New Technologies

The latest technologies often enhance convenience, improve durability, and/or are eco-friendly solutions. Bob created a “connected home” in his Vermont Farmhouse project using advanced home wiring technologies. New construction approaches allowed the laying of a concrete foundation in the Building An Addition project, saving time and money. For the latest in technologies for three popular areas of the home—kitchen, bath, and outdoors—check out.

I think that these innovations will come soon .. There are many studies .. But fear of application is still dominant

The trend to follow in innovations for home improvement must surely relate to the Internet-of-Things and associated interconnectedness of smart home technology. (Many have talked and written about this for years.) The reason we are not all—well, nearly all—living in smart, connected homes at this moment owes to fierce competition and lack of collaboration: there are millions of individual appliances and hundreds (if not thousands) of applications on the market; however, for now, few solutions (if any) tie everything together into seamless user experience. That said, large companies that are well-versed in user experience—such as Amazon, Apple, and Google—are becoming involved; we should see advances in the coming years.

I agree with Oliver, there are many papers on this subject. The diffusion of these approaches is actually quite slow. It may also be that users perceive a feeling of loss of control. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321919811_Annehmlichkeit_und_psychologische_Reaktanz_Mediatoren_zwischen_autonomer_elektronischer_Serviceerbringung_und_Nutzungswiderstand

Permissions may be an instrument to reduce the strength of this process.

New Technologies

The latest technologies often enhance convenience, improve durability, and/or are eco-friendly solutions. Bob created a “connected home” in his Vermont Farmhouse project using advanced home wiring technologies. New construction approaches allowed the laying of a concrete foundation in the Building An Addition project, saving time and money. For the latest in technologies for three popular areas of the home—kitchen, bath, and outdoors—check out.

I think that these innovations will come soon .. There are many studies .. But fear of application is still dominant

Ms Fu,

Wow, what a question! Thank you. It brings me fond memories of a time about 20 odd years ago when I was thinking and dabbling in the things you raise in your question—you call it “ Smart Home” -- I called it, “Electronic Home” then. What’s in a name? As Shakespeare observed through the words of Juliet, “ a rose by any name would smell just as sweet.” [see Shakespeare's  play Romeo and Juliet].

I post here an image of the  summary of a proposal I made to the management of the company I was working for. To make it easy for non-technical managers at the company to understand and support my proposal, I produced a summary, adopting the scenario style. If you would care to examine the image of the summary, you may well see how far ahead I was. Perhaps what William Shatner says at the start of every episode of Star Trek “ ... to boldly go where no man has gone before”, could arguably apply to my ideas of at least two decades ago,

You might want to read the document and see for yourselves the many ideas I presented well before the arrival of the Internet and Tom Berners-Lee’s world-wide web.

As for the IoT, I am not sure that having all the devices equipped with IoT capability is a good idea, at least not at this time; how can you totally eliminate the risk of dangerous individuals and organizations hacking into (and taking control of these devices), as they have done, into the systems of the US Government departments. If a US Government department can be hacked into, what is the chance that you and I can protect our home devices?

Perhaps, BLOCKCHAIN** technology to identify IoT devices could be of help. But that is still some years away. We hear of how some smart TV sets are known to be “ watching or listening” to what the viewer is looking on his or her TV screen, and talking in front of their TV sets.

[BLOCKCHAIN is the underlying technology used in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum, to name just two.]

Thanks Phil

Further to my response, it has been reported that Amazon has today opened its first Amazon Go store which allows you to walk into the grocery store -- for that is what it is -- pick up one or more grocery items and leave. Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning (really a development of AI), Machine Vision and Sensor Fusion help the store to know what items you have picked, and charge you. If what you have picked up is replaced, your bill will be immediately adjusted. Of course you need to have a smart phone with the Amazon app installed on the phone. With the smartphone bearing the Amazon app, you can walk into the grocery store past the entry gates. There are no cashiers to scan and charge you. You just walk out and your Amazon account or your bank account will be charged. The store in Seattle is beta testing the "Go" capability right now, and is gaining free publicity on many TV news around the world.

Please see:

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon/amazon-go-cashierless-convenience-store-opening-to-the-public/

No stretch of the imagination is needed to see that shoppers at such stores will have no privacy left... the vision system can and will track your facial expression, the movement of your eyes, the flaring of your nostrils, the frown on your face, or that smile on your face as you find what you need or the surprised expression that could betray your thought(s) as you see an item you have been thinking about and could not find before, or even that glimmer of hope on your face that you will now be able to lay your hands on that elusive item you have longed for. Amazon will know so much about you.. that you cannot escape into nonetity. In this connection, mention must be made of an USA company called Target which was able to determine that a teenage girl was pregnant even before she knew it... there is very little that one can keep secret. Think of it!

It is not a big leap for the kitchen computer, when it is finally there at your home some day not too far away in time, to throw up a recepie(s) that match the items you have just bought. Or, it can send suggestions as to what to buy to combine with what you have already in house and have not used up. BBD ( Best Before Dates) or Use by Dates can be used to remind the Amazon GO shopper or prompt you to buy some items, or to avoid some items already in house. Lots of interesting possibilities are now within reach.

So my document (see above) was NOT a fantasy or "more the stuff of 'science fiction' " as the marketing manager remarked after reading the summary of my proposal document then, that I posted above a few days ago. A brave new world in the making or an Orwellian nightmare? As a technologist, I like the developments, but as a consumer already facing privacy issues, I am not pleased or chuffed at all.

Incidentally, there is a company right now developing a robot that can prepare dishes like a well-known chef might...

The above referred to news item points to the possibility that Amazon might licence its technology to others, if the above experiment succeeds.

Finally, what about jobs? The newspaper says that cashiers make up 3.5 million employed people, constituting 11% of the workforce. If Amazon's Go succeeds cashiers may be losing their jobs. Whither Trump's "Make America Great Again"?