Imagine coming home from work or school, or even in the morning, when everything's a rush, and craving for a good coffee. You step through the door and the beautiful smell is tickling your nose and making your mouth water...

No, the lady's not home, the mistress is on the other side of town (just kidding!), so would made that special coffee just the way you like it, and in the nick of time?

It's the intelligent coffee machine that reads your mind and always makes the best cup of coffee in the world, espresso, latte, moccacino, and even decaf.

Futuristic appliances that turn on and prepare favorite recipes based on their owner's thoughts sound like something out of a sci fi novel. But for Lafayette, Indiana based JL Hufford Coffee and Tea, such a future is not all that distant. Today, the company announced that it has begun into coffee machines that learn and react to their users.

There are already super-automatic coffee machines that totally automate the coffee and espresso brewing process. A machine is filled with coffee beans and water, and the unit grinds, brews, disposes of used coffee grounds, and resets itself for the next cup. Within the past several years, so-called "One-Touch" machines have taken automated brewing a step further with their ability to brew milk-based coffee drinks, like lattes and cappuccinos, with the press of one button.

In addition, the newest super-automatics, allow each member of the family to program his or her own drink preferences, like coffee temperature, strength, and size and with ports which could be connected to a computer and to the Internet, the possibilities are endless.

The next logical step is to stop pre-programming your machine and to let it do all the work, by learning your preferences.

Product Manager James Pappas believes that the technology enabling an appliance to learn and react to its user's preferences, so-called "ubiquitous computing", is already both available and affordable. "The software for a basic artificial intelligence learning algorithm is currently available and quite inexpensive", says Pappas, so it wouldn't have to be all that hard to create the "intelligent coffee maker."

How exactly will it work?

For the first several weeks, the machine learns the drinking patterns of its users. Then it adapts. Every Sunday afternoon, it's French vanilla cappuccino time. Each weekday morning, it starts brewing a triple espresso at 7:00 am. After dinner, it does up a creamy decaf cafe au lait." How does it know where you are or at exactly which moment you'll be ready for your drink? Pappas is tight-lipped about this aspect, the crux of his invention, but he hints at GPS tracking or existing RFID technology.

So, the future looks bright, and maybe one day, which is "not very far", you will have your coffee machine on speed dial and you'll give it a buzz when entering the alley.

Another benefit will be the fact that you won't have to pray that your work colleagues or roommates didn't change the settings or that they simply learned how to make a good coffee!