Innoventions

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Innoventions opened on the 1st of July 1994 and replaced the earlier Communicore pavillion, and has since been completely refurbished in time for Epcot's Millennium celebrations.. Most if not all people that know the former version claim it to be a big improvement.

Innoventions covers 100,000 square-feet of floorspace being split into two separate buildings,referred to as Innoventions East and Innoventions West. Over the years various companies have sponsored exhibits including AT&T, GE, GM, Motorola, Honeywell, IBM, Apple, Silicon Graphics, and Lego. Today the theme for both East and West buildings is "The Road to Tomorrow". A theme echo'd by the layout of the two buildings, and the way guests are guided around the exhibits by following a pre-marked route in the form of a carpeted "road", (complete with yield and stop signs), guided in part by Tom Morrow 2.0 (The TechnoGuide to the Future).

In its earlier incarnation, Innoventions East contained attractions based more around a home theme, whilst Innoventions West had a more future and entertainment theme, with featured attractions like the Sega games centre. Innoventions wass also home to three restaurants (Electric Umbrella, Pasta Piazza Ristorante, and Fountain View Espresso & Bakery) along with three shops (Centorium, Art of Disney Epcot, and Field Trips), and finally Epcot Guest Relations.

These days there is far less of a home vs future distinction, with both East and West housing exhibits relating to the home, future methods of communications, and the various ways that technology could be seen to be making life easier.

Innoventions East

The first exhibit encountered in Innoventions East is Forests For Our Future in which guests are invited to take a trip through an interactive forest and visit a field research outpost where they will discover how the latest technology is supposedly being used to help sustain some of the world's forests. Forests or Our Future also features the game of "Total Tree-via", and is sponsored by the Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry.

Next on the road through Innoventions East is the whimsical Innoventions Internet Zone (sponsored by Disney.Com) in which various interactive shows and play stations let children explore the future possibilities of online games, including a game of "virtual tag" with their favourite Disney characters. Children can also send a video E-Mail clip of themselves to friends back home.

Following the Internet Zone is the Communications Dream Forum presented by Motorola, in which guests can journey into a future worl of "freedom through communications" hosted on a giant high definition screen. After the presentation guests exit into the "Reality Lab"

The House of Innoventions is next, sponsored by Panja - another one of Disney's previews into the smart home of the future, complete with Internet fridge and a robotic pet dog. Hopefully this exhibit will be refreshed a little more frequently than similar exhibits in the past, that have started to really show their age after a while.

The Web Site Construction Zone comes next, presented by GO.Com, where guests can use the virtual construction site to build their own family homepage for the worldwide web.

Future Cars sponsored by General Motors show off some ideas for advanced transportation vehicle of the future, including cars powered by fuel cells and various all-electric vehicles.

Finally in Innoventions East is the Look into the Future exhibit, where interactive screens designed to look like windows present various design prototypes that combine everyday products with advanced technologies.

Innoventions West

The frst exhibit encountered in Innoventions West (after the Tom Morrow character) is the Networked Living exhibit, sponsored by IBM. This provides IBM's view of the future of computing and the Internet, though no doubt Microsoft would have a thing or two to say about the IBM vision. Within the exhibit guests can travel on IBM's "PlanetRider" experiencing some reasonably advanced voice recognition software along the way, and even sending an Internet postcard.

The second exhibit in Innoventions West is the Ultimate Home Theatre Experience presented by Lutron, where guests will not suprisingly find the latest in home theatre technologies, including High Definition television, advanced lighting controls and some pretty impressive surround-sound hardware as well.

Beautiful Science comes next, sponsored by Monsanto (they of the G.M. food controversy), where guests can find out what Monsanto are doing to help solve world food and health problems (note - what they are doing, not HOW they are planning to do it).

Video Games of Tomorrow sponsored by Sega allows guests to "catch a glimpse of the next generation of video games" in the form of a Dreamcast console, though again this is pretty much old-hat by now since the Dreamcast is a pretty common home console these days.

Medicine's New Vision presented by the Radiological Society of America aims to show how medical breakthroughs will change the way people in the next millennium (now the current millennium) view medicine. After the main presentation guests can play some of the interactive games in the exhibit like "Cell Slam".

The penultimate presentation is by AT&T, titled The Broadband Connection it's a whimsical game show where a telephone, television and computer come to life to explore the world of broadband communications, hosted by the surrel presenter "Chip Digital".

The final presentation in Innoventions West is The Knowledge Vortex presented by Xerox. Here guests get to look ahead to a time when paper will be replaced by an electronic form, or a large book full of information can be stored on a device no larger than a postage stamp.

The area in between the two buildings continues the theme with talking trashcans, a giand marble sphere that 'floats' rotating on a gently rising fountain of water (and can be turned by hand!) and at night fibre optics embedded within the concrete floor make Innoventions one of the most breathtaking areas of the park.

Every fifteen minutes at the Innoventions Plaza Fountain located in between the two Innoventions Buildings, a spectacular water display is put on, choreograhped to music. This is aprticularly impressive at night, when the fountain also features a stunning lighting display. It's one feature of Epcot that shouldn't be missed under any circumstances!

The Innoventions West building closed on 15th October 1987 for a major rennovation, with parts of the building reopening in mid January 1998.

It's worth noting that although the majority of the attarctions are free to use, some of the manufacturers, notably Sega charge for their use (as in any arcade I suppose). That said it's quite easy to spend a couple of hours leisurly looking around.

Prior to the recent Millennium refurbishment, The attractions located at Innoventions included:

Innoventions East Side

• Bill Nye, the Science Guy
• General Electric
• FamilyPC
• Motorola
• Honeywell's House of Innoventions
• General Motors
• Disney.com Internet Zone Powered by Gateway
• Electric Umbrella (Food Service)
• Centorium (Shop)
• Art of Disney Epcot (Shop)
• Guest Relations

Innoventions West Side

• IBM
• SEGA
• Silicon Graphics
• AT&T
• Pasta Piazza Ristorante (Food Service)
• Fountain View Espresso & Bakery (Food Service)
• Field Trips (Shop)
• Coca-Cola Ice Station Cool (Exhibit/Shop)