Word: demos
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...California, I get a firsthand look at what the future might hold. Here, at Cisco's sprawling headquarters, is a demo home that practically defines the cutting edge of wired-home technology. Built into a corner of a large office block, it's a 160-sq-m monument to every techie's fantasy. The place is bristling with gadgetry. Apart from the usual household appliances and entertainment systems, there are webcams, motion sensors, and electronic photoframes - thin lcds where you can show off several photos at the same time from that Hawaiian holiday or switch pictures depending...
...into perspective by offering me an example of how it will simplify our lives. Imagine, they say, that it's Saturday afternoon and you're feeling hungry. So you pull out that webpad and go to Whirlpool's website (the company providing all the appliances in Cisco's demo kitchen) and look for a list of recipes. Click on the one you like, and you get a rundown of the ingredients required. As you have a "smart" fridge that includes a bar-code reader and can therefore tell what's in the cartons inside, you can check - still online, without...
...project involving 50 families in Ballerup, a sleepy little Danish town not far from Copenhagen. Here, E2Home, a joint venture of mobile-phone maker Ericsson and appliances giant Electrolux, has equipped each family with Electrolux's much-publicized Screenfridge, an appliance I saw last fall at another demo home, in Ericsson's Stockholm compound. The engineers there thought it was the coolest thing in the world - a fridge with a full-fledged computer built into its door, with a large screen and an Internet connection. I recall being very skeptical. Who surfs the Net from the kitchen, for crying...
...their home's snazzy features when guests drop by than when they are on their own - which gets at another downside of living in a futuristic home. "Since the official launch, we've spent every weekend entertaining," Raymond says with a sigh. "I'm tired of showing the demo...
...What does this all have to do with games? Very little, for the most part. Game developers are notorious for missing deadlines, and the smoke, mirrors and rubber-masked models are often there to distract you from the fact that the demo of the game itself is either pretty minimal - a couple of levels, maximum - or at least two years away from completion. Or hardly worth waiting for in the first place...