The Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the University of York have joined forces to launch a unique centre to research home technologies of the future.

The outcome should be a ‘responsive home’ that will particularly allow older and disabled people who want to live independently in their own homes simple access to future technology.

The Centre for Usable Home Technology, as the project is called, will investigate the real needs of users of future home technologies, especially older and disabled people who want to live independently in their own homes.

Underpinned by world-class research in the Departments of Psychology, Computer Science and Electronics at the University, CUHTec brings together a group of talented researchers and a wide range of interested users and suppliers - from IT companies to social services organisations.

One of CUHTec's key projects is the 'responsive home', which has a demonstration house established on the University campus for researchers and user groups.

Professor Andrew Monk, Director of CUHTec, Department of Psychology explains:

"We intend to use an ordinary home equipped as a state-of-the-art research lab to find out how people really use technology and what they really want from it. Many home technologies have failed because they do not take account of people's real needs, particularly their social needs, and CUHTec is set to change that."

The Responsive Home has a number of unusual features. They include:

• A large fridge configured as a touchscreen interface to an 'embodied conversational agent' (ECA). A bar code reader inside it scans the fridge contents, enabling the user to know what's inside, explore options for the contents (recipes and so on), and compile and print out shopping lists.
• A rise and fall sink wired to a simple up/down switch, to enable a wheelchair user or a child to adjust the height of the sink. It has the potential to accept oral commands if the person using it cannot operate a switch.
• A living room wired with video cameras connected to a suite of observation monitors for playback of group experiments. This allows for analysis of people's behaviour as they interact with technology.
• An 'audio photo desk' which can view pictures and play the sound associated with them. This entertaining feature could help people with dementia or memory and language problems to look at pictures of family members or key events with helpful sound input. It could also simply entertain those who wish to reminisce. It uses a web cam with an image-recognising sound file.

• Companies which design, manufacture and supply electronic products for home use.
• Academic and commercial research laboratories.
• Organisations that purchase systems and products on behalf of end users, such as Social Services Departments and carers organisations.
• User groups who represent older age groups and disabled users in particular.