This Content Originally Posted in 2002

Your home in 2007 will have fewer wires, cleaner air, and a gaggle of fun products to keep you healthy, informed, and entertained. In its latest technology forecast, Battelle has identified what it expects will be the ten most important technological breakthroughs in household products over the next decade. Here they are:

1. Disappearing Cords and Cables. Wires will begin to disappear from view in homes as we move toward wireless communication, data transmission, and energy distribution. That means more cordless telephones, wireless hook-ups to the internet, and even electric lamps and small appliances that don't have to be plugged in. These energy-saving products may include roofing shingles that serve as solar collectors, reducing the need for electricity transferred by wires to homes.

2. Products for a Healthy Home. Bacteria scares and concerns about indoor air quality will lead to products that improve our indoor environment. These products could range from smart filters on furnaces and air vents to localized filtering appliances to new concepts, such as anti-allergen and anti-bacterial surfaces and self-vacuuming carpets that serve as filtering systems. The home and yard environment may also be improved with the development of genetically engineered lawns that require fewer or no chemical treatments.

3. Home Health Monitors. These relatively inexpensive, reliable, and non-invasive home health monitors could track a wide range of physical functions and analyze nutrition and exercise programs.

4. Home Waste Management. Imagine an in-home system that sorts, recycles and disposes of home waste-eliminating the need for hand sorting. We may even see the development of systems for at-home water treatment and recycling.

5. Highly Miniaturized Communication and Electronic Products. In ten years, we will have developed wristwatch-size phones and highly specialized, hand-held, wireless computers that will help us perform a variety of day-to-day activities, from managing your banking and investments to planning your weekend entertainment.

6. Affordable, Digital, High-Definition Television. Digital HDTV is here now, but the breakthrough will come in making it affordable to a mass market. Battelle researchers predict that future digital HDTV sets will incorporate home videoconferencing, computing, and networking. To hold down costs, many of these more advanced systems will be leased.

7. Virtual Reality Products. Virtual projections and sound environments will be used to enhance computer games, music systems, video entertainment systems, and exercise equipment. We will see a convergence of home entertainment, information, and well care.

8. Electronic Commerce. We will enjoy electronic shopping and banking, including financial transactions that are error-free, secure, easy to use, and low cost.

9. Voice-Activated Products. Products throughout the home, such as televisions, computers, lights, and other electronic appliances, will be operated by voice commands.

10. Personal Security. New identification systems will take personal security to new levels, including protection of homes, automobiles and other property; security over computer networks; and security for electronic commerce.