Since the dawn of humanity, the home has been a shelter for man, a place of rest, relaxation, and spending the greater part of life. Man has always tried to design his dwellings to ensure maximum comfort, that is, to combine the beauty of their appearance with the ergonomics of use. A home is meant to be a pleasant place for both the soul and the body. For centuries, it was man who was the only “island of intelligence” in his home. The situation changed not so long ago, thanks to modern technologies, and mainly due to the development of electronics, telecommunications, and computer networks. The impossible became true, and inanimate objects began to learn intelligence from man, or to be more precise, it is man who desires to breathe at least a small fraction of the ability to think independently into electronic devices. The idea of building digital homes originated over 20 years ago, when Japanese scientists tried to create intelligent devices that would serve man in his home, but this concept was based primarily on mechanical solutions that had little in common with today’s “digital intelligence.” In the early 1990s, the richest man in the world at the time – Bill Gates – built himself a digital home at the cost of several dozen million dollars, which aroused the admiration of the whole world and was the subject of many media articles. Encouraged by this idea, other scientists and engineers began to create their own intelligent homes, which are specific laboratories where the impact of intelligent devices on human life is studied.
The article comes from the magazine “e-Fakty” 4/2005.