You have touched on, above, your mention of biometrics systems. Obviously the toilet will be taking urine samples, and unless we've done some lobbying on privacy concerns, sending the results directly to your HMO. One thought I've had (I'm a frustrated SF novelist, not a futurist), is that there will be more move to make the mundane entertaining. The virtual-reality form of rose-colored glasses, if you will. Adaptive soundtracks to our daily lives. Virtual pets, friends in constant hands-free (if often as not attention-free as well) contact. Drab surfaces enlivened by adaptive psycho-optical lighting effects (the price, only a few nearly-subliminal ads). There is so much that is going on with biochips, micro-power electronics, focused sound, reconstructive optics, and so forth that most of the technology we interact with daily is no longer going to need an obtrusive interface. No buttons, no flat panels, not even a need to wave in the air; pupil-tracking and pulse-rate sensors and the like will dim the lights and kick up the mood music for you. For, as I noted, those who can afford it and who are willing to go with it. There are people on this forum who will be alive in 2050, and I'm not so sure some may not turn out to be Luddites in regard to what I see as increasingly invasive, in a swarmy, "Are you being helped," Clippy sort of technological interface. The problem is, in any case, that extrapolation is by its nature straight-lined. Nobody saw the microcomputer revolution coming. Some writers got pretty close to email, microsoft encarta; the use of the home terminal as information portal. No-one saw google and the wild west of the modern net. Something is going to come in the next fifty years that becomes pervasive and obvious. Just as a person from 1950 would have trouble grasping what the laptop is connecting to (not some central server, but a community of other users), there will be something in that 2050 apartment we don't understand, and didn't expect. Perhaps the Avian Flu takes over to the point where respitory protection is mandatory outdoors and all air is filtered. Our apartment would have these strange accesories towards this task. Perhaps MUDing becomes the primary social outlet, and everything from decor to hardware reflects a life that is lived primarily online. Perhaps a new health craze sweeps the western world, and home food preparation goes the way of Absinthe -- along with all the accoutrements we take for granted in that department. Perhaps ionic clensing takes over and everything from showers to hankies to rugs vanishes, as all those ways we have developed to control and avoid dirt are swept away. Interesting project in any case. Please forgive my rambling. I can only hope I've given you some spark of inspiration somewhere in it.