Ultimate Tech Upgrades For Your Home
I remember back in the 1990s when I first heard about Bill Gates’ billion dollar mansion. Well, it wasn’t quite a billion dollar mansion, but it did cost around $100 million, which is in the same ballpark, I guess. Gate’s mansion had the unbelievable feature, at least for when it was built, that the rooms would adjust to your mood. Back then high-tech sensors were expensive, so it was the height of luxury and a fitting reward for the man who made the PC practical.
But now, thanks to the efforts of people like Gates around the world, all our favorite tech is getting cheaper. Whereas ten years ago I would never have dreamed of having a house with little mood sensors everywhere, now I think it’s a possibility. Maybe I really could live life like a 1990s billionaire. Thanks, tech!
Holodeck
Credit: flickr.com
First on many people’s lists of tech upgrades would be a holodeck. All you fans of Star Trek will know what I mean. The holodeck was a virtual reality environment. A room, in other words, where you could reproduce any real life environment from a computer program.
Thanks to companies like Facebook, with the Oculus, and HTC with the HTC Vive, we’re getting closer to that day. In just a few weeks you’ll be able to grab your own virtual reality headset. Later this year, you’ll be able to get controllers that pair up with the headset and actually move through a virtual 3D environment.
Microsoft is working on a related technology called augmented reality. This tech doesn’t produce a new reality, it overlays features on an existing one. You can play a game of virtual Minecraft on your living room table, for example. But both these techs need a big room – or a holodeck – to fully utilize. So start thinking about setting aside a room in your home as an empty space and then fill it with all the virtual reality tech the future brings.
Integrated Speakers
Back in the sixteenth century, Henry VIII had a pretty luxurious life compared to contemporary standards. But compared to the average person today, it was still pretty terrible. That’s the amazing thing about technology: it can be a great equalizer. And the pace at which it is equalising is rapid.
In the 1990s, only Gates could afford a bespoke, integrated sound system for his mansion. But now you can get ceiling speakers by Q Acoustics that actually build into the fabric of your house. It’s the ultimate in luxury that would once have been well outside of most people’s budgets. Like Gates, you too can have parties where the sound is impeccable and appears to be emanating from the very universe itself.
Super Loo
I think over the next ten years, toilets are going to take on a whole new role. Rather than playing host to the aftermath of a Friday night curry, our toilets may become the place where we learn the most about our health. Every year scientists are learning more and more about the importance of our gut bacteria. And every year they’re reducing the cost of sequencing DNA. What happens when you put the two together? You get a toilet that tells you what diseases might develop, whether you are healthy today and what you ought to eat instead.
Granted, this type of tech is still a little in the future, but why not get ahead of the curve and get a high-tech loo anyway. Kohler Numi has made a toilet which it claims is the most advanced in the world. The toilet comes complete with a “motion activated” seat and an automatic bidet function for paperless access. And for a cool $6,000 you’ll also get nice footwarmers.
Cybertecture Mirror
Credit: youtube.com
This is another cool example how technology has made things that were simply impossible, even twenty years ago. The Cybertecture mirror does more than simply reflect your beauty back at you. It realises a dream of many science fictions movies: it displays an image on glass. Whilst you’re enjoying your morning routine there is nothing to stop you from browsing the weather or the news. And like most tech, it comes with a variety of helpful apps.
When Gates made his mansion, he had to make do with low-tech mood lighting. Now we have the means to actually interact with our own walls. And access features and information that would have seemed like the distant future only a decade ago. That means that our moods can be customised more than ever before.
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