Cyberhome, sweet cyberhome

By Christina Okoli

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EVERYONE'S been talking about it for years. How much will it cost They ask. What will it look like When will it all happen

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Well, the home of the future is fast becoming the home of today. With more than 50 million houses already wired up to the web, electronics companies don't have much work to do to get the modern home in shape for the future.

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Working prototypes of the technologically advanced home are already being exhibited by leading electronics companies including Panasonic, Cisco, Philips, and Microsoft. However,�with devices such as the 'intelligent' refrigerator, which writes and orders your grocery list for you, about to go on sale later this year, these prototype homes will soon become reality.

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Although the home of the future will not look very different from the home of today, it will function like a computer, be able to clean itself, fix itself and protect itself from intruders.

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At a recent Consumer Electronics Show in Los Angeles, Panasonic showed the Western world exactly what the home of the future will be like, but most importantly, they gave us a date. By 2020, the home will, in fact, �become a computer network.

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Home entertainment products will be synched

together, and a single remote will control all products. You can order videos on demand, lower the shades and dim the lights while one monitor does the double duty of a video intercom system and videophone. Consumers will have remote access to turn on outside lights as they near the home, adjust the heat or air conditioning, monitor the sprinkler system and even warm up the Jacuzzi before they get home.

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Yet, for all these gadgets to work, the home of the future will depend on a broadband Internet service, that is connected 24 hours a day. And this raises the ever-present question of cost.

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Though computers and accessories are coming down in price, the house of the future will inevitably cost a lot more to maintain. All the electronic companies involved in the move say that they can not put a price on the home of the future because they can't predict which devices within the prototype will eventually be developed and which will be discarded due to lack of consumer interest.

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However, a spokeswoman for Whirlpool, the company that developed the intelligent refrigerator, says, 'We want our products to appeal to the middle market, and are targeting a broader consumer base. This is not a premium product and it should be affordable.'

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So, not only will the home of the future make our lives easier, but we won't have to spend all day at work in order to pay for it.

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But, as the saying goes, every silver lining has a cloud, and while the incidents of cyber-crime continue to soar, there are obvious concerns surrounding the idea of living in a home run by the Internet. As computer hackers and saboteurs become more prolific, our future homes may become their playgrounds.

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With all the technological advances of recent years, the industry has failed to find a way to shut hackers out of the Internet, and as the home of the future moves closer to reality, the need to do so is becoming ever more urgent.