In In This Home, Even Bathroom Mirrors Give Advice

By Karen E. Peterson

HomeLab is a veritable garden of software and networking delights.

This mirror not only reflects your image, but the weather, the news – and your vital signs. Photo from Royal Philips.

And while Philips says the technologies in HomeLab are there to help create a futuristic lifestyle, you could fool us: What's already in mind seems sci-fi enough.

Like a bathroom mirror that not only reflects your image, but also the news or the weather, or cartoons for the kids. Seem tame enough? How about the "doctor coach." This nifty mirror-based application can, for example, display your weight – and then report on your cardiovascular health.

Be forewarned that if the coach doesn't like the data it collates from what it sees and what it knows about you, it can, and will, offer up advice on improvement.

The coach is a good example of what Philips is striving for with Ambient Intelligence: a system so tightly interconnected with technology and its human subjects that the overall architecture is electronically skeletal.

As Philips describes it, "In a true Ambient Intelligence environment, all electronic features and functions are integrated into people's backgrounds."

To accomplish that all-embracing task, the system that has to have "full control over a wide spectrum of enabling technologies" – from the smallest radio chips to wireless gadgets like PDAs, database storage functions and the large wall monitors that provide both the virtual and the reality of what Philips' describes as HomeLab's "multi-modal interaction."

So, what are some of the other multi-modal gizmos HomeLab is working on today, other than a chatty mirror?

Hum a Tune to Turn on the Stereo

Plenty of sound and images. Future homes, says Philips, "will have display solutions in any space where appropriate." These "display solutions" will range in size from small monitors for retrieving email to full wall-sized displays for entertainment.

One trick with the HomeLab's sound system: combining voice recognition with databases. The combo will allow dwellers to turn on the music simply by humming a few bars of a song.