A paper describing a "Neural Network House" (I haven't read it, but
it sounds like an interesting twist on the "smart house" theme) is at:
http://boulder.colorado.edu/~lucky/projects/House/house-overview.ps
Also, regarding X10 and the like, there's also LonWorks (www.echelon.com)
and an open standard called CEBus (Consumer Electronics Bus) about which a
fair amount of background information can be found at www.cebus.com. (I also
have the current text of the standard, which runs about 1000 pages, if anyone
wants to look at it. The most interesting part for this group is probably
the application layer, which includes an object-oriented Common Application
Language, which defines a set of generic objects (binary switches to analog
controls to displays) with standard methods. Manufacturers of devices can
build them to support these standard methods via the CEBus protocol. (Whether
they are presently doing this or not, I don't know.)