DreamHouse/Tech

Technology

As a technogeek, my dream house is naturally gadget central. ...here are some of the ideas I've explored, and are exploring for the place...

Jeffries Tubes

• Terminology taken from Star Trek: TNG.
• Being a network of small interconnected tunnels. Generally only just large enough for a person and toolkit to get to the problem area. (think of a tunnel approx the size of a stereotypical manhole cover)
• In another sense, the Jeffries could be seen as like veins through a body. Makes the design suddenly very organic huh?

Vacuum Capsules

• Vacuum tubes are a neat technology that fit with the planned style of the house, and provide a nice way to shuffle actual physical matter around the place...
• capsu.org
• Possibly electromagnetic based? Capsules acting as faraday cages?
• How big should the capsule be? Able to hold a CD is my thought

P.E.T (Personal Electronic Thing)

• Terminology from the game StarshipTitanic
• Within the DreamHouse, there would be a splendid array of hitech devices, as befits a gadget geek like myself. So, there must be some way to control them.

Enter the humble remote control, and pass it through a nemo idea filter...

The idea of a P.E.T is that it combined everything you would ever need in a remote control device along with personalised settings. A clever cross between a PDA and a remote control, if you will.

Size? ..roughly mobile phone in size perhaps (a monolith design? 1x4x9cm ...see nokia 6500classic phone), and each inhabitant (and some guests maybe) would have one (or some), but they'd be otherwise limited in numbers.

By comparison, the DreamHouse would have numerous dumb remote controls - non-personalisable versions of the PET. These would be smart enough to be able to control any device nearby which were permitted to be controlled by a dumb remote. It is imagined these would only be matchbook in size, and would be numerous.

Lastly, Tricorders. So named in reference to StarTrek, but also because they combine the functionality of three levels - the remote control, the P.E.T, and a new level of control - admin control of the house. More like a PDA or clamshell laptop PC in size, these would be rather limited in supply - mostly used for lowlevel control and debugging the house systems.

So, in a nutshell,

• RCs - limited ability, numerous
• P.E.Ts - increased ability, limited numbers
• Tricorders - very powerfull, very rare

• Ironically, there is a device which seems to be similar to the intended use of a PET, called the Nemo - Environmental Control Unit

Lighting

• Ever seen the cover of Pink Floyd: P.U.L.S.E?

Droids

• Terminology from Star Wars.
• These would be any semi-autonomous robots that maintain the house systems. Likely to be two types?
  • Skutters (name from Red Dwarf) - these patrol the Jeffries Tubes to keep them clean
  • Tadpoles (I need a better name?) - These patrol the vacuum capsules pipelines

Basic Tech

(as submitted by Oscar)

There are some other nifty ideas that would be useful in a dream house. Such as for example, in a cold climate, a drilled hole with a pipe in it that can circulate water can raise the temperature of the water, thus reducing the energy required to heat the water to near building temperature; also, using double glazing will reduce heat or cold loss from within a heated/cooled room; and, having a heated mirror in your bathroom will stop condensation from gathering on it. If you want a warm basment, build up earth on three sides, and have double glazed windows on the fourth side, which should be pointed so that it catches the sun in winter but is shaded from it in summer.

I saw (on a tv show) a stove that was based on magnetic convection. For demonstrating it, the (interior) builder put a pot of water on the "hotplate" with a 20 pound note sitting halfway underneath it, and when the water was boiling he pulled the note out intact! I thought that was a pretty cool idea!

Building materials

As far as bricks and mortar go, the Ming dynasty contruction work on the Great Wall of China is pretty good. Bricks as tough as modern concrete contructs, and mortar that has proved the equal to the bricks in surviving erosion and acid rain, and in some places, outlasted the bricks... not to mention just how cool this would be! :)

Entertainment

• http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~hudson/bubbles/
• NUMB
• http://www.uni-weimar.de/medien/ar/research_2004.php (esp the "Embedded Entertainment with Smart Projectors" from around august2004)