Here comes the Future

If you are impressed with smart home technology like keyless entry and intelligent lighting, wait until you see what is in store for smart homes of the future.

Light switches that double as microphones and interior walls that transform into digital canvases are just some of the innovations that may one day make their way into our homes. Until then, many of these innovations start out on display in the Microsoft Home, a facility that showcases future domestic technology.

Based at the company's headquarters in Seattle, Washington, the Microsoft Home is filled with working prototypes and technology concepts that the company considers are five to 10 years from hitting the market. Open to Microsoft employees, customers and media, the facility simulates an average home, complete with security-controlled front door, bedroom, lounge, dining area and kitchen.

Enabling devices to talk to each other seamlessly will increasingly be at the heart of most future innovations. Separate appliances will link together on networks, allowing the home to become a series of smart connected devices. Importantly, this technology will be easy-to-use, non-intrusive and intuitive.

Let's take a look at what the Microsoft Home predicts will be a hit in our homes of the future.

Surface Computing

Surfaces such as interior walls can be transformed - using light-emitting diode technology - into interactive bulletin boards or digital canvases. You can display everything from art to photographs to wallpaper without having to modify the wall itself. For a morning tea with mum's group, for example, wallpaper the living room with a collage of your friends' smiling baby photos. For a dinner party with the in-laws, match the wall decoration to the colours, tones and patterns of their liking.

This 'surface computing' concept can be extended to benchtops, tables and counters, which can be modified to act as interactive computers. Place an ingredient such as a loaf of bread on the kitchen counter and information will be displayed - via embedded radio frequency ID tags and cameras displayed in the ceiling - on whether you are running low in the pantry.

Smart software

Smart software agents learn and evolve over time, tailoring content to suit your preferences. Sit down to watch an Elvis Presley movie and you will be offered the opportunity to watch other Elvis content, listen to Elvis soundtracks or activate huge digital images of Elvis on your loungeroom wall.

Stand in front of a mirror with a dress from your closet and a display lights up on the mirror listing what other clothes in your collection would match the dress. It also informs you that one of the matching items has been sent to the dry cleaner.

Face and speech recognition

Using speech recognition, light switches double as microphones, allowing you to issue instructions to an invisible 'presence'. Ask to have your personalised messages read aloud or make the request for dinner and the recipe for a delicious pasta dish appears on your benchtop.

Face-recognition technology automatically recognises each family member and displays a table of contents containing their personal user preferences. Hidden cameras follow their movement throughout the room and open the door to interactive learning.

Along with displaying personalised and updated information about the health of individual household members, the program will recommend individually tailored exercise regimes.

Next generation mobile

Smart mobile phones will act as universal remote controls, activating lighting, temperature, music, television and security. Mobiles can also perform functions as diverse as opening the curtains, accessing messages and streaming DVD entertainment content on a big screen.

Someone knocks on your front door and a picture of whoever is there will appear on your mobile, courtesy of a hidden camera outside the door. If the visitor is someone you know, you can interact with them remotely. You might want to even give the illusion that you're home - one press on your mobile to activate the sound of a non-existent dog barking from inside the home.

Seamless Computing

The idea behind seamless computing is that technology is embedded across things that you might not even think of as a device. In this way technology is being used to solve pressure points in your life, providing solutions that will make life easier.

A bulletin board in the kitchen, for instance, displays a digital clock and weather information taken from the Internet. When a magnet from the car mechanic is put on the board, it checks to see if there's new information from the mechanic and alerts you when your car is ready for a service.