The home of the future will be a living, breathing entity that reacts to our needs, provides entertainment in any room of the house and can even take care of you when you're sick. In many ways, the vision of robotic butlers and multiple high-def screens portrays a false concept - in the future digital home, anything can be a screen and the home itself will be a robot. Brian David Johnson, a futurist at Intel, describes the future home as much more inter-connected and internet-aware than we currently imagine. We have curiously understated how much media will be at our fingertips, for example. Johnson says by 2015 there will be 500 billion hours of entertainment online, or more than is humanly knowable, and as many as 15 billion devices in use. "The future home will know our daily routines," says Johnson, describing how there won't be just a few extra 'screens' in the home by that computer interfaces will be literally all around us, in every room. In-built intelligence This concept of a digitally aware home will anticipate what we want. For example, Johnson says a computer might read the news aloud in the bathroom, knowing the mirror has fogged over and there is no way to interact with a touchscreen. In the living room, multiple screens will provide a view of a sporting event, but the home will control audio levels automatically based on who is talking, where everyone is sitting, and even knowing whether you care about the outcome of the game or not

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In Depth: The home of 2020: everything's a screen