An editorial view on Jan's Aachen Media Space whitepaper

media spaces - an egocentric view

Having read the whitepaper about the Aachen Media Space I think it sounds nice and I would be delighted to contribute to its development. But selfish as I am I want my own media space in the long run, as my living room for instance. Right now there is a lot of momentum towards intelligent buildings (see "c't 5/2004, S. 110: Heimautomation"), but development aimed at normal consumers is mostly concerned with stuff like controlling home appliances (like turning on heating via cell phone or having a coffee machine that makes fresh coffee just before you wake up) or the next generation of home cinema. Fascinated by hi tech as I am, I am not willing to spend money on such products. I already have a DVD player and a CD player as well as a MiniDisc deck and they do their job just fine - my basic needs are covered and I don't need new devices that aren't any better than my current devices at doing the basic job but have a load of extravagant features. And what good is it to have a coffee machine or a central heating that can be hacked by script kiddies if you still have to do the vacuum cleaning yourself? On the other hand I use my computer frequently and I don't want to be stuck with mouse and keyboard forever - I don't want a computerized home, I want a homely computer!

So my media spaced living room will have to give me everything my desktop computer provides me with now, with the slight modification that I want to point and click with my arms and hands as well as - if possible - with my eyes and that I want to be able to input text by talking where text can be source code as well as a letter to a friend. And of course I want to use my media spaced living room for things I can't or don't use my desktop computer for right now:

translating data from one media to another automatically or at least semiautomatically. This could be simple like reading text aloud when I'm lying on the sofa too lazy to open my eyes or not so simple - if only the size of the Apple Knowledge Navigator prevents it from being realized, I'm sure a whole living room should provide enough space to hide the necessary equipment ;-)
if at least one wall is covered completely by a high resolution display, I want to display paintings on it that look just like real paintings but change, while you're not looking at them (people changing places, changing weather conditions, people poking their tongue out at you ...) or paintings that are animated while you are looking at them (fake landscapes, the ocean in a thunderstorm, the imperial fleet around the death star...), which could even be used to get rid of visitors (subtly by having small insects, medium sized spiders or mice scampering over the wall or along the floor, or not so subtly by simulating a window with a lot of strange people walking by and staring in). Or you can install it in your bedroom and use it as a giant alarm clock that wakes you by letting the sun rise or something like that,
considering the bedroom idea, I guess the ceiling might be an even better choice for a big display. Apart from lamps most people don't have that much furniture on it and it's ideal for being looked at while you're lying on the couch or in bed. In the evening you don't have to worry that you fall asleep in front of the TV because if you do, you're already in bed and the media space can turn of the TV as soon as it notices that you've gone to sleep,
and what about a semitransparent mirror with a display behind it? If used in the bathroom, it could give me valuable advice for example while shaving sleepily in the morning ("That was your nose..."). But maybe an array of high quality cameras and some software that can create arbitrary camera angles from the picture data they acquire is even better, because then you can use a normal display as an enhanced mirror (that allows you to turn your head without actually having to turn it) that doesn't reflect the room if you don't want it to. And since we're already in the bathroom, the toilet mounted video conferencing system is a must have ... if President Skroob has it, I want to have it, too ;-)
friends visiting me should be able to transfer or at least display pictures, movies and sounds to or on my media space, except if they brought boring holiday pictures or stuff like that, in which case my media space should fake technical problems and also give me a call on my phone so I have an excuse for having to leave immediately ;-)
when having visitors, watching the walls might distract us, so I want my coffee table or better yet all the tables to be high resolution displays as well. And they should be touch-sensitive so we can play video games on them (even board games would be improved: no more searching for parts of the game and of course the simulated dice will favor me ;-)
pet lovers, pay attention: No more feeding, no more cleaning the litter box ... and if digital Fluffy gets out of style, disposal is easy as well as legal!
my media space might not beat Star Trek's holodeck but I want it to be the next best thing.

Right now the hardware I want for my media space is not affordable or non-existent (at least in case of the displays) but I hope that will change within 5 or 10 years. Buying a living room to put my media space in will hopefully by then be more expensive than the media space hardware itself ... and if it isn't, there's still the Aachen Media Space. I'll start reading my favorite science fiction novels again to see if I can find stuff I want which might be realizable in a media space!

Afterthoughts:

What about an evil media space that tortures its users? "Office Voodoo" seems like a good starting point, see "TP: Die Hölle ist ein Büro". And talking of evil, it should be possible to turn any media space into an evil room ;-)
You're really into computer enhanced home appliances? Then you might want to have an oven that combines a microwave with multi-cellular heaters (each cell can be controlled separately) and has an array of cameras and infrared cameras. The media space can show you the current status of whatever it is that you are roasting, from any angle, in color (if a bit is turning into coal, just reduce the heating in that area) and infrared. The deluxe version will show you air circulation in the oven and allow you to turn on the sprinkler if your food spontaneously combusts. There, are you satisfied now? Sheesh!)
Suitable names for a media space would be "Medias Ithil", "Medias Tirith" and - of course much better - "Medias Morgul" ;-)
What about a mobile media space? If a media space was built into a freight container (or the back of a van), it would be possible to take it on the road/wherever you need it.