Smart homes, or residences wired with home automation, have been around for years.
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Mr. Shammo said Verizon's 4G network, which is based on technology called Long-Term Evolution, can deliver between 1 and 12 megabits per second of data, allowing for tiered pricing structure similar to home wired Internet service.
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Once a home is wired, utilities could turn down power-gobbling appliances, like air conditioners, ahead of summer brownouts.
Gartner thinks there needs to be a wired backbone to the digital home, with wireless nodes also serving data to places the wires do not reach.
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College basketball is getting its first taste of SportVU because Chicago's United Center, the home of the Big Ten Tournament, is already wired for the expensive technology.
There are several different kinds of technology, ranging from wired technologies that use standard Ethernet cable, power lines and home phone lines, as well as wireless technologies like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, that might be appropriate for some applications, but not all.
"The Excite 13 is what we see as a home tablet, " Jared Leavitt, a Toshiba spokesman, told Wired.
The HP DreamScreen, a companion to the PC, connects easily to a wireless or wired network to bring photos, music and video into any area of the home.
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Its new DS-A5 docking station brings Apple's WiFi media streaming to many home stereos, including those of rivals, as long as there's a wired or 802.11g-capable wireless router to feed the connection.
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But such forward thinking has transformed South Korea from one of the poorest countries in Asia to an advanced high-tech economy that's home to major tech firms like Samsung and LG, as well as the most wired population on the planet.
Of course, unused basement, attic, porch or garage space can be insulated, wired, dry-walled, floored and air-conditioned to add living space without expanding your home's footprint.
Wurman sold TED in 2002 to U.K. publishing entrepreneur Chris Anderson (no relation to the editor of Wired magazine--though Anderson the editor was at EG--just to confuse those playing from home).
One reason why home automation has been so challenging for the non-technical has been the confusing array of different wired and wireless standards.
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