The High-Tech Home of Tomorrow

The High-Tech Home of Tomorrow: "This may sound like science fiction, but companies have already developed the tools to make it reality. So says Peter Bongers, chief executive and co-founder of Living Tomorrow, a company that since 1991 has brought together top technology, consumer goods, and design firms to develop innovative products and then exhibit them to the public in specially designed museums.
Mind you, that future may not be realized for another decade or so in the U.S., Bongers says. But his company will give the public a glimpse of it much sooner.
Laboratory for Innovation
By next year, Living Tomorrow will break ground in San Jose, Calif., for its first U.S. museum. The 40,000-square-foot facility is scheduled to open in 2009. Bongers anticipates the project will cost $53 million. As with past installations, the San Jose museum largely will be funded by companies hoping to use it as a test kitchen for their upcoming, often out-there, products. 'We enable them to innovate much better,' says Bongers.
Once opened, the San Jose museum will offer $10 tours, showing off various product prototypes and rooms designed for the future. Visitors will be able to weigh in on products via handheld voting devices. They will also be able post opinions online. Roughly 300,000 people each year have visited past installations, Bongers says.
The first Living Tomorrow exhibit debuted in Brussels in March, 1995. Microsoft (MSFT) founder Bill Gates spoke at the opening. 'There is no doubt that the way we live will be different in the future,' Gates said at the time. 'The advances in PC technology and low-cost communications are bringing a revolution.' "