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In this topic I’m not an expert, far from it, but I have drawn attention to some recent inventions (and not so recent) that perhaps in a future will completely transform the interior and exterior of our homes. If you know any more inventions, I’d appreciate if you comment it here as I would have more info about this topic and our readers can be informed better.

A century ago, inventions such as fridge, microwave, hob and television, were unthinkable. Today, not only are essential in any home, but moreover we don’t pay attention to the advancement that inventions represented at that time. Following this trend, and given that technology advances faster and faster, this could be what awaits us in the not too distant future (10 years, maybe a little more in some points, depending on the purchasing power). Some of the inventions already exist but are reserved for the rich people.

• Energy: The home of the future will be self-sufficient respect to electricity. Not so the flat of the future, unless the photovoltaic panels improve enough to power an entire building, with a few panels on the roof. Yes, photovoltaics, whose only requirement is to cover the roof of the house with some panels, providing unlimited clean energy at no cost.
• Internet: There’s no doubt that all steps in that direction will go home automation. For this, the infrastructure of the homes will be improved accordingly. There are 2 possibilities: wireless networks (3G, HSDPA, 4G) will improve dramatically and will completely free us from the telephone wires, or the archaic copper wire will be replaced with fiber optics, much faster. Obviously, this already exists, but only in certain districts of some cities. Furthermore, it isn’t being exploited all the potential it offers.
• RFID: Perhaps you haven’t heard about these letters (Radio Frequency ID), but surely you’ve ever used that technology. It consists on tiny chips (RFID chips) that contain a short sequence of bytes (an identifier), and can be read by a receiver at a distance of centimeters or even a few meters. They are, more or less, bar codes, but almost invisible, and without need for “visual” contact between the receiver and the chip. For example, they’re used in some public transport vouchers, or library books. Although, if this technology becomes more popular and chips costs diminish further, they can enter our homes as smart barcodes. For example, our futuristic fridge (with RFID reader incorporated), will know what food is inside it (if the food have RFID chips), and can warn you when an item is ending, or even buy it online. It may also suggest recipes based on the ingredients you have available.
• Appliances: Basically, appliances will be the same as now, just with added computer / robotic abilities. There already exist, at quite affordable prices, robotic vacuum cleaners which aspire continually following a random pattern, so cleaning the whole surface of the house, and even auto-recharge (when they are running out the battery, they plug into the battery charger without human intervention). By adding artificial intelligence to appliances, you could, for example, synchronize the clock with the brewer, so when you wake up, you’ll have a cup of freshly brewed coffee waiting for you. That, coupled with the Internet, opens a new world of possibilities. You can check at any time, via a mobile phone, the state of the house, temperature, and for example, turn on the heating 1 hour before arriving home to find the house already warn when you arrive.
• Smart items: As blinds, lights or faucets. A motion sensor in the room, which turns on the light when someone comes in and turns it off when the room is empty; blinds that upload themselves when the alarm sounds, or faucets that turn on when you put the hand underneath. In short, sensors that allow “the house” to behave according to what people are doing or to environmental conditions.
• Computer as the center of the house: From the computer, or even from a mobile phone, you will be able to control absolutely al the parameters of the house, and even automate certain tasks such as turn on and off the heating, or lower the blinds at dusk. Today, computers are no longer computers, are all that and more, and gradually they’re becoming even more. The computer will become the absolute center of the house, integrating television, game console, music player, video, phone…
• New technologies: Recently, there has been presented a technology that will supposedly “kill” the traditional light bulb in 2013. You can call me skeptical, but I don’t think it will achieve in 3 years that low-energy lights are trying more than a decade. This technology involves a kind of wallpaper that emits light, in a similar way as a computer screen emits light (OLED screens in particular). It has the advantage of lower power consumption, and providing a smoother, more natural light, as it’s distributed throughout the room. If you have lost within my explanation, basically in the future, rather than bulbs, there will be light walls, of course with adjustable intensity, and even colors.

I saw nothing more, although I’m sure there are dozens of inventions that should be taken more into account. Most are simple evolutions of what we know so far, which will be phasing in our lives, until a time when we’ll wonder how we could live without it.

The electronics is taking over our homes just as electricity did in the past century. We expect some interesting decades in which some “premonitions” made by the Science-Fiction writers will come true, such as the smart home, the remote machine controlled with the thought, the hologram or humanoid robots capable of learning (apparently). As I always repeat every time I write an article like this, I don’t have a crystal ball, to see the future it’s best to live it.

Perhaps the title isn’t quite right. If in the years 2008 and 2009 you have not heard about these mini-computers, probably you have been living in a bubble (without Internet, there are bubbles of all kinds). If you don’t know about them, I’ll try to explain what they are and my opinion about them.

What is an ultraportable (UMPC)?

An ultraportable is a more portable PC than a laptop (yes, that’s a mouthful). This means that the characteristics that define a laptop, are amplified in these devices. More battery, lighter, less powerful and much smaller. These machines came into our lives in 2007 with Asus eeePC series, but did not reach the mainstream until 2008. In the last 2 years, there has been a boom, so that now there are all UMPCs of all brands, prices, colors and sizes. However, all of them share the same range of features:

• Hard drive: Some of them have SSD drives (something like memory cards for mobile phones, but with more capacity), others have a magnetic hard disk (the regular ones). SSD drives are faster, consume less electricity and are absolutely silent. In contrast, magnetic hard drives have much better capacity/price relation. Thus the first ultraportable laptops, in an effort to reduce its size and increasing battery life, had 2-8 GB SSD memory (like SD cards, which have the same size as a coin). However, the market has diversified, and now most have a magnetic hard disk with a capacity that rarely exceeds 120 GB. Why did this? Because although they make more noise, more heat and consume slightly more, the fact is that consumers were wary about a computer with less than 10 GB of capacity.
• RAM: They go one step behind laptops, as in almost all resspects, like laptops are one step behind desktops. They usually have between 512 MB and 1 GB RAM.
• Processor: Almost all the ultraportables have an Intel Atom CPU. It is characterized by its small size, apart from not needing a fan, and reduced consumption. However, as you might have guessed, it’s rather slow, working at speeds around 1.66 GHz, although this rate can not be compared with a Core2Duo, for example, as it has 2 cores (like 2 processors in 1) and the Atom only has 1.
• Display: This is where these computers fail. The former had 7-inch screens with a resolution of 800×480 pixels. Yes, it’s pretty low. They have recently grown in size, reaching screens of 10 or 11.6 inches with resolutions that reach 1366×768, which are similar to those of the “traditional” laptops (15 inches). However, although the resolution is very good, you better have a good view, because they have very small screens. Although clear, if you want a big screen, do not buy a pocket-sized laptop haha.
• Battery: The battery, like all components, must be very small. Although it has less capacity than a laptop battery, all the computer parts are designed to consume little power. Thus, if in the laptop market we found battery life from 2 to 4 hours in the ultraportables we have durations from 4 hours to 11. Yes, I was not mistaken: 11 hours of battery!
• Accessories: They tend to have almost all the accessories that have a standard laptop. Graphics card (low power) with VGA output, Wi-Fi, keyboard (though it usually has the keys close together and small, and have no numeric keypad), trackpad, several USB ports, webcam, speakers and microphone… Although, most models have no CD/DVD, they occupy too much. But… When was the last time you put a CD in your computer? Game CDs don’t count as ultraportables are not intended to play video-games.
• Price: This is them strength, they are usually pretty cheap, rarely exceeding 600$. Keep in mind, if you are thinking of buying one for the price, that for 200 more dollars you have a “real” 15-inch laptop, with much more power, hard disk and RAM, and a less cramped keyboard.

What is an ultraportable suitable for?

That’s a good question. To begin, I’ll say what is NOT an ultraportable suitable for:

• Watching high-definition movies. Obviously, such as small screens are not made for that. Moreover, decode HD content requires many CPU cycles, and therefore much battery.
• Playing next-generation games. The hardware of these mini-computers isn’t powerful enough to play any game from the last… 3 years. It’s also another way to drain quickly the battery.
• Replace your desktop or laptop computer. If you had a computer and you want to change it, don’t buy an ultraportable. Its tiny screen is not suitable for daily use, unless you plug it to an external display.

Having discarded some utilities, here’s what IS an ultraportable suitable for:

• Using it as a portable DVD player. I guess you all know those little DVD players with a tiny screen to watch films in the car, for example. Well, an ultraportable can fulfill the same function, with a better screen, plus it’s a computer. However, keep in mind that many of them don’t have DVD reader, so you must have the movies on your hard drive (I guess that will be no problem there hehe).
• Great mobility. Ending a job or reading a paper on a long train journey, taking notes in college, checking your e-mail from anywhere with Wi-fi… all in less than 1 Kg weight.
• As a company to another computer. If you already have a desktop or a larger laptop, you can buy an ultraportable to do everything you would do with the previous ones, but anywhere. Although of course, with less power, less screen, and possibly no internet connection (although now there are even buses with Wi-fi).

Are the smartphones ultra-ultraportables?

Perhaps this is a question that you hadn’t raised. But if you ask me, the answer is YES. These phones with 3G connection (ie Internet anywhere within mobile coverage), 3 to 4 inches touch display, and the ability to add programs, either free or pay. It’s the evolution of PDAs, adding the role of telephone and Internet. The best known example is the iPhone. Well, I will show why these phones are computers smaller than ultraportables.

• Display: 3 to 4 inches. The resolutions ranging from 320×240 up to 800×480. Enough to surf the web, read mail, read or write a document, etc…
• Specifications: RAM between 128 and 512 MB. ARM processor between 500 MHz and 1 GHz (while consuming less power than the Atom), the “hard disk” is an SD memory, which can be purchased separately in most cases, reaching up to 8 GB. The battery last up several days, but about 6 hours if you are making intensive use of the phone (call, browse the web, or playing 3D games).
• Accessories: Here are amazing. Camera, video-camera, 3G connectivity, Wi-Fi, GPS, FM radio and so on. Although of course, it depends on the model.
• Size: They fit into the palm of a hand, and of course in a pocket. Almost their entire area is covered with a touch screen.

So, as you will see a smart-phone serves the same purposes as an ultraportable:

• Using it as a portable DVD player: Their screen is fairly small, but as they are often hold up with hands, one can see a series or movie without problems. My personal experience is to see episodes of “Friends” while I’m on the bus (one chapter takes the exact time haha) and it looks great, though of course, “Friends” is not a series with relies heavily on visual effects.
• Great mobility: Even more than an ultraportable, since you have an Internet connection anywhere (provided there is mobile coverage). With these phones you can check email, read a PDF, etc..

And it’s also a phone.

And what about the future?

I’m not a future teller, so maybe you should ignore me. Here we go:

Ultraportables will stay between 10 and 12 inches, will remain at current prices and will incorporate improvements over time. This is not to be a future teller, it’s all about logic. If they make them bigger, would contribute nothing over a conventional laptop, if price increase of up to 750$, for the same money people would buy a laptop. And obviously, as technology advances, the components of the ultraportables will have to move on accordingly. More or less, I would say that the performance of ultraportables will remain about 3 years behind the laptops (ie a laptop 3 years ago has the same power as a current ultraportable), as well as the performance of laptops are kept 1 year or 2 behind the desktop computers.

Hybrids between ultraportables and smartphones will appear. In fact, Nokia has already done it. They have created (at a high price) a very powerful ultraportable that also incorporates 3G (and thus SIM card). Increasingly larger Smartphones, laptops that flirt with phone functions such as touch screen, the rise of the tablets… A tablet is, for those who don’t know, a computer the size of a sheet (obviously thicker), which has touch screen but no keyboard. It’s like a giant PDA.

The next years seems to be interesting, with the popularization of 3G networks, everyone connected to the Internet anytime anywhere, computers that fit in the pocket, cell phones converted into genuine Swiss Army knives of technology (there are some that even have compass!)… Cheaper OLED displays, which allow a much higher pixel density (imagine a 7-inch screen that has the same resolution than a TV of 40…), also cheaper touch screens and, above all, multi-touch (enabling click on more than one point on the screen at once, that is, with several fingers)… In short, I don’t want to miss this decade. Like before, it may will only consist in an evolution of what already exists, with a few other “revolutionary” invention that all manufacturers will imitate. However, we are witnessing a gradual change in the way we understand computing, called Cloud computing. But that’s another story that should be told … (in another article).