We at BFR have been very busy the past couple of days as we journey through our first CES (Consumer Electronic Show) event. The experience has been amazing, something that I hope every tech-head has a chance to participate in. Needless to say we have a ton of stuff to write about and very little time to do so. We first want to write about the NextGen "Digital Lifestyles" home featured in the central plaza parking lot. This year's home focused on a great level of home automation made possible through software built on top Windows Media Center, a lot of tv's and panels, a content server, and a lot of other high-tech goodies. We were given a tour of the house with each stop being a different room so we will now retrace our steps and give you a chance to see what it was like. Please note that all images with a blue border can be clicked to see a larger version.

The first stop into the NextGen home was of course just inside the front door. Here we were presented with a wall mounted touch-screen panel featuring the Life|Scenes software. As mentioned before the software is simply built on top of the Windows Media Center software giving it the same look and feel. Above we see options "I'm Home", "Good Night", "Movie Time", and "Music Scene" all of which are a particular "scene". A "scene" is basically a way to describe a lighting configuration where each light can be instantly set to on, off, or even dimmed depending on what scene calls for.

So when the "I'm Home" scene is chosen on the touch-sceen panel it instantly turns lights on in hallway or if it is during the day opens the blinds.