Not far in the future, when a housewife is caught in an unexpected rain shower, she won't have to rush home to close the apartment windows. Instead, she will be able to use her cell phone to shut the window through a ubiquitous home networking system. Not only windows, but almost everything in the home will come under the control of its owner when home networking is fully realized.
As outlined in The Korea Times, the government this year is preparing standards for such home networking systems. Starting March 2011, any newly-built apartments will have to equip their network gateways with a general purpose engine developed by the state-run Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute late last year. The engine will bridge the differences of various technologies or communication protocols. Older apartments will also be able to add the ETRI engine to their gateways as the government plans to offer the program free of charge to enable upgrades to older systems.