"Welcome to the future." These could be the words of the electronic door-keeper in tomorrow's flat - a flat that already exists in Rennes, France, where a team of researchers from France Télécom is working at the design of a futuristic home. Just imagine...
Your job takes you to France for six months. Friends of yours, M and Mme Dupont, are away and lend you their flat. On your arrival, the electronic door-keeper recognises you thanks to its biometrics program, giving you the video message the Duponts left for you. A few hours earlier, this virtual Jeeves had received Jacques, who delivered food for you from the local supermarket.
Inside the house, the Duponts programmed a latino decoration, because they know you love the ambiance. In the kitchen, a culinary assistant outlines menus you can cook with the food delivered by Jacques. And if you don't know the recipe, a video-chef gives you an entertaining lesson.
Star Trek-style fantasy? Not so, insist the researchers. "This could be the future," says Laurent Ponthou, who heads the Studio Créatif at France Télécom's research and development department. "We come up with services France Télécom could offer its clients in the future and we compare our ideas to our clients' expectations and to experts' advice."
Some 30 experts from different disciplines work on three sites. In Rennes, in Brittany, they are trying to realise a futurist flat. In Issy-les-Moulineaux, Paris, a team works on mobile services, while another group based in Grenoble in the Alps designs communicating clothes fitted with a micro-chips.
"We try not to impose too many constraints on ourselves," continues Ponthou. "That is why we are working at simulating these services, rather than really bringing them into focus and testing them. It enables us to go faster and to identify which are worth development."
Freedom and imagination are the keywords in the Studio Créatif. "We do not have our ideas filtered by experts," says Ponthou. "We gradually build our vision. At the beginning, we don't know where we are heading to, but we believe it is going to work out." Enthusiasm is the buzz word.
The psychologist, the marketing-man, the ergonomist and the multimedia designers have to pit their ideas against those from IT, finding what would be the most credible use for modern technology.
"It is not always technology that makes the difference when we deal with services," says Bernard Marquet, head of the Rennes lab. "Added value means that we have to invent uses that have a meaning for the customer."
At the centre of the electronic home vision is a network, accessed through a Palm Pilot-style control pad.
The housekeeper manages everything with it, from video messages to the baby-sitter to the alarm system, via the heating and the watering of the garden. Webcams let parents keep an eye on the children's homework and the unit can even simulate the owner's presence in the house when he or she is away on holidays, making sure vital tasks are carried out.
Focus groups regularly come to try these inventions. Their reactions provide valuable information for the Studio Créatif. "We often find that people are not as surprised as we thought they would be," says Marquet. "They tell us they have already seen the services we show them. But it's not possible. Nevertheless, for us this is very positive - it means we are close to reality.
"Simplicity of use is essential," continues Marquet. "Techniques have to disappear behind services." Because of this demand for simplicity, the lab had to drop a sophisticated system to manage food stocks which involved scanning the bar codes of all food bought and eaten. It was simply too demanding for consumers.
Another problem the team has identified is security, and the protection of the private environment. All domestic functions are linked on an intranet, but they are also accessible from outside the house. So PIN numbers and passwords will have to be integrated into the system.
But the researchers are also realistic about how far they can go. They know that, no matter how positive they are in focus groups, consumers will only allow technology to go so far. "The housekeeper has to master all situations in his home," remarks Marquet. "He cannot accept being dependent on technologies for his everyday needs."
