Yeah, very interesting. Widgets are the "IN" thing right now. IMHO, It would be better if it had a touch screen. Not sure why they would go the remote route.
Only issue for HouseBot is that it is running Linux. Maybe v3 will bring us a version of the Software Remote that can run on Linux. Now how cool would that be?
Actually, the current version of the SWremote runs very well under Linux (In a Wine session) now. You have to copy over a few DLLs from an actual windows station, but I've been running a few SWremotes this way for several months with no problems. I posted a thread here a while back if you're interested in pursuing it...