Journalists take first look inside the Innoventions Dream Home

June 16th, 2008, 5:52 pm · Post a Comment · posted by Sonya Smith

Today over 100 media outlets got the first peek inside the Innoventions Dream Home.

Sure, we went on a quick reporting mission to the home last week, but it was still well under construction at that time. Today, the home was pretty much finished with just a few technologies still being adjusted.

The first big news is that the Dream Home will not open to the public tomorrow, as stated earlier by Disney officials. Instead, Disney employees said today that the home will only be open to “limited guests” for the next week or so. There’s no word on who is a limited guest or how someone could manage to get in early. Also, Disney said the home will open to the public by the month’s end, but no date has yet been announced.

The reason for the June-end opening? A Disney Spokeswoman kept with the home’s storyline saying that the Elias family had just moved in today and still needs time to prepare for guests. We’ll keep everyone updated on this blog on when the public can start going to the dream home.

And, don’t worry, Toy Story Mania still officially opens to the public tomorrow with a grand opening presentation at 10 a.m. and the first public rides going at 11 a.m.

And, now that we know it’ll be a little while before guests can start visiting the dream home, we have a collection of photos in this blog post, all taken by Sonya Smith.

The photo at the top left is looking down on the Dream Home from the second floor of the Innoventions building.

The photo at the top right is looking up at balloons in the Dream Home shown in the foreground with the Innoventions Tree of Knowledge in the background.

This photo at left shows Disney officials and press around a “digital book” in the home’s living room. The “book” is a touchscreen computer that shows the original “Alice in Wonderland” book. It lets people turn the pages on the screen, with much of the same motion you’d use when turning pages in a real book.

On the right we see a plastic dragon toy that was “e-mailed” to the Elias family. The dragon is sitting in the office on top of a 3D printer that prints out small plastic objects, like the dragon. Just a note that you won’t be able to see the printer working because it takes about four hours to print an object like the dragon.

Here on the left we see the dad of the Elias family looking at “Lillian,” a computer in the kitchen that responds to voice or touch (on the countertop). The computer will recognize food items, suggest recipes and guide the family through cooking.

And now on the right we see the oldest brother trying on his sister’s clothes in her magic mirror. The mirror let’s the daughter try on various articles of clothing, without needing to actually put them on.

And now on the left you see Disney employees showing a journalist how to use the Microsoft Surface tables. Four of the touchscreen computers from the Redmond-company are inlaid in a table in the home’s dining room. Guests can do three things: when a bottle of pixie dust is put on the screen everyone can draw on the screens, when a camera phone is placed on the screen guests can move around photos taken with the phone and when a puzzle piece is put on the screen each Surface has a different video puzzle to put together.

On the right now you’ll see a photo of the boy’s pirate ship-themed room. Features around the room, including the cannon, help family members when they read the book “Peter Pan.”

On the left is a collection of photos placed on the family’s piano. Whenever a new family member comes into the room, he or she can change the room’s settings — displaying his or her favorite photos.