Our homes

What might our houses be like in the second half of the 21st century? This is Professor Greenfield's prediction:

As you enter the living room, sensors will detect your presence and the walls will start to glow. Talk to the walls, and activated by your voice, they will change to a colour of your choice, pink to green to blue, whatever suits your mood.

Sink into your glowing cyber-armchair, relax in the knowledge that the house computer will perform all of your everyday household tasks. The voice system in the chair will address you by name and advise a change in position that will be better for youe spine.

In the kitchen, your fridge will know when you are low on milk on any other item, and it wil automatically send orders to the supermarket. However, it is in the kitchen where "new" meets "old". Food remains in its old-fashioned form. Pills, so confidently predicted in the 20th-century to replace food, exist, but nobody wants them. There is too much pleasure in cooking, chewing and tasting all kinds of food.