Tomorrow's Home: Connectivity - Smart Connections

Tomorrow's Home 2050 is a free exhibition at the Museum of the Home in Hoxton, from Saturday 20 November to Sunday 9 January.

Each week we're hosting talks based around one of the exhibition's themes - beginning with 'Connectivity'.

"Hey Siri, tell me about smart devices"

Smart devices - sometimes referred to as 'the internet of things' - are ubiquitous in our modern homes.

From speakers, to doorbells and fridges, our home objects are connected to the internet, communicating with each other, and sharing data. Creepy or convenient?

Hear from our experts as they explore the possibilities and pitfalls of smart devices.

Speaker line-up - more details coming soon!

• Dr Mine Orlu
• Mariam Elgabry
• Ava Scott
• Dr Leonie Tanczer
• Professor Mirco Musolesi
• Dr Cian O'Donovan
• Professor Danny Miller

Mariam Elgabry: 'Biohackers, the future is calling'

Tomorrow's home has a genome. With the re-engineering science of synthetic biology, our medication is "living", our meat is manmade, and our offspring designed. But what does that mean for the future of crime?

Mariam Elgabry is a doctoral and award-winning researcher at the University College London between the Dawes Centre for Future Crime and the Advanced Centre for Biochemical Engineering. You can visit her online at www.mariamelgabry.com or on Twitter (@MariamElgabry11)

Ava Scott: 'Too close to home? A discussion of creepiness in domestic technologies'

Creepiness is a product of ambiguity, evoking both revulsion and fascination and leaving us paralysed in a state of hyper-vigilance. The idealised image of the home is far from this: a comforting sanctuary, opaque to the prying eyes of others and distinctly private. Domestic technologies offer us brilliantly useful services, enhancing our wellbeing by supporting our memory, automating repetitive tasks, and monitoring the security status of our homes. In return, these technologies often gain privileged access to our behaviour, relationships, identities, and health status. Why does this make us uncomfortable, and what can we do about it?

Ava is a PhD candidate in cognitive neuroscience at UCL

Dr Leonie Tanczer: 'Smart but scary home? What smart devices mean for victims and survivors of domestic and sexual violence'

In recent years, there's been a rise in online harassment and sexual abuse carried out through digital devices. 'Tech abuse' can range from cyberstalking through to behavioural control. Internet-enabled devices like smart meters, locks and cameras considerably increase the risk of abuse. Leonie will talk about her research project, 'Gender and the IoT (Internet of Things)' – looking at how smart technologies impact domestic and sexual violence, and how we can combat this abuse.

Leonie Tanczer is a Lecturer in International Security and Emerging Technologies at UCL.

Professor Mirco Musolesi: 'AI is watching you - what are the benefits and risks for healthcare?'

Items in our pockets, on our risks and in our house are able to continuously monitor our behaviour – from the number of steps we take each day, to when we're most likely to wake up. This behavioural data is feeding into huge developments in artificial intelligence; basically, our smart devices are getting smarter. Mirco will discuss the challenges creating these types of systems, the risks around them, and also the opportunities to harness this data for our physical and mental wellbeing.

Mirco is a Professor of Computer Science at UCL and a Turing Fellow at the Alan Turing Institute.

Professor Danny Miller: 'Living Inside a Smartphone'

A smartphone isn't really a phone, nor is it smart, states Danny Miller. Instead, it's another place where we live - what Danny refers to as a 'transportal home'. This has profound implications for our well-being and the way we live our lives, but of course this varies across different populations.

Danny is a Professor of Anthropology at UCL. He is a co-author of The Global Smartphone, which closely relates to this talk. You can download The Global Smartphone for free from the UCL Press website.

More about Tomorrow's Home

Tomorrow’s Home is an immersive installation where the home of the future – 30 years from now – has become a reality. Drawing upon leading research from the UCL Institute of Healthcare Engineering it playfully imagines how our dwellings could be designed to help us live independently and well as we age, and support our changing planet.

Explore imagined health technologies, from the toilet that analyses your waste to the doormat that can detect intruders, and explore how they could become deeply embedded in people’s homes.

The installation has been curated by design specialists The Liminal Space in collaboration with researchers from University College London (UCL). It is supported by a Royal Academy of Engineering Ingenious Award.

Free entry | Museum of the Home | 136 Kingsland Road, E2 8EA | 10am - 5pm, Tuesday - Sunday