Home of future at flick of switch

An assistant scans information from a bottle label on to the kitchen computer. Pictures / Supplied

The Panasonic promotional video I'm watching is similar to dozens I've seen, and it smacks of the golden age of science-fiction literature.

Good-looking people wander the immaculate streets of a space-age utopian city where all the buildings gleam an immaculate white and non-polluting electric monorail trains glide silently overhead.

The people are smiling because technology has made their lives easier, and they are happy. They wield small, see-through plastic cards that act as a central information device - it's a cellphone, camera, PDA and environmental sensor rolled into one.

Ubiquitous television screens round the city interact with these devices and provide their users with a constant flow of information: news, product information, weather.

At home, everything is again pristine and connected. The people manipulate their television screens from across the room through hand gestures, a ring on their finger acting as the remote control.

I scoff, recalling a similar scene in the Tom Cruise movie Minority Report. The whole video is right out of a Philip K. Dick or Isaac Asimov novel. I half expect to see robots turn on their masters and start slaughtering them.

As our group is led out of the theatre, I joke to a fellow journalist about how highly unlikely much of the video is - particularly the rings.

It is especially embarrassing to find my foot in my mouth as we are ushered into the next room, Panasonic's "home of the future" display, where we are shown just that.

An employee wearing a ring - a little larger than the one in the video - stands a couple of metres from a giant plasma screen, controlling it through simple hand gestures. My jaw drops as I realise that the home of the future is very close to becoming the home of the present.

Matsushita Electric Industrial, the Osaka company behind Panasonic, is betting the future on a concept called the "ubiquitous network". The strategy aims to transform the home into a big wireless network, where all electronics - from PCs to televisions to washing machines - are connected and can be controlled from a single point.

With rapid developments in broadband, wireless, flash memory and display technology, and with electronic devices converging at a staggering pace, the idea is fast becoming reality. Matsushita expects such networks to be widely in place by 2010.

The home display at the Tokyo Panasonic Centre is similar to those of other tech companies in that it shows gadgets and ideas it hopes to implement for mass consumption.

Panasonic's display features a lounge - where the ring-controlled television is the star - as well as a wired kitchen, bedroom and car.

Foods and goods in the Panasonic kitchen are tagged with information chips that can be read by a sensor on the counter.

A monitor displays the food item's relevant information, such as expiry date, as well as possible recipes. The home network can thus alert the user on his or her cellphone that the milk is about to expire, so pick some up.

Dietary habits and food intakes of the family can also be monitored, so the user can be alerted if little Johnny isn't getting enough iron.

The bedroom features a round bed - not flat, but angled on a bit of an incline. Sensors detect the person's level of consciousness and adjust lighting levels accordingly.

The futuristic car features a video dashboard wired to the home and allows the user to control home appliances such as air-conditioners, washing machines and dishwashers while on the move.

Much of this technology can already be implemented to some extent. Some cellphones in Japan can scan bar codes at the supermarket, then search for the same item at a cheaper price elsewhere.

Wireless networks and products are also becoming more common. Philips, for example, is releasing its Wireless Audio Centre stereo system this month. It features a central station that broadcasts to other satellite stations elsewhere in the home.

And this week Linksys, a division of global giant Cisco, said it was making a range of home networking products available through Dick Smith Electronics.

A move by Matsushita to use electricity cables for broadband internet, rather than copper phone lines, could also bring the "ubiquitous network" closer to reality.

The company is developing a chip for its products that will give them broadband internet connection through a common electrical socket, thus doing away with complicated and messy wired Ethernet and wireless router networks.

The technology to use electrical wiring for data as well as electricity has been around for a while, but Matsushita's version is different in that it boasts a lightning speed of 170 megabits a second.

For the time being, the company is testing adaptors that the devices are plugged into. Matsushita says it has made samples of the technology available to companies, including other Japanese electronics makers, that may want to use it.

"Our goal is to have every gadget plugged in this way so that people don't have to even think about connecting it to broadband," a company official told AP recently.

The future spelled out in Panasonic's promotional video may not be too far off.

Let's just hope those robots don't turn on us.

* Peter Nowak visited the Panasonic Centre courtesy of Matsushita Electric Industrial.