NEWS ROUND-UP Futurology: the new home in 2050


Homes of the future will increasingly tap into neighbourhood energy systems, feature flexible layouts and use improved technology to make automatic decisions about heating, security and even postal deliveries, according to a new report.


The report, Futurology: the new home in 2050, commissioned by the NHBC Foundation, which provides research and guidance to support the house-building industry, looks ahead three decades and foresees radical adjustments to house building design, inspired by new technology, population shifts and climate change. The report suggests that demographic changes, such as a


rapid increase in the number of elderly people and the worsening issue of young people unable to afford to leave home, will drive demand for multi-generational accommodation. More homes will be designed with flexible layouts to suit different generations, which can be adapted as families’ needs change. Inspired by the need for more urban housing in already densely


populated areas, future design will produce homes with smaller footprints, but with more storeys, using balcony and roof space to provide outdoor space. Architects may draw inspiration from good compact design, such as in boats or caravans, to produce more “micro-living” options for single people. More innovation will be used when designing “third age”


homes for people over 65, reflecting demand for accommodation with lifts, level access and communal activities, whilst retaining privacy and a sense of ownership. By 2050, technology will transform homes into collectors


and storers of energy, with electricity, now generated by non- fossil fuel, most likely to be used to heat homes and hot water. Electric cars will be commonplace with every property equipped with a charging point. The future home will manage its energy use from a centralised platform, combining heating, electrical consumption, ventilation and vehicle charging. As energy efficiency becomes ever more important, ideas


currently used in workplaces will become standard in homes, such as allowing non-essential equipment to automatically power down when electricity is at peak price.


Other key predictions in the report are:


• Letter boxes will be replaced by smart delivery boxes which can receive registered deliveries and store valuable parcels


• As climate changes, homes of the future must react, with improved responsive cooling and heating techniques


• Smart homes could monitor health and activity, such as reminding the occupant to take medication or warning of scalding water or an overflowing bath


• Urban homes will access neighbourhood heating and energy networks via a district energy centre which may produce heat from waste or a ground source


Prepare for ‘partial failures’ of IT infrastructure like Visa outage, warns Databarracks


Visa’s letter to the Treasury Select Committee, documenting details behind the recent outage which left millions of people unable to complete card transactions, reinforces a critical challenge that organisations face when exposed to a ‘partial failure’ of IT infrastructure. This is according to Peter Groucutt, managing director of Databarracks. This week, Visa revealed that a ‘rare defect’ to a switch caused a partial failure in its primary UK data centre. The issue delayed its secondary data centre from assuming responsibility for handling all of its card transactions taking place and was the root-cause behind millions of failed card transactions, over 10 hours on Friday 1st June 2018. In the wake of the outage The Committee contacted the payments firm, seeking clarification over the cause of the outage and assurances to what action Visa is taking to prevent a repeat. Amongst the findings, Groucutt reveals that a number of lessons can be learned: “Businesses are often better prepared for a complete outage


than ‘partial failures’. When a system fails completely the process to fail-over is more clearly defined to whether it is a manual


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action, or automatic process. Partial failures however, make that change-over difficult. Once the problem has been identified, you have to make the decision to either fully switch to the secondary system or fix the problem on the primary. Defining the point at which to fail-over is specific to each organisation and the issue you are dealing with. “A switch issue, for instance will require a different response to


a natural disaster. An organisation with good Incident and Crisis Management processes will have these processes in place – decisions will already have been made and documented, so in the event of an incident, a business knows exactly what to do. “In practice, a business might decide that it can’t tolerate an


outage of longer than four hours. If it takes two hours to be fully operational at a second site, it then leaves you a window of just two hours to fix that issue before committing to fail-over. Groucutt continues: “We would expect Visa to have a very


mature incident management process in place and based on the reports, that was absolutely the case. Partial failures can be very difficult to plan for and mange, but the issue was identified, and response protocols initiated.”


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