Recently an article in Scientific American reported on a project that computer scientists were working on in Atlanta at the Georgia Institute of Technology. They were building a dream house to test their vision of what may be in our future, creating an experimental "living house."

The goal was to incorporate into a single home virtually all the ideas that have been fermenting in computer research labs for a decade.

Corporate sponsors of the project include Intel, Motorola Labs, Andersen Consulting, and Mitsubishi Electric Research Lab.

The house was designed with network cables threaded through the floorboards, video cameras mounted on the ceilings, sensors tucked into virtually every part of the house, and workstations stacked in the basement. A radio-locating system was established to pinpoint any tagged object to within 10 feet.

Some specific tasks envisioned by the research team included:

• Speaking someone’s name will activate integrated intercoms that can physically locate the person and allow instant voice contact with that person anywhere in the house.
• Visual displays that are wall mounted will show the actions of someone 5, 10, or 15 seconds before to aid elderly with short-term memory problems to know "what they were doing."
• Any mobile object can be tagged so that it can be located in the home with a touch of a button.
• The home itself will emit sounds, lights, visual stimuli, and possibly odors, in order to provoke certain responses from the inhabitants, such as images to remind the inhabitants to take their medication or pleasant scents to fight depression, etc.

Source: As we may live. (2000, November). Scientific American.

Talk

Did you know?:

• As part of his grooming regimen, Henry Ford would dye his hair with rusty water.
• Because he thought it would benefit his health, Ben Franklin would take "air baths" by sitting naked in front of an open window and inhaling deeply.
• Nikola Tesla, who invented the alternating current (AC) motor, once tried to invent a device that photographed thoughts on the retina of the eye.
• George Eastman, inventor of the Kodak camera was a supporter of the thirteen-month calendar.
• As a health precaution, Alexander Graham Bell covered the windows in his home to block out the rays of the full moon.

Don’t be afraid to take a chance on something new or think your idea may be "off the wall." Follow the example of these great inventors who risked failure or made a choice that had the potential of making them look foolish. Entertaining a wild and crazy idea may be the perfect route to a truly revolutionary breakthrough idea. Don’t take yourself too seriously if you are serious about creating great ideas.

Source: Mattimore, B. (1994). 99% inspiration. New York: American Management Association.