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00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 Home Automation & Consumer Electronics
GAA Homes and America’s Digital Caste System
Mid-future catastrophic scenario
In the year 2035, Apple households tend to be ry home to interact with AI-powered appliance microwave, which includes a voice interface. measure, they are far superior to any public
wealthier and older. They can afford Apple’s screens and connected frozen daiquiri makers. Users could put a bag of popcorn in the micro- housing ever provided through our previous
sleek, beautiful hardware products available in Google’s system is less intuitive, but it makes wave and ask Alexa to pop it. Tech journalists government programs. Amazon Homes are
one of three colors: palladium silvery-white, os- better use of our data—and it offers different wrote the microwave off as a novel, silly use outfitted with connected devices in every room.
mium gray, or dark onyx. Apple’s smart glasses, levels of service and access. For those who can for Alexa, and missed the bigger picture: The The former Supplemental Nutrition Assistance
smart toilets, and custom refrigerators carry on afford the upgrade fees and have enough tech system was actually designed to get us hooked Program (previously known as the Food Stamp
its long tradition of pricey products anyone can savvy, Google Green gives families the ability on subscription popcorn. That’s because the mi- Program) is currently hosted by Amazon, which
use right out of the box. Its system comes with to manually unlock their systems, and they can crowave tracks both what we’re heating up and provides steeply discounted Amazon-branded
spoken interfaces and a choice of two soothing connect a greater variety of things—such as what we’re ordering on the Amazon platform. household products, food and drink, toiletries,
voices, Joost (who has a “unisex higher tone”) coffee makers and outdoor irrigation systems— A new box arrives before you ever have the and books. Unsurprisingly, this program works
or Deva (who has a “unisex lower tone”). But to their homes. Green families can also opt out chance to run out. seamlessly. There are never delays in funds
convenience comes with a cost. Apple’s artificial of being served advertisements, though their Because Amazon was the smartest in its being distributed, it’s easy to look up the status
intelligence (AI) cannot be overwritten. In an data is still collected and sent to third parties. approach with federal, state, and local gov- of an account, and all transactions can be com-
Apple home running the air conditioner, you Google Blue is an affordable option with lim- ernments—offering them deep discounts at pleted without ever having to wait in a long line
can’t open the door for more than a minute ited unlocking privileges and some additional Amazon.com, patiently working through at a government office. Those living in Amazon
or the system will start beeping incessantly. If permissions—and plenty of ads. Google Yellow procurement requirements, and building and Homes must buy most of their things through
there’s sufficient daylight detected by the sen- is the lowest tier. It’s free but comes with no maintaining cloud services specifically for Amazon while their data is scraped, produc-
sors in your light bulbs, the Apple system keeps override abilities, a small selection of available them—it became the preferred platform for tized, and monetized for various initiatives.
the light switch on lockdown. devices and appliances, and offers limited data certain social services in the United States. That Amazon’s AIs are the most pervasive, following
We saw a preview of Google’s connected home protections. is how Amazon discovered how to leverage the Amazon families everywhere they go to collect
decades ago at the 2018 South By Southwest Amazon went in an interesting, but ultimate- long tail of government funding. valuable behavioral data.
Festival in Austin, Texas. Back then, the tagline ly smarter, direction. A few announcements Low-income families now live in Amazon The lack of interoperability between AI frame-
was “Make Google do it,” and attractive spokes- Amazon made in the fall of 2018 went largely Housing, which has replaced city-funded public works and systems led to segregation by our
models took small groups around the three-sto- unnoticed, like the launch of its AmazonBasics housing programs in the United States. By every data and household, and that is why we now
09 © 2021 Future Today Institute
00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 Home Automation & Consumer Electronics
GAA Homes and America’s Digital Caste System
Mid-future catastrophic scenario
have a digital caste system. By choosing Google, scheme, and it drives along the rider’s preferred an Amazon Housing customer hasn’t had her
Apple, or Amazon, you are forced to align your routes. Yellows are subjected to advertising exercise that day, the Locker system will decide
family values with the values of the corpora- their entire trip. to keep the freezer closed and won’t let her eat
tion. Apple families are rich, maybe a little less Advertising isn’t the only headache for Yellow ice cream.
AI-savvy, and live in fancy houses. Google fam- Googlers. One downside to all the subsidized It’s not impossible to intermarry—occasionally
ilies might be rich and techy, or middle class and (or free) gadgets, appliances, and gear offered an Amazon will marry into an Apple family—
fine with marketing, or complacent with not to Google Blue, Google Yellow, and Amazon but that old adage “opposites attract” no longer
having a lot of choices in life. There is no way to families is that it’s impossible to disconnect the applies. All of our AI-powered dating services
sugarcoat Amazon families: They’re poor, even AI health and wellness minders, which contin- now match us based on our data. On the one
if they have free access to cool gadgets. ually monitor, diagnose, and nudge. A failure to hand, we no longer suffer under the tyranny of
Families are locked into their de-facto home comply with health and wellness minders results choice since dating AIs have drastically reduced
operating systems, and that designation travels in a litany of consequences. the selection of possible suitors. Yet some
with them. It’s easier for a Google Yellow family Remember those Amazon Lockers you used choices that once made us uniquely human—like
to port into the Blue or even Green level than it many years ago to pick up all the things you May-December romances or dating someone
is for an Amazon family to port into the Apple ordered on the Amazon app and Amazon.com? our parents don’t approve of—are less available
system. That’s why most families opted in to They made their way into Amazon Housing. to us now. In America, society is beginning to
Google when they had the opportunity. Your Leaders in the U.S. Health and Human Services feel uncomfortably Huxleian, as we acquiesce,
status is visible to all of the AIs you interact Department thought nudging poor people was get married, and have babies with our fellow
with. Self-driving taxi services like Lyft, Uber, a clever way to improve health and wellness, so Apples, or Google Blues, or Amazons.
and CitiCar don’t pick up Amazon riders with the department issued new policies requiring
as much frequency, and cars sent to them tend all public housing customers to be outfitted
not to be as nice. Waymo cars exclusively pick with Locker technology. The Lockers may look
up Googlers. For Greens, the car is preset to the like ordinary pantries, refrigerator doors, and
rider’s desired temperature and ambient lighting closets, but they act like AI-powered juries. If
10 © 2021 Future Today Institute
Home Automation
00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 & Consumer Electronics
Watch Closely Informs Strategy Act Now
1ST YEAR ON THE LIST
Disinfecting Bots
KEY INSIGHT EXAMPLES DISRUPTIVE IMPACT EMERGING PLAYERS
The CLOi autonomous robot from LG While some hospitals and office build- • LG Electronics
The pandemic result- Electronics looks like a narrow space ings experimented with disinfecting • Xenex
ed in an explosion of heater on wheels. It uses ultraviolet light robots pre-Covid, they hit the main-
to disinfect high-touch, high-traffic stream amid continued lockdowns and • Prescientx
COVID-19 tech: devices • UBTech Robotics
areas in retail, hospitality, and corporate fears about the spreading virus. Demand
and gadgets intended settings. There are three types of UV for UV robots is growing in schools, • MIT Computer Science & Artificial
to help people mitigate radiation (UVA, UVB, and UVC), and LG health care facilities, offices, and indus- Intelligence Lab
will use UVC, which is approved by the trial settings, especially as prices fall.
the harms of the virus. U.S. Food and Drug Administration for Sales of disinfecting robots may hit $2.3
Robots capable of ster- disinfecting nonporous surfaces, water, billion by 2025, up from $341 million in
ilization and disinfect- and air. Signify, which makes LED light- 2019, according to market advisory firm
ing systems, developed a desk lamp that Mordor Intelligence.
ing, once used only in disinfects nearby surfaces when turned on.
hospitals, are making Xenex Disinfection Services makes robots
that attack deadly pathogens with pulsing,
their way into our offic- high-energy, broad-spectrum UV light.
es and homes.
Virus-zapping CLOi robot is the first of a number
of autonomous droids LG plans to market in the
United States in 2021.
11 © 2021 Future Today Institute
Home Automation
00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 & Consumer Electronics
Watch Closely Informs Strategy Act Now
2ND YEAR ON THE LIST
Digital Emissions
KEY INSIGHT EXAMPLES DISRUPTIVE IMPACT EMERGING PLAYERS
The internet’s data is invisible, but it As smart homes proliferate, companies • Nokia
Collectively, our homes requires physical data centers around the will continue to work to cut digital • Ericsson
are starting to pro- world that must be powered on, cooled, emissions. In 2009, Google opened a data
and protected 24 hours a day, seven days • Firefox’s address bar
duce digital emissions. center in chilly Hamina, Finland, to cut
• DigiPlex
a week. The actual energy used when energy use. The act of cooling IT equip-
Everything we do on- you read a Reddit post or order more ment eats up about 40% of the energy • ICTFootprint.eu
line—sending an email, toilet paper is extremely small; only a required by data centers. Now, Google
few grams of carbon dioxide are emitted will invest in additional cold-climate
hosting a Zoom call— each time. But consider the scale: Bil- data centers. Google also uses high-tech
requires energy, and lions of people every day each complete evaporative cooling, smart temperature
each of those digital dozens (or hundreds) of actions online.
controls, and machine learning systems
The carbon footprint of our devices, the
to automatically adjust energy consump- If every adult in the
actions leads to carbon internet, and the data centers we require
dioxide emissions. account for 1.4% to 3.2% of our global
tion. Mozilla Firefox’s Enhanced Track- United States sent
ing Protection blocks third-party trackers
greenhouse gasses.
while cutting energy usage when you’re
one less email a year,
online. It also employs search recycling: we could save 51,560
If you type in the search bar to navigate
to a site, it requires data processing and
tons of CO2—the
energy consumption. Using autocom- equivalent of taking
plete, rather than manually typing, to
Data centers are responsible for CO2 emissions. navigate back to your intended destina-
11,217 gas-powered
tion means zero carbon searching. cars off the road.
12 © 2021 Future Today InstituteHome Automation
00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 & Consumer Electronics
Watch Closely Informs Strategy Act Now
5TH YEAR ON THE LIST
Retrofitting Old Homes With New Technology
KEY INSIGHT EXAMPLES DISRUPTIVE IMPACT EMERGING PLAYERS
You may already be living in the home The more technologies built into smart • Amazon Alexa
As smart home devices of the future. Retrofitting the walls with home systems and appliances, the more • Google Home
become more ubiqui- conduit and cables, embedding surfaces potential for things to go wrong—which
with sensors, and deploying connect- means that in the near future, we should • Samsung SmartThings Hub
tous and affordable, • HomeOS
ed appliances and gadgets are ways to see new consumer demand for smart
people are working to modernize existing homes, with results home repairs and for service companies
retrofit old homes with leading to improved energy efficiency, with knowledge of how devices connect
automation of everyday tasks, and new to the home network and to each other.
new technologies. insights from the data your household For now, many systems require a strong
generates. In the U.S., buying and ret- cabled internet system to work proper-
rofitting an older home can be more ly. That could change as 5G networks
affordable than building a new one. become more prevalent, enabling smart
home technologies to work wirelessly
without latency issues.
Smart home technologies, like automatic thermo-
stats, can offer older homes new upgrades.
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