Items Tagged With media

An interesting real-world application for products from one of Automated Home's favourite smart home companies - Barix...

"Barix Exstreamers Play a Critical Role in Revolutionary Earthquake Early Warning - Barix Technology AG, a leading manufacturer of standalone voice, music and data over IP solutions for commercial and residential applications, is proud to announce that their Exstreamer devices play a critical role in QuakeGuard earthquake early warning systems designed and manufactured by Seismic Warning Systems, Inc., of Scotts Valley, California. In the event of an earthquake, the Seismic Warning QuakeGuard systems are able to provide as much as 6 to 60 seconds advance notice before the major tremors strike, thereby allowing people to seek shelter. The QuakeGuard seismic warning system relies on the early detection of non-destructive, fast moving waves emanating from the origin of an earthquake. The QuakeGuard system has been installed in over 30 installations throughout California as of February 2006 and it is starting to be evaluated in pilot programs in other parts of the world...

The Telegraph's property section has an interesting article on living in a contemprary smart home...

"Developers know that a home fitted with the latest gadgetry always tempts a buyer. But what happens when things go wrong? Ross Clark reports on the reality of living with infra-red taps, remote controlled boilers and automatic light switches...

UK TV company Endemol have contacted us for help in tracking down an automated home to feature in a new BBC TV series that's going into production shortly...

"Are you living the life of luxury in your own private space? Is it packed with Playstation games? Does all your money go on a massive Plasma Screen TV? Is it a chick magnet?!

We're working on a new series for the BBC about peoples' homes, and we want to hear from anyone who is proud of their space. Especially if it's an honest-to-goodness, true-to-form Bachelor Pad...

So, do you have a Type-A bathroom to go along with your Type-A personality? The Wall Street Journal looks into the rising phenomenon of the Smart Bathroom...

"The humble bathroom, long a place of refuge and solitude, is playing quiet host to more workplace transactions. Bathroom business has gone way beyond tapping out furtive emails on a BlackBerry. Lately, more hard-driving homeowners have converted their loos into virtual satellite workspaces, with retractable desks or waterproof touch-screen monitors. Manufacturer Acquinox of New York says sales of its steam shower/whirlpool units -- a hands-free phone is standard in each -- nearly tripled last year to 14,800 modules. Wisconsin-based Seura, meanwhile, reports rising sales of its vanity mirrors, which feature LCD screens in the glass. The mirrors, starting at $2,400, let users check their tie-knot, then flip a switch to watch the embedded TV...

An article from CE-Pro with some interesting photos from inside the "Next Gen Home" at the recent CES2006 exhibition in Las Vegas...

"...At the model home, EI showed two new pieces of hardware -- the Lifevision TV Server and Lifesource Media Server. I like to call the TV server a "tuner farm." It can serve up four streams of HDTV to four different rooms simultaneously -- something an MCE can't do on its own. It's like having an IPTV server in the home. In a demo, Seamons demonstrated four different shows streaming to a single 12-inch HD Lifetouch touchscreen. A user can view all 4 shows simultaneously, selecting the audio for any one show by touching the image. You can even pause, rewind and forward video in one room without affecting the display in another.

The Media Server is a place to store all of the home's content, with its 1.5 terabytes of usable space, and RAID configured hot-swappable drives. Most importantly, the software simplifies the distribution of content to and from the server, allowing users to quickly and easily find content -- and to automatically push photos, music, video and other content to a single repository. Users can specify which which content has priority on the server. For example, you might want to back up your photos for good, but let recorded TV shows slide...