Disney brings back the House of the Future -- with help from Microsoft and HP

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)

[madgamer @ Feb 13th 2008 10:52PM]

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.

[Mikey @ Feb 14th 2008 12:05AM]

Fahrenheit 541-esque?

[producerism @ Feb 14th 2008 12:29AM]

or perhaps 451? ;)

[paul34 @ Feb 13th 2008 10:58PM]

The house of the future will be bigger on the inside than it is on the outside!

Huzzah!

[Bender Bending Rodriguez @ Feb 13th 2008 11:00PM]

Are we talking MS TARDIS os Intel: TARDIS Inside?

[Nathan @ Feb 13th 2008 11:28PM]

You think that this house will have Windows? (rimshot)

[Ryan Riverside @ Feb 14th 2008 12:56AM]

My god, it's full of stars!

[athousandleaves @ Feb 13th 2008 11:06PM]

I'd place bets on how long it takes some 8 year old to hack the house.

[ethana2 @ Feb 14th 2008 1:39AM]

Microsoft software? 8 days.

..now guess how long you have to wait for a patch.

[Sonic_13 @ Feb 13th 2008 11:11PM]

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.

[karts41 @ Feb 13th 2008 11:13PM]

The Future is nigh!!!

[Green @ Feb 13th 2008 11:14PM]

I always preferred the Carousel of Progress, myself...such a catchy tune to go with it.

[KR @ Feb 14th 2008 9:41AM]

It's a great big beautiful tomorrow...

[CraigJ @ Feb 14th 2008 11:41AM]

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...

[Ryan Valle @ Feb 13th 2008 11:15PM]

which disneyland?

[paul34 @ Feb 13th 2008 11:52PM]

There's only one Disneyland. Disney World is in Orlando.

[Ryan Valle @ Feb 13th 2008 11:54PM]

sorry. you're incorrect. there is one disney world. there are many disneylands
Paris, Hong Kong, and Tokyo hold the same Disneyland name

[Sonic_13 @ Feb 14th 2008 12:53AM]

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)

[packetsniffer @ Feb 13th 2008 11:16PM]

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.

[Wolfticket @ Feb 13th 2008 11:16PM]

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.

[CL @ Feb 13th 2008 11:23PM]

I agree, may be besides the current version alongside with the old version to show how far we have come.

[William @ Feb 13th 2008 11:35PM]

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.

[absurdio @ Feb 14th 2008 1:54AM]

...they could've renamed the old house "The House of Pretty Bad Guesses."

[m @ Feb 14th 2008 3:12AM]

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.

[Blaktornado @ Feb 14th 2008 7:22AM]

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.

[Paul S. @ Feb 13th 2008 11:17PM]

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."

[Timmy P. @ Feb 14th 2008 10:51PM]

ROAD TRIP... Time to put my parkour skills in to motion, and hop a fence.

[Dave @ Feb 13th 2008 11:18PM]

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...

[NewJohnny @ Feb 13th 2008 11:22PM]

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.

[GrantM @ Feb 13th 2008 11:25PM]

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.

[Wolfticket @ Feb 13th 2008 11:25PM]

The future eh? I've seen it. It's rubbish.

[Max @ Feb 14th 2008 12:00AM]

i want walls made of a resein mold of Epaper so i can change wall color at the touch of a button

[AnnDee @ Feb 14th 2008 12:07AM]

The plans to the original are on eBay!
http://cgi.ebay.com/Monsanto-House-of-the-Future-Drawings-Plans-Disneyland_W0QQitemZ160206665853QQihZ006QQcategoryZ69473QQcmdZViewItem

[nigb @ Feb 14th 2008 12:28AM]

whats eschews mean?

[Ryan Riverside @ Feb 14th 2008 12:58AM]

Uses

[m @ Feb 14th 2008 1:45AM]

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.

[nigb @ Feb 15th 2008 12:03AM]

but engadget should reframe from using such trendy words to begin with.

[Chase Lyall @ Feb 14th 2008 12:58AM]

so Disneyland right? not Disney World?

[DarkLightConnection @ Feb 14th 2008 1:41AM]

I want to live there....

If there are Linux drivers for the house, that is....

[m @ Feb 14th 2008 1:52AM]

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.

[absurdio @ Feb 14th 2008 1:49AM]

Then: Monsanto Chemical (see original House of the Future). Now: Microsoft, HP. Gosh, Disney. Gosh.

[TIMMAH! @ Feb 14th 2008 2:14AM]

House of cheese?

[BigD145 @ Feb 14th 2008 2:47AM]

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?

[Steve @ Feb 14th 2008 2:53AM]

Isn't this just Innovations that's been there for years already? LOL

[ReggieXuk @ Feb 14th 2008 5:25AM]

The house of the future wont cost $15million!

FAIL!

[ether @ Feb 14th 2008 8:21AM]

The house without the electronics might cost $15 million 10 years from now...

[R @ Feb 14th 2008 6:18AM]

Honey, our house needs more RAM.

[Blaktornado @ Feb 14th 2008 7:30AM]

Microsoft?

Shouldn't it be Apple? :P

(just kidding)

[Alex @ Feb 14th 2008 7:49AM]

Did they install the BSOD game?

[Ricky @ Feb 14th 2008 8:53AM]

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'