In a recent article in CNETAsia the Korean government has outlined a plan to bring the Jetson's era at least to the home. They want to create 10 million smart homes within 3 years. They have also backed up this plan with $1.7 billion dollars.
According to the article they are not just talking about smart HVAC systems and Internet Appliances but also cutting edge technology:
- Ultra-Wideband Radio (UWB) - UWB is a RF technology that transmits binary data, using low energy and extremely short duration impulses or bursts, which are on the order of picoseconds, over a wide spectrum of frequencies. It delivers data over short to medium distances, on the range of 15 to 100 meters. It is also known as carrier-free, impulse or base-band radio, since it does not require a dedicated radio frequency.
- Household Robots - Yes they real do mean robots and here is the proof.
- Fiber to the home - The proverbial last mile for broadband.
Essentially the government is pushing for the mass marketization of the home automation industry. With $1.7 billion in committed capital to the home automation industry, it now makes sense about the acquisition of Escient and consolidation that the parent company of Japan's Marantz has been doing in recent months.
This looks like only the tip of the iceberg in terms of Korea's Gov't investment in the Home Automation arena. According to this article from the Korea IT News the gov't is preparing to inject 28 billion into a "ubiquitous appliance solution technology project" including smart dust chips, low power-consumption wireless telecoms frameworks, architectures, middleware and a variety of home automation protocols.
You can read about it here: http://www.etienglish.com/news/detail_top.html?id=200304280012&art_grad=9.
In a related story, this book ( http://www.flazoom.com/books/BS_order.html?ISBN=0930878418 ) is climbing in ranking on Amazon.com for home automation geeks. :)
Another related story, http://www.hometoys.com/releases/apr03/allure_01.htm :
"A new study by Frost & Sullivan, the international market consultancy, pegs the number of home automation installations in Europe at 14,900, equating to equipment and associated software sales worth $172 million in 2002.
The rising sophistication of electronic home control options, providing remote control and automatic regulation of heating and lighting, audio-visual entertainment systems, information technology products and security features, will push revenues to $399.3 million in 2009."
Even if you double or triple the U.S. market it still pales in scope to what the Koreans are contemplating.
As the old Chinese curse may you live in interesting times says I think the home automation is now so cursed.
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