The price they’re testing is US$1499.
All just market research right now, but obviously Microsoft is considering spreading Surface far and wide, which could make our present look a whole lot more like a science fiction future.
Posted on Nov 13, 2008 by Sam Costello at 2:58 am
The Crammer, a new study aid from LeapFrog, is bringing even more LCDs into the home – in this case to help kids with their homework and at the low price of just US$59.99.
The Crammer is a 4.6-ounce device with a greyscale LCD that offers students over 16,000 quiz questions based on leading textbooks in math, science, and social studies.
The device also offers 1GB storage and a music player, a built-in Spanish translator and the ability to customize flash cards for personalized study. New content is added via connection to a Mac or PC. The Crammer is available now.
While keeping an information appliance narrowly targeted and with a discrete feature set helps keeps costs down and marketing easier, I can imagine a version of the Crammer in the future that includes a WiFi connection allowing updating quizzes to be pushed down to the device or teachers to send study questions right to their students over the web.
Thanks to Engadget for the link
Posted on Nov 10, 2008 by Sam Costello at 2:52 am
People have long loved the idea of putting computers in the kitchen. It’s probably been a decade or more since I first read about people taking old Macs – Mac Pluses and the like – and turning them into recipe databases with computer recipe cards.
A company called Demy is looking to tap into that impulse in the form of its Digital Recipe Reader, a new information appliance (literally!) sporting a color LCD, storage for up to 2,500 recipes, and a USB connection. New recipes are added to the device by USB. The Digital Recipe Reader runs US$299 and should be available now.
The thing I’d most like to see in this product, though, is a network connection. Loading recipes via USB is fine, but wouldn’t it be an even neater product if new computer recipe cards could be delivered over the web, friends could share recipes, or services could spring up to deliver a new recipe every day or week? Maybe in the next revision of the product we’ll see Internet features. Here’s hoping!
Posted on Nov 6, 2008 by Sam Costello at 2:48 am
A new WiFi-connected smart thermostat from ecobee promises to let you control your home’s heat over the Internet.
The ecobee Smart Thermostat is a web-connected thermostat that connects to your home’s WiFi network and can be configured through a touch-sensitive LCD or web portal. The device offers a neat calendar tool that allows you to set temperatures for different times (for instance, you can keep the heat low overnight but wake up to a warm house) or enter your vacations and have specific temperature settings for them.
The $385 device debuts in 2009.
What catches my eye about it, though, is that it’s a touch-sensitive, WiFi-connected information appliance hanging on your wall. Of course its main function is temperature control, but when you’re not changing your climate settings, what’s the screen doing? Why not deliver web-updated content to it? Weather is probably the most obvious thing to deliver, but paired with a service like FrameChannel, it could include photos, sports scores, and cartoons.
Thanks for the link to Engadget.
Posted on Nov 3, 2008 by Sam Costello at 2:42 am
A London restaurant called Inamo has rocketed dining into the 21st century with touchscreens embedded in its tables that allow diners to preview their food, order from the screen, customize their tabletop, and look up information about other local happenings.
What may be an attention-getting move for a single high-end London restaurant could point to a much bigger future for chain restaurants.
For instance, imagine a chain with 1,000 restaurants installing a system that delivers updated menu and ordering information over the Internet to tabletop LCDs that customers could use to order, see ads, play trivia games, etc. Such a system would need a robust, centrally managed infrastructure to deploy all the content.
While getting the first restaurant chain on board with this might take some work, it’s not hard to envision that sort of restaurant information network going into operation nationwide in the next decade or so.
Tip of the hat to Engadget.
