Home of Tomorrow: HGTV Visits the Microsoft Envisioning Center

Chi-Lan Lieu gets a tour of Microsoft's immersive tech lab in Redmond, Wash., for a glimpse of how we may live, work, shop and be entertained in the home of the not-so-distant future.

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Envisioning the Future

The entrance to Microsoft's Envisioning Center in Redmond, Wash., as seen on HGTV's Home of Tomorrow

Tomorrow's Office Space

The office section of Microsoft's Envisioning Center includes interactive screens to help streamline work.

Digital Manipulation

Chi-Lan Lieu, host of HGTV's Home of Tomorrow, interacts in real time with a digital wall display at Microsoft's Envisioning Center.

Welcome Home

The front door entrance to the home portion of Microsoft's Envisioning Center

Tomorrow's Living Room

The living room at the Envisioning Center features a 120-inch video display that can, among other things, function as wall art. The screen features built-in Xbox Kinect technology and syncs with smart lighting.

Transformative Space

With just a mouse click or a tap on a mobile device, the HD video display can transform the room from an art gallery to a movie theater to an interface for a very high-def personal chat with a loved one.

Can You Hear Me Now?

This high-def screen helps make for a larger-than-life video chat.

Tomorrow's Home Studio

The home studio at Microsoft's Envisioning Center includes an interactive screen that is also Kinect-technology enabled.

At the Intersection of Art and Tech

Using the technology available in the home studio, users can scan a picture of a clay pot and have it instantly appear on the screen in 3-D. Users can then shape the virtual "pot" using gestures on a virtual pottery wheel.

Desktop Redefined, Again

An interactive desk display at the Envisioning Center

Move Over, Johannes Gutenberg

This 3-D printer is part of the craft room at Microsoft's Envisioning Center. The 3-D printer essentially reinvents what "printing" can mean, allowing three-dimeinsional solid objects to be created from a digital model. This type of technology may revolutionize the creation and manufacture of all types of items, from clothing to machine parts to prosthetic devices.

Postmodern Retail

Chi-Lan Lieu uses a digital retail display at Microsoft's Envisioning Center, showing how shopping might be in the future. After placing an item, such as this toy car, on the screen surface, information about the item is then displayed. Users can also purchase items via this device, using a technology that allows their smartphone to interface with the desktop screen.

Family Interaction

Chi-Lan Lieu tries out the kitchen's interactive family wall as Anton Andrews, Microsoft's director of Office Envisioning, looks on.

Bulletin Board on Steroids

The family wall is a multifaceted update on the traditional bulletin board. On it users can update calendars, flip through family photos, select photos to be displayed in digital frames elsewhere in the house, access recipes, watch cooking tutorials and more.

Tomorrow's Kitchen

With some guidance from Jonathan Cluts, Microsoft's director of Strategic Protyping, Chi-Lan Lieu calls up Internet recipes on the digital countertop in the Envisioning Center kitchen.

Recipe On Demand

The kitchen in Microsoft's Envisioning Center employs a digital countertop that displays recipes directly on its surface.

The New Cook's Kitchen

The interactive display on the digital countertop allows kitchen users to call up specific recipes and to customize them as they desire.

Tomorrow's Office

Chi-Lan Lieu checks out the interactive office wall at Microsoft's Envisioning Center.

Bigger Than Email

Among its many uses, the interactive office wall allows users to communicate with work colleagues directly via the wall.