The
Disney parks have been getting
all kinds of
upgrades lately, and the latest is the revival of the "House of the Future," which originally opened in the 50s and showcased such space-age household technologies as microwave ovens and plastic furniture. The new attraction eschews the original's pod-shaped exterior, pictured above, for a more traditional look, but it's inside where the action is: Disney, Microsoft, HP and LifeWare spent over $15 million on hardware and software designed to give visitors a glimpse of a hyper-connected future. Tech on display will include home automation, automatic networking, Surface and touch-based computing, and smart appliances -- all things the designers envision as being five to 10 years away. The new House of the Future is set to open in May at Tommorrowland -- any guesses how long it takes before someone builds a complete replica?
Read - New House of the Future
Read - Original House of the Future (with pics)
posted February 13th 2008 10:44PM
I want walls made out of OLED screens in my house of the future. And a big multi-touch surface/wacom tablet table I can do cool stuff with.
Fahrenheit 541-esque?
or perhaps 451? ;)
The house of the future will be bigger on the inside than it is on the outside!
Huzzah!
Are we talking MS TARDIS os Intel: TARDIS Inside?
You think that this house will have Windows? (rimshot)
My god, it's full of stars!
I'd place bets on how long it takes some 8 year old to hack the house.
Microsoft software? 8 days.
..now guess how long you have to wait for a patch.
I really love the place in Epcot (is it also called Tomorrowland?) that has its own little house of the future and showcase of all the latest technologies. They had some really cool stuff in their (some currently available products and some future products).
They even gave out a paper with websites and info so that you could learn more about the products (as opposed to enjoy seeing everything, but then forgetting the stuff you wanted to know more about when you got home). I'm still looking forward to the release of some of those sweet products.
The Future is nigh!!!
I always preferred the Carousel of Progress, myself...such a catchy tune to go with it.
It's a great big beautiful tomorrow...
So, I was there (Disneyland) about a month ago, and no work in Tomorrowland. I assume that they are building this inside the Innovations building? I wonder if it will be in the stationary part or the rotating part...
which disneyland?
There's only one Disneyland. Disney World is in Orlando.
sorry. you're incorrect. there is one disney world. there are many disneylands
Paris, Hong Kong, and Tokyo hold the same Disneyland name
Indeed. For clarification, the names are as follows:
Disneyland Resort (Anaheim, California)
Walt Disney World Resort (Orlando, Florida)
Tokyo Disney Resort (Tokyo, Japan)
Disneyland Resort Paris (Paris, France)
Hong Kong Disneyland Resort (Hong Kong, China)
Why is this tagged as Disney World? The article is only talking about Disney Land. They're not the same thing. Disney World has had an updated House of the Future for quite a long time now.
I would be cool if they just restored the 1950's house of the future, so people could see how people in the 50's thought we would be living now. Better than a glorified ms/hp tech demo anyway.
I agree, may be besides the current version alongside with the old version to show how far we have come.
The Original House of the Future was torn down in 1967; The plastics so hard that the wrecking balls had problems tearing it down! Now that is a house of the future, or at least one for a disaster zone.
...they could've renamed the old house "The House of Pretty Bad Guesses."
you know, having looked at those interior shots on ebay, i'd say the guesses were actually so good, the 1957 house looks a little boring now. high modernism transformed our sense of style quickly and profoundly.
absurdio, you could name the new one "House of Pretty Bad Guesses" too :P
There will be no definite house of the future until the world hits nuclear warfare and everything has to be rebuilt. People don't have the time or money to build things like this and most of it is just unnecessary.
This "House of the future" is an estimate based on things we have now and predictions. Just like the last one, we'll invent new technology which makes the "House of the Future" the "House of teh fail".
The next big thing will come, and so will the thing after that. There's no way of accurately predicting how the future will be and thus these people trying to guess the future are just morons.
Oh man, now I really want to go to Disney World or Disneyland.
Except I live in New York.
And I'm a poor college student.
By the time I get there, they'll have renamed it "House of the Present."
ROAD TRIP... Time to put my parkour skills in to motion, and hop a fence.
im going to assume in the house of the future all my devices are manufactured by Microsoft and half of them are suffering from an RPC exploit...
Why are houses of the future always really small but sitting in the middle of a big expanse of nature? In MY future, that's the groundskeeper's house.
I've seen Microsoft and HP make a few "The Future" video concepts before. I have a few:
1. This one has lots of computers hanging around the house, and Win Media Center is the focal entertainment center : http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?vid=c6636690-c674-4550-bda1-c42f064df538
2. This is the "Bank of the Future" - I thought it was actually cool and realistic, and creative like. That's definitely a future I want to see : http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?vid=6af592b7-4ca7-4398-8828-38ba96f557ac
3. "Software + Services" - you see a lot of cross platform integration in the future with this one (actually, it's more like Win7) : http://youtube.com/watch?v=78z_cAOKMng
And those are just a few of the many future videos Microsoft has made. Some are quite interesting, some are lame. Enjoy.
The future eh? I've seen it. It's rubbish.
i want walls made of a resein mold of Epaper so i can change wall color at the touch of a button
The plans to the original are on eBay!
http://cgi.ebay.com/Monsanto-House-of-the-Future-Drawings-Plans-Disneyland_W0QQitemZ160206665853QQihZ006QQcategoryZ69473QQcmdZViewItem
whats eschews mean?
Uses
that is completely backwards. to eschew means to avoid, as in, "he eschewed referring to the dictionary in favor of asking somebody who didn't have a clue what the word meant."
helpful hint for both of you-- you can type any word into google and instantly get a definition. there's no longer any excuse.
but engadget should reframe from using such trendy words to begin with.
so Disneyland right? not Disney World?
I want to live there....
If there are Linux drivers for the house, that is....
sorry, i checked those plans on ebay, and the house of the future comes with a typewriter only. i'm not kidding-- go look. on the bright side, it looks like an ultraportable, but in my opinion, they have very few features for the money.
Then: Monsanto Chemical (see original House of the Future). Now: Microsoft, HP. Gosh, Disney. Gosh.
House of cheese?
So, this will be possible in 10 years, but can anyone afford even ONE of these automatic whatsits in their home when they can't even afford a home?
Isn't this just Innovations that's been there for years already? LOL
The house of the future wont cost $15million!
FAIL!
The house without the electronics might cost $15 million 10 years from now...
Honey, our house needs more RAM.
Microsoft?
Shouldn't it be Apple? :P
(just kidding)
Did they install the BSOD game?
What everyone seems to be missing from this story is that it will not be a free-standing building in Tomorrowland last the old Monsanto House of the Future. This new "house of the future" is going to be built inside the existing Innoventions building, taking up the bottom floor:
http://www.distantcreations.com/blog/2008/02/13/disney-revives-house-of-the-future/
and
http://travel.latimes.com/daily-deal-blog/?p=1337
'Disney actors will play the fictional Elias family of four (an obvious nod to Walter Elias Disney) living a “digital lifestyle” in the 5,000-square-foot “smart house” inside the rotating-floor Innoventions'