Imagine a home where digital technology is seamlessly woven into the fabric of your life. Imagine winning that technology, valued at R250 000. Now, see this home and win its contents, at ITWeb`s DigitalLife Expo from 18 - 20 April 2008, at the Sandton Convention Centre, in Johannesburg.
The digital home will take centre stage at the DigitalLife Expo, and is the first home of its kind to be created for a South African show. The 285sqm fully-equipped walk-through digital home, sponsored by Telkom, will feature wireless broadband connectivity, spanning the kitchen, living room, library/study, and children`s and main bedrooms.
It`s a physical realisation of the potential of broadband connectivity, coupled with a variety of next-generation digital products and integrated in the home environment. The digital home will also showcase interiors by celebrated interior decorator and designer, Lynne Blumberg.
Imagine a library/study at the heart of this home, where a computer acts as LAN (Local Area Network) server, and your data access throughout the home is facilitated by WiFi extenders and Internet over power connectors.
Imagine a phone that is also an Internet Access Device (IAD), allowing you to make voice calls and VOIP (voice over Internet Protocol) calls from multiple cordless handsets throughout the home, and with an intercom facility for internal calls.
Imagine this library also had a wireless, multifunctional fax, printer, scanner, copier, which you could connect to from any wireless device, anywhere in the home.
Picture a kitchen where you access recipes from the Internet, store your shopping list in a database, and where your cordless phone connects you to the outside world, via voice or VOIP calls, and to the rooms in your home via an intercom function.
Envision a living room with a WiFi video/music streamer to your plasma screen, and wireless access to all the data and music stored on the server, located in the study. Imagine a gaming console with Internet access for online gaming, and of course, that cordless phone with its voice, VOIP and intercom call functionality.
Visualise a children`s bedroom with a notebook computer or PC for work or play, and wireless access to the Internet, music, videos and more. Imagine a TV, gaming console and that fabulously functional cordless phone completing this picture.
Imagine less wires, more communication.
Now, imagine that despite its hi-tech nature, this digital home was first and foremost, a home. That, according to decorator Lynn Blumberg, is of the utmost importance. "It should be," says Blumberg "as energising and comfortable as possible."
On her vision for the home`s d'ecor, she says: "We`ve chosen a modern contemporary, yet Afro-centric style for the digital home. When it`s all done, it will be a beautiful and bright, modern and vibey home, with a high energy look and feel. We plan to combine a mix of fabulous new, textured fabrics and wallpapers, with a hint of an African theme, but still very trendy and extremely user-friendly. It`s important that visitors to the Digital Life Expo should be able to picture themselves living in the digital home."
The digital age presents its own unique set of challenges and opportunities to the interior designer and decorator. Key among these, says Blumberg, is finding a way to fuse technology and d'ecor in such a way that the home is at once functional, inviting and comfortable.
The digital home at DigitalLife will undoubtedly be a major attraction for all the aforementioned reasons, as well as the fact that one show visitor will win its fabulous products and technologies, at a price tag of R250 000.
The DigitalLife Expo aims to put the digital lifestyle in context and allow visitors to explore, investigate, compare, experience and purchase products. To facilitate that, the show has been designed to reflect the consumer`s digital reality in the most logical and consumable manner possible.
The result is the Digital Home focal area and five different pavilions showcasing different technologies, namely: TV & entertainment; mobile & personal technology; technology at work; appliances & home automation; and digital services.
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DigitalLife Expo - from 18 to 20 April 2008 at the Sandton Convention Centre, in Johannesburg - is ITWeb`s debut exhibition and will feature the best of what the consumer electronics, gaming and entertainment industries have on offer. This event complements ITWeb`s activities in the digital lifestyle space, including its monthly magazine, DigitalLife (formerly Unwired), and its social media Web site, My Digital Life.
ITWeb is South Africa`s leading technology-focused publisher, with diverse media titles and products that span across online, print and events. It is recognised as the most trusted voice in South African technology publishing and is the first port of call for an audience that ranges from technology professionals to CEOs.
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