The Home of The Future - Life in 2027
We take a look at what life might be like in fifteen years from now, as Pete and Carl discuss a report by the Centre For Future Research that shows what the home of 2027 might look like..
|
Listen to FrequencyCast Show 73 - The House of 2027
|
Fifteen Years Into The Future - Transcript:
Here a transcript of our feature from show 73, where we look at what the next fifteen years may have in store:
Carl:
Okay, it's Focus time, and we're going to be doing a little bit of Tomorrow's World, aren't we, Pete?
Pete:
Yes, we are. What we're going to be doing is looking into the future; to be more precise, 15 years into the future. Carl, any thoughts on what you'll be doing 15 years from now?
Carl:
Well, my watch will be slimmer, but still as functional, maybe have a few more extra functions. I'm thinking, I'd like to be driving one of those new cars, it's £80,000, with the solar-powered sunroof. It has an engine that charges the electric motor.
Pete:
Okay, what about your mobile phone? How do you see that looking in 15 years?
Carl:
Well, I feel it's going to more iPhone looky-likey.
Pete:
Well, we've already got one of those. Try and think more creative - 15 years for now. Could we have a surgically-implanted phone, or a slimline paper disposable phone, something like that?
Carl:
Well, we've already got those paper watches, haven't we? I don't know, it's funny, isn't it? - technology. If you'd asked me about 20 years ago, what's the one piece of technology everyone's going to be walking around with, telling me it's going to be a phone with a camera on it and video players and media, I don't know - I don't think I'd have believed you.
Pete:
Yeah, fair enough. Well, what about money? Will you be still carrying cash around in 15 years?
Carl:
No, they won't let me.
Pete:
Of course, we've actually got a step closer to the whole cashless society with the Barclays app that's just been released. That lets you send money to other people's bank accounts via a mobile phone, so I could send you some cash just by knowing your mobile phone number, and of course these near-field devices, where you just wave your phone in front of a little sensor like the Oyster card, so cash could be a thing of the past.
Carl:
I rather think that cash should never go.
Pete:
Well, you're still clinging onto cheques, aren't you?
Carl:
Only the ones you write me!
Pete:
Okay, so what about the future of the internet, 15 years from now?
Carl:
Well, it'll certainly be faster. I think the applications will be bigger, better, slicker. I don't know - I kind of feel that we're going to be suspended in this, which we already are to a degree, in this internet sort of digital world where we don't really actually have to interact in the real world.
Pete:
Okay, well we're kind of guessing here. Let's talk to an expert on the future of the internet, and see where we will be, 15 years from now. Are you ready?
Carl:
Let's do it.
Pete:
Broadband provider Plusnet has recently published a report that looks at predictions for the home of 2027, and it makes pretty interesting reading. Now, we spoke to Nick Rawlings, who is Plusnet's Commercial and Marketing Director, and we started out by asking Nick why this report's been put together.
Nick:
The report's been commissioned by us to look 15 years hence, and what the internet might offer to customers, the premise being that, we as a company, Plusnet's 15 years old this month, and we're interested to speculate that, in 15 years' time, what type of services might we be offering to consumers, or what might they be able to do with their internet connection. So we talked to some guys called The Centre for Future Studies, and in particular a professor called Frank Shaw, who's quite a renowned thinker in terms of future technology, and we really asked him to consider, based on what he saw being developed now, what the internet use of the future might hold in store.
Pete:
I can't help thinking of future predictions as the old Tomorrow's World thing, where there's robots wandering around the house, and we'd all be working from home and eating little pills instead of food. Were you surprised by what you found?
Nick:
It certainly is different, isn't it, from those two? - because I'm old enough to remember Tomorrow's World, and I haven't had my robot yet, so that kind of vision of the future never fully came to fruition. I think the kind of interesting change in how this sort of vision of the future looks is that it's less about machines or big bits of equipment sort of driving the future. It's more about the integration of the internet into literally the fabric of our homes and our lives, and it doesn't rely on a robot going around your house doing the dusting.
Pete:
Although we do still have these robots that do the vacuuming, of course - they're always good fun.
Nick:
There is a vacuuming robot, yes - I have seen that one, actually. I can see how that could be quite popular, but broadband connectivity will be, I think, increasingly added to a number of household items and appliances. People will be increasingly getting the opportunity to use the internet to operate and automate areas of their life.
Plusnet's Illustration of the House of 2027 (Click to enlarge)
Pete:
Now, there's a lovely picture that you've sent through to me, which is the home of 2027, and if we can, we'll put a picture of this up on our website. What I'd like to do, though, is take a little wander through the house with you, if I may. It starts off at the front door, where there's no doorbell - there's something else. What do we see at the front door of the future?
Nick:
The front door sees the means by which you can get into your home not using a key. It's kind of using recognition technology to identify you, and therefore allow you access to your home, but equally show visitors to your home in a way that allows you to screen them before they enter.
Pete:
Now, I saw a reference in the report to the idea of capturing somebody's face, and doing a criminal records' check, or something similar, to see if there's anyone bogus at the door?
Nick:
If you think about things like airports today, some facets of this technology is already in use. So if you're savvy, you can go and get your retina scanned, can't you, today, and you can use that as a means to kind of jump queues at an airport, and get a fast-track ID through security. If that's already in operation, and works to a level which would allow our border controls to let people in and out of the country, it's probably not a massive extension that it becomes reliable enough to let you in and out of your home.
Pete:
Okay. Is there any chance we can get this programme so that the people knocking on the door from these energy companies, trying to get us to switch, can be screened out?
Nick:
I think there's got to be some interesting things we could do with that, just in the way that I suppose you could set different ringtones on your mobile phone for different types of caller. Maybe the way you could use this technology is to give a different type of response to different callers at your home, depending on how welcome they were.
Pete:
What a great idea. Okay, moving on through the house, any thoughts on how we can see our lounge changing?
Nick:
Well, there's some quite radical ideas here actually. This is literally the fabric of your living room potentially changing to become an entertainment source for you. So you kind of see in the picture how, and I don't know how much these houses will cost, but how potentially the walls of your living room could become themselves screens for projecting content of various sorts onto. Your TV experience becomes 360 degrees, as you're actually surrounded by whatever entertainment media you're consuming.
Pete:
I saw something in this report as well about clothing monitoring your health?
Nick:
This sounds the more sort of practical and believable end of the way that technology might support you, and my understanding is that this type of technology isn't actually far from coming to the market. I think the idea, the concept that your clothing can effectively act as a monitor on your health and well-being, it sounds far-fetched, but probably the fact that you're basically surrounding your body in your clothes, and therefore you can take things like temperature and heartbeat, it's a fairly believable means by which connectivity can give you access to data which otherwise you'd have to go and see a doctor or something to get.
Pete:
The thing that scares me here though, on this report, is what happens in the loo.
Nick:
You feel a little bit uncomfortable about getting data back from your trips to the bathroom?
Pete:
Well, it seems to indicate here that your doctors can access information on the waste products from your toilet, to decide whether you have any unusual illnesses. That sounds a little bit too unpleasant, for my liking.
Nick:
I mean again, you can see how the technology, it's not a big jump to see how that technically could be feasible. Health and well-being, I guess, is an interest to all people, and I think if it offered the opportunity to be diagnosed for something which could be harmful to you, people I think will take a little time to get their head around it, but maybe.
Pete:
I think, as you said earlier though, a lot of this is not necessarily for everyone. It is going to be sort of the top end thing, that those with the money and the large premises could add to their home. I think we're a long way from your average person getting this kind of kit. What I did like was the idea of homeworking, and I guess this is something Plusnet would be interested in. It was a reference as well to 3D contact lenses linking into your office email, or something weird, which does seem a little bit freaky. But what are your thoughts on working from home in the future?
Nick:
Yeah, I think you're right to say that this is one of the areas where there's absolutely a clear need. People, employees, are looking for more flexible models to manage their work/life balance. I think there has been a significant shift in the number of homeworkers in the UK, and I think from an employer point of view, that's clearly also attractive, because there's less people to house in a big building which take lots of heat and lighting and all of that stuff.
So I think the need here is really clear, actually. I myself have experienced a bit of time working at home, and I think part of the challenge of it is that at times you can feel isolated from other members of your team. So if technology can help break down those barriers more to make it possible to do things like have an interactive meeting with people in multiple locations, then I think that's a very powerful application of the internet and new technology.
Pete:
So, looking forward to 2027, there's a quote here from the report's author, Dr Shaw: "The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot access the internet." This report has a fairly scary number of how many people don't have access to the net at the moment. Do you happen to have that number to hand?
Nick:
Yeah, the study flags up that there's just over eight million adults in the UK who don't have access to the internet.
Pete:
Now, that's a heck of a lot, isn't it?
Nick:
Which is a significant number, by anybody's imagination.
Pete:
And what is Plusnet doing to try and get these people connected?
Nick:
Part of our responsibility, as an internet service provider, is to offer low-cost packages to mean that, certainly on the basis of money, people aren't excluded from the ability to be online. So as a service provider, we offer some of the best-value packages in the UK. We've got, for example, our entry-level broadband package, we offer at £3.24 in urban areas a month for the first twelve months.
Pete:
Do you think, though, that people aren't getting connected for cost reasons, or are there any more social reasons that maybe people aren't getting connected?
Nick:
We've found, with working with an organisation called Get Online Sheffield, we've been out to a lot of community centres, libraries, public places, where people are invited along to get a first sample and taster of the internet, who've never used it before, and that was really interesting. What we found is that there's a nervousness that still resides amongst a minority of the population about technology generally, computers. Actually, until you start breaking down some of those barriers, you're never going to persuade those people to get online, even if they have the money and the means to do so.
Pete:
One other final question for you, linear TV, and the idea of TV aerials and satellite dishes - do you think that'll be out the window by 2027?
Nick:
I think it's true to say that there's quite a long way to go there. I mean, I've looked at some other research, and we've looked at people's usage behaviour of TV, and the kind of way that the customer consumption tends to go in our view is that people start with the linear TV. If you sit down on a Friday night, you check what's on the broadcast channels. If that's not yielding anything you enjoy, then because quite a lot of people have got a personal video recorder, a PVR device in their home, they'll look at anything they've recorded which they definitely wanted to watch. If that doesn't yield anything, then they might start looking at some of the catch-up and on demand TV options. But I think, for most consumers, people still start at the linear end of the spectrum, and have a browse to see what's on the Beeb, or what's on Channel 4, before they'll think about some of the non-linear options.
You're absolutely right to say that that process will be much further advanced by 2027, and this is a strange thing to say, because it's sort of, flies in the face of some of the technology we've been espousing, but I think in the world of TV there is probably always going to be a demand for the linear experience, because I think there are certain events that you want to see real time, as a shared experience, be it a major sporting event or a royal wedding or whatever it is, that aren't quite as good in catch-up.
Pete:
Nick, if we may, we're going to be giving you a call in 2027, just to find out how accurate you were.
Nick:
I'll look forward to it. You probably won't even have to dial anything. You'll just be able to say my name, and I'll appear on a wall in your home. If I could have some warning, so I can make sure I've had a shave, that would be really good.
Pete:
There you go, so - interesting stuff, Carl?
Carl:
Fascinating stuff: FrequencyCast meets Tomorrow's World - I'm holding my breath.
Pete:
There you go, and you can find a longer version of that interview up on our website. Go and have a look at the show notes for FrequencyCast show 73. Carl, you can stop holding your breath now.
Transcript Continues: Blackberry Playbook OS2 Update
BONUS MATERIAL: The House of 2027 - Extended Feature and Plusnet Interview - (20 mins) |
More information:
- House of 2027 - The full-length feature
- Focus on Plusnet - More on the Broadband Provider that commissioned the 2027 report
- Plusnet IPv6 Interview - We discuss the future of the Internet, and the IPv6 Address issue
- Internet Insights - We chat to leading industry figures about the future of the Internet
Share This Page:
