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To mark
the opening of the University of Essex's new high-tech intelligent
apartment, which provides one vision of the home of the future, BBC
Essex and the University have teamed up to launch a schools competition.
Open
to pupils in Years 9 and 10, the competition asks you to describe
in words and/or multimedia presentations, what your home might be
like as you approach retirement age in 2050.
The
best entry will win a pocket computer which you can use for playing
music, computer games, e-mailing your friends, and doing your school
work. The winner and five classmates will also be invited to join
presenter Dave Monk as he broadcasts his show live from the BBC
Essex studios in Chelmsford.
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Networks
Centre
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The
University's intelligent apartment, the iDorm2, is housed in its
new state-of-the-art Networks Centre on the Wivenhoe Park campus
in Colchester. The two-bedroom apartment, which will eventually
be equipped with hundreds of tiny interacting computers and sensors,
will be officially opened on 28 June.
The
official opening will form part of the University's 40th anniversary
celebrations. When it was founded back in 1964, the University's
first mainframe computer, complete with plug in boards and cooling
system, filled a space equivalent to the entire iDorm2.
Forty
years on and the computer revolution that has seen the development
of the world-wide web and satellite technology has also heralded
the age of the disappearing computer. Computers can now be made
so tiny that they can be embedded into our clothing and even our
own bodies.
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The
original iDorm
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The
iDorm2 will contain hundreds of tiny computers. It will be the successor
to the University's original iDorm, or intelligent dormitory, modelled
on a student bedroom, which featured on the BBC Tomorrow's World
programme in 2002.
The
apartment's tiny embedded computers will be 'intelligent'- that
is they can respond to and learn from the behaviour of the user.
To give a simple example, this means they can automatically switch
on the desk lamp when the user sits down at his or her computer,
or close the blinds when the occupant lies down on the bed.
Future
uses of this technology could provide huge improvements to the quality
of life of elderly or disabled people, as well as making energy
efficiency savings.
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