The Innoventions Dream Home opens on June 16th, and CNBC’s Julie Boorstin has a sneak preview (video):

Disney House of the Future

A partnership between Disney, Microsoft, HP, homebuilder Taylor-Morrison, and Life|ware, the Innoventions Dream Home is meant to showcase not only future technologies but also technologies that people can have in their homes today.

Audio Video Interiors toured both Seale Moorer’s house and Mike Seamon’s houses, experiencing Life|ware in a real world setting. Read all about it in “I Want That!”

Convergence Headaches Scare Away AV Installers is the title of a recent editorial in Audio Video Revolution online magazine. The article focuses on issues that A/V installers have with using PCs as home automation controllers, but along the way, he has some very positive things to say about Life|ware:

The whole-home system I speak of above is one designed and installed by manufacturer Life-Ware. I can say that, while I am generally good at breaking any and every AV product I lay my hands on, their systems in my opinion have been on multiple occasions rock-solid. They boldly dared me to “break” their system and I failed. They dared me to make the system do back-flips and it did them without a hiccup. For each challenging move I made, their system had an answer. Every automated drape worked perfectly. I could cue up weather in Beverly Hills on an HD touch panel and then flip over to an HD source and then to music and then to photos. The system could keep up with my every move.

Check out the article; it’s a fairly thorough discussion of the pros and cons of PC convergence in home automation.

Check out the CES 2008 NexGen Home demos in Windows Vista Media Center! There are 6 clips showing every room in the NexGen home.

To get to the demos, open Vista Media Center and scroll to Internet TV beta. Select Tech, then Tech and Gadgets, and there you are!

Nominations are out, and EI is up for two CEA Mark of Excellence awards! Life|ware 2.0.3 has been nominated in the “Best Control System” category, and Life|media LMS 754 media server in the “Best Media Server” category.

Check out all the nominations at the CEA website.

Winners will be announced at an awards dinner on Friday, March 14, 2008 at the Rosen Centre Hotel, during the ninth annual Electronic House Expo (EHX) Spring 2008, in Orlando, Florida, March 11-15.