How Smart Is Your Home?

From ACM TechNews:
How Smart Is Your Home?
Science
(03/30/12) Diane J. Cook

Within reach is a smart home that is responsive to residents' wishes and needs due to technological advances that support ambient intelligence, including sensors, computer networks, databases, and intelligent agents, writes Washington State University professor Diane J. Cook. Embedding sensors in the home generates large volumes of raw data that require analysis to extract pertinent information, and Cook says cloud computing could be used to process data too large to be managed by a single computer. Meanwhile, Cook says enabling devices to interact with their peers and the networking infrastructure without explicit human control is the purpose of much current ambient intelligence research, while imbuing the residence with contextual awareness supports the design of intelligent environments. Among the hindrances to realizing ambient intelligent homes is the need to weigh possible privacy and security implications, while another challenge is the provision of seamless, intelligent support both inside and outside the residence. The introduction of wearable sensors and smartphones expands ambient intelligence beyond the home environment. Smart homes currently offer resident-guided monitoring and automation, and Cook says future advances should support the use of these services in a more independent fashion.

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http://www.sciencemag.org/content/335/6076/1579