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Technology

The Home Of The Future 148

Posted by Hemos from the today-tomorrow dept.
CitizenC writes, "C|Net is currently running a story about the home of the future! Excerpt: First the Net went portable. Now it's going practical. Forget about plug-and-surf Web computers such as the iMac; we're talking about stoves that store recipes, and toilets that e-mail personal information to your doctor. It sounds like just so much new-millennium hype, but Net-enabled appliances are the first wave of a complete revolution in home design--a revolution that's happening right now. "
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The Home Of The Future

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  • Re:Oh joy, another revolution (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    >>>A vi v. emacs holy war
    ]ummm who cares. its always existed, always will.

    >>>f1r$t p0$t3r$ cause Malda to aquire tactical nukes and ICMP addresses
    ]was that an attempt at humour? im not laughing

    >>>Minor linux kernel update gets press, major freebsd doesn't.. causes daemon-mongering.
    ]daemon-mongering? i use OpenBSD, and i dont turn to /. for *BSD news. everyone knows /. is a linux forum. your comment is just redundant

    >>>>US drops some more bombs on a bunch of brown people in a country nobody knew about until last night's CNN special
    ]WHAT DOES COLOUR HAVE TO DO WITH IT?

    >>>>Imminent death of the 'net predicted!
    ]pass me that crack man!

    >>>>Some dude poured hot grits down his pants, and then sued slashdot editor 'Roblimo.' for suggesting it.
    ]again, was that funny? more like borderline troll IMHO

    >>>>The chinese threw a few more people in jail for trying to get the internet revolution kicked off in their country. Summary executions will follow soon.
    ]......

    >>>>Geeks with Guns march on congress over DMCA act
    ]try as i may, i cannot find ANY thing funny in the last one

    How much do you want to be his post becomes +5 Funny? Its just a matter of time

  • Clue from an Archie (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Ok, to quell the panic about people hacking your house, I'd like to point out that the Architectural and Construction profession is notoriously behind the times. Present technology is capable of building houses that generate their own power, need no constant external water supply, and can recycle 75% of your trash. Yet we are still utilizing techniques that were invented in the 50's.

    Can you see the diffusers in the ceiling? That forced air system was first implemented in the late 50's. The basic theory behind a stove has not changed for decades now, only the efficiency has. Plumbing has also not changed at all, much less the basic design of a toilet.

    None of these Net-Appliances are going to catch on anytime soon. Why? First of all, there is no sufficient infrastructure in current buildings to accomodate them, and people are not about to shell out for a retrofit to deal with all the new wiring. This lack of a market will drive the prices up to the point where laying this infrastructure is not cost-effective for today's fast-paced construction market, as clients will see only a limited payback for a large investment, and thus the market will dry up.

    The only way this will ever become effective is if they find a way of using already present materials to connect them (example: CableModems used the already common Cable wiring). Perhaps a Short-Range Wireless Network will work, but that again will drive up the price.

    Chill people, not in our lifetimes. Let us Archies figure out how to Recycle Water first, ok?

  • Be realistic (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    These guys have gone overboard on they hype. Half of this stuff is technically unlikely, most of it will never have any consumer demand, and none of it is likely to be available in the near future, or even the medium future.

    Electronic house control has been around for years. How many /.ers used to read the Circuit Cellar column in Byte, or Circuit Cellar Ink today? It's a time-honored geek occupation, but unless you're interested enough to do it yourself, or rich enough to have it installed in your house, it's probably not worth it.

    Realistically: an inventory-management program is overkill for even a large household, and it would be more trouble than it's worth to use if you had one. Nobody is going to pay money for a toilet or anything else to notify strangers behind their back. If it's not cost-effective to put a thermostat in every room, why should we expect people to suddenly start wiring up all their appliances?

    Even when they make sense, the utility of sensors and actuators for home use is marginal. Unless you care enough to set up the network, it's not going to be worth it.

    Eventually networks will become cheap enough and useful enough that data feeds will be installed along with plumbing and electrical wiring. Then, if the gadgets are cheap, people will start using them. If they make sense.

    Until then, let silliness about the Home of the Future reign!

  • Well, I think I speak for everyone when I say the environment controlling your house has to come from Redmond and be as closed as possible for this very reason. Maybe something original, like WinHE. You can't have all those 14-year-old hackers around the world breaking into your house like they do to Yahoo. Besides, only if it's by Microsoft, it will be integrated into the kernel of your computer. We will see unprecedented performance boost when your entire house's power is combined using a new unique technology code-named Beowulf to display web pages even better. Your toaster will be tasked to grab a GIF, your refridgerator will crunch some ActiveX applet, the carpet will work on a Flash thing, all displaying the web page directly to your retina. And don't believe any of those posts by people claiming they were blinded by this stuff. They are just lunatics. WinHE devices have been known to work as long as an entire week with a 92% accuracy rate. Oh, and as Bill Clinton/Algore/any liberal type would say, if you don't equip your house with WinHE, millions of children/elderly/poor/homeless will starve/die/be crucified. Do you want to be the one that caused a holocaust larger than anything seen during World War II??
  • Of course, advertising is needed. And it all started with a bunch of those Linux hippies. Whirlpool was kind enough to let you have that refridgerator/dishwasher/stove/etc for $9.99. But no, some people weren't content with that, they had to go install Linux and not display their wonderful ads. See what you Linux people have caused?? Trust the corporations, they only want what's best for you.
  • You won't have to go to their office, that's too much work. Everything will be hooked into a ventilation system. The toilet uploads your stool sample to a "doctor" computer, it decodes it and comes up with the diagnosis, it shoots back down the medication to the air ducts, they quietly emit the appropriate medication which you breathe in, and done, you're cured. Of course, first we have to come up with cures to stuff, when was the last time you saw that? It seems like everything bad was cured in the early part of the century, polio, small pox, etc, and then they stopped. There's a conspiracy in there somewhere, I bet ya.
  • I highly doubt it. With all the hubbub going around regarding MP3/DVD/IOpeners, in the home of the future, not only can't you open anything up, but if you get out of bed, you will be bitchslapped by the robot maids. After all, it takes a big corporation with zillions of dollars to invent anything, the least you can do is let them take away any "freedoms" you may cling to.
  • Time syncing. I'd love it if every single clock in my house could sync to an in-house NTP server. As for anything else, my oven should cook, it should not hold recipes. I *can* see some useful uses for these things, especially for bad cooks, but really, I'd rather use an outhouse than wonder if there's a giant marketing database somewhere containing my fecal life history.
    ----------------------------
  • I remember reading an article in Compute! Magazine (early 80s) which described the features that the Home of the Future would have. Among the features was a "cassette deck embedded in the wall, to facilitate storage of personal records, files, and recipies".

    With the pace of technology today, I wouldn't try to predict what the home of 2000 will be like, much less the home of 2001.

    We'll see. ;-)

  • It's bad enough without runing WinTE . . . I'd really rather not have it running backwards due to bugs that Redmond denies . . .

    Eventually, I'll have a household network. It will connect computers, the extensive model railroad (which will probably be actually controlled by an apple II . . .), the stereo, and the jukebox.

    The phone, oven, refridgerator, and toilet will *not* be part of it. Nor will the garbage and catbox.
  • Personally, I'm more afraid what some sick SOB could do to my toilet.
  • I'll sure as heck be filtering out all inbound and outbound data from my appliances. I don't want any body to know how (in)frequently I vacum the stairs and don't see much use in my fridge reminding me I should eat better. I have a mother for that.

    As other posters have noted my bathroom habits are my own business. I don't want my toaster to only work with whole grain toast because it's been too long since I used Mr. Flushy.

  • Wow. Thats... Uh, great... I guess. (Score:4)

    by dominion ( 3153 ) on Friday March 24, 2000 @03:05PM (#1174462) Homepage

    If all the future of technology holds is the promise of toilets that can email, I'm gonna grab an old 386 with linux on it, move out to the boonies, and live out my life in peace and sensibility.

    Technology could be used to start a real revolution, but instead we call networked toasters a "revolution" and leave it at that.

    I love technology, I really do. But the way these IPO hungry corporations treat it, I'm starting to think John Zerzan [spunk.org] may have a point.

    Michael Chisari
    mchisari@usa.net

  • I can't help myself... (Score:4)

    by jimhill ( 7277 ) on Friday March 24, 2000 @02:53PM (#1174463) Homepage
    As much as I would like to think I'm a person with a certain amount of sophistication and a sense of humor well superior to the Farrelly Brothers', I can't help noticing (and getting a grin from) the fact that the smart toilet is from Matsushita.
  • How many bloody revolutions are we gonna have this year? I mean, for christ's sake, it's only MARCH and we've already been through...
    • A vi v. emacs holy war
    • f1r$t p0$t3r$ cause Malda to aquire tactical nukes and ICMP addresses
    • Minor linux kernel update gets press, major freebsd doesn't.. causes daemon-mongering.
    • US drops some more bombs on a bunch of brown people in a country nobody knew about until last night's CNN special
    • Imminent death of the 'net predicted!
    • Some dude poured hot grits down his pants, and then sued slashdot editor 'Roblimo.' for suggesting it.
    • The chinese threw a few more people in jail for trying to get the internet revolution kicked off in their country. Summary executions will follow soon.
    • Geeks with Guns march on congress over DMCA act.. real bloody - one guy lost his mouse on the subway (check out usa today for details) and some dude threw a custard cake at a legislator. He was later beaten to death by the NYPD (imported for the event).

    Goddamn revolutions... what next, e-commerce?

  • Yeah, the problem is alerting the users.. you see, we tried a flautulent sound alert, but some people found it more offensive than the craptions. We're working now on the more politically correct 'human biobyproduct digital communication network'. We also have the problem of bandwidth - 8 gallons is too small for messages more than 20 characters or so. Layering the craptions has been met with limited success. We're currently working on a bathtub-to-toilet conversion kit to ship with the concraption, but engineering says there's still a minor detail to work out with regards to the size of the 'exhaust' port.
  • Look, all I want is to not press little silly alarm clock buttons, but rather program my alarm clock from my web broswer on a real computer. Things like "get up at 7:00am on weekdays, and 9am on weekends and holidays" is a lot easier when you aren't pushing dinky little alarm clock buttons from hell. Is that so much to ask??
  • I would highly recommend putting a terminal in the bathroom accessable from the throne. Perhaps a swinging laptop that can reach the bath too. I'd love to be able to e-mail and surf from the security of a warm bath...

    Alas, my wife nixed the ethernet port in the bathroom. (Worried about those webcams, perhaps.) Still, it would have been cool to sit in the Japanese ofuro and surf the net...

  • Well, that's certainly interesting, but I'm trying to stick to the practical. The Caller-ID bit might be useful, and the doorbell cam (Actually, that would be very useful, since my new office will be on the 4th floor.) But I really don't need to know how often and for how long my toilet flushes...

    One of my planned projects is to write a CGI-based web scheduling system (in my copious spare time, of course) so that from any computer in the house, we can check what's on the schedule. (Or, what I'm supposed to do that I've forgotten.)

  • Look, all I want is to not press little silly alarm clock buttons, but rather program my alarm clock from my web broswer on a real computer. Things like "get up at 7:00am on weekdays, and 9am on weekends and holidays" is a lot easier when you aren't pushing dinky little alarm clock buttons from hell.

    So write a web-based interface to the crontab file and have your linux box turn on a buzzer or something. You could even set it to play one of the Brandenburg concertos at max volume on work days (from an MP3 file), and Morning in Marin by Santana for the weekends.

    Hmmmm... I may do that... (Hmmmm... Is there such a thing as a computer controlled audio router/patchbay? There must be...)

  • My wired home... (Score:3)

    by UncleRoger ( 9456 ) on Friday March 24, 2000 @03:20PM (#1174470) Homepage
    Well, I'm on my way as it is. We're remodelling part of the house (and will do the rest when we have more money) and getting a head start on this. Some of what we're doing:

    • Ethernet run through the walls for the network
    • Entertainment computer in living room for:
      • Playing DVD's
      • Playing CD's
      • Playing MP3's (see below)
      • Streaming Video
      • Listen to KFOG [kfog.com] over the net
      • Look up movies/actors/etc in the IMDB [imdb.com]
      • Check out movies and music at The Listology [listology.com]
      • Rent videos from Kozmo [kozmo.com]
    • WebCams in my Dad's bedroom so I can keep an eye on him while working (and kids, eventually)
    • Kitchen Computer for:
      • Looking up recipes at SOAR [berkeley.edu]
      • Ordering groceries from WebVan [webvan.com]
      • Listening to music while I cook (see above)
      • Maybe hooking up my BarCode reader for easier ordering
      • Be ready for the controllable microwave oven, coffee pot, etc.
    • Bedroom computer (possibly an iMac?) to:
      • Do all the stuff that the living room machine does
      • Read Slashdot in bed
      • "etc" (nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more...)
    • My work computers and my wife's
    • The internet gateway machine (I wish I could afford a FreeGate box! [freegate.com])
    • The File Server with big hard drive to share files and hold 400 CD's worth of MP3's (for instant access anywhere in the house)
    • Wireless link to my Land Rover to upload stories, pics, etc. from the road

    Okay, so it's not that high-tech, but some of the technologies that make it possible for someone with no time to figure out include:

    • IP Forwarding
    • Samba
    • NetATalk (eventually)
    • The overall elegance of ethernet
    • A lot of very helpful friends

    All I need now are simple instructions for setting up a webcam under Linux (and a source of cheap webcams), to get NetATalk up and running (My wife's a school teacher, and has mac's at home to match the ones at school) and to find something that will let a Linux box see a directory on another system as if it were one of its one (like mapping a network drive with Windows/Samba.)

    This is fun stuff!

  • Yeah, and right after that you could get your speeding ticket in the mail without having seen a cop, 'cause your car sent the local law enforcement an e-mail. When you take the catalytic converter off and go to work because you don't have time to replace it that morning, whoops, there's another violation. More tickets in the mail.

    Personally, I like to fix my own car even though I'm not an authorized mechanic; and I like for cops to have to see me break the law if they wanna give me a ticket. But then, I've already got an internet-enabled [cloudmaster.com] car, so who am I to mock? :)

  • Trust me...

    Anyone past the third year of medical school looks forward to this a lot less than even you do!

    My new .sig: Join AMSAT [amsat.org]
  • I'm not entirely comfortable with the idea of a toilet that analyzes my crap and communicates the results over the internet. Call me old-fashioned.

    --
    grappler
  • what i want, is for foods to have a special barcode that contains a code that has cooking instructions, so that when you scan the code it knows how to cook it, as long as you dont scan the regular barcode :P
  • Warning: I was tired when I wrote this so it may jump around and skip lots of details. For that I apologize.

    I think we'll see home automation within the next 10 years. Despite one poster's assertation that no one can not afford a thermostat in every room (bi-metallic switches are cheap, small processors are becoming just as cheap).

    Let's imagine my home, you walk through the front door and it appears to be a normal un-automated home. All the automation is unseen, no wires, no buttons, no mic's, no speakers. Lights go on when appropriate (depending on ambiant light) and go off when appropriate (you're no longer there). The home temperature, humidity and air flow are just right (this is rather kludgy in today's un-automated systems). The audio system works via voice or a remote. When you ask or select an item the appropriate devices go on. Choose the TV, then the TV goes on (maybe the surround sound system also), want to listen to CD's, fine, the TV will go off and the stereo stays on. The system will need to learn as it goes but should have some kind of initial programming with a simple to use interface (that's currently the voodoo). The system will know you are there (or out) and it won't need badges or pins. It will be able to select the correct settings for your bath/shower and it will be able not waste energy by heating the water all day waiting for someone to use the hot water.

    Other things that can be automated, tracking of energy usage and monitoring various things. The kitchen stove should know when food is going to burn and avoid it, the 'frig should also know when things are going bad and warn about them. You'll have the system inventory items, order stock and bid for the best price (these last parts begin to make me nervous) and obviously security, physical as in intruder and fire, and as in predictive break down. Everything has to have a manual over ride and the system/owner/user has to have a way of checking authenticity.

    The problem are many such as internet access but the technology will be available. The biggest problem I have is permitting automated systems to take full control. I really don't like that idea but there are something I want the automated systems to handle. Such as garden watering and fertilizing. But I don't want my home to order more milk without consulting me. I also find it very scary to have my whole home available via the net. I design networks for a living and know and understand most of the technology. My leariness towards this is because the potential for abuse is extremely high and I expect the real problems will be corporations and not hackers trying the gain control not of my home but of my buying power.

    Currently there are a lot of problems that need to be resolved before such systems can be accepted. I just hope the hardware/software community can resolve them before the sales/marketing community can pitch them.

    --
    Linux Home Automation - Neil Cherry - ncherry@home.net [mailto]
    http://members.home.net/ncherry [home.net] (Text only)
    http://meltingpot.fortunecity.com/lig htsey/52 [fortunecity.com] (Graphics)
    http://linuxha.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net] (SourceForge)

  • I've given a bit more thought to the "Home of the Future" and I've come to the conclusion that a lot of this stuff just isn't going to be in there. Such as the toilet (I hope that this company who intends to make this isn't the same company whose toilets caught fire :-) and 'frig with internet access. Now a frig with a virtual view of what's in the 'frig might be a good idea. Keeps me from open the 'frig and gawking. If I want to view the internet I would watch it on the best monitor in the house (or maybe my cell phone, ok maybe not). Now carring on a conversation with a computer about something I'm cooking could be useful (Hal, how much salt did I add the last time I made this....). And maybe some sensors in the bathroom which can determine that I'm taking a shower and the air is too humid. But I don't want a type of vision in the bathrooms. I can see it now, while at work at Big Bad Corp. (don't read anything into the initials I don't work for them) I get called down to security and reprimanded for have the Pot Roast and the glass of milk because it raised the time I spent in the bathrooms from 15 minutes/day to 25 minutes/day. And That I might want to have my colon inspected because it's getting a bit large.

    It'll come down to economics, I can spend $500 (US) for a high quality toilet or $1000 (a guess) for a new fancy I-toilet. When the items get added up for the final bill and things need to get trimmed because I've gone with too much quality the I-toilet will be the first off the list. Of course the projection system and surreal sound system will have to stay and maybe even upgraded, after all I did trim the I-toilet off the list ;-).

    I think it will come down to this, a lot of this stuff is resolving a problem that doesn't exist. It's a really neat idea but not much else going for it. Fads come and go. The stuff that will stay and work is something that we can set and forget.

    --
    Linux Home Automation - Neil Cherry - ncherry@home.net [mailto]
    http://members.home.net/ncherry [home.net] (Text only)
    http://meltingpot.fortunecity.com/lig htsey/52 [fortunecity.com] (Graphics)
    http://linuxha.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net] (SourceForge)

  • First the bad: I saw this on some stupid "future technology" TV show.. It's a garbage pail with a scanner that would scan UPC codes of empty containers as you threw them out, and automatically add the item to an electronic shopping list. Yeah, just because I tossed out that 3 year old box of unused condoms doesn't mean I'm going to want to buy another box. You get the point.

    Another is the 'net enabled microwave ove. It would scan the UPC code off a box of food you wanted to cook (making the broad assumption that everything you cook in a microwave comes from UPC enabled containers). Then it would download the cooking instructions from the 'net, and program itself with the proper time and power settings. Did someone actually think this was a good idea!?! Oh, I know.. They were trying to design a product that required an internet-based subscription business model, ensuring that when the company went IPO, the stock would skyrocket. They probably patented the business plan as well.

    One great product I could imagine is net based MP3 appliances. I know people have talked about this one before, some people have a bunch of linux boxes around their house doing this, and there are a few companies out there with some (vaporware?) of these... but before this becomes practical, we really need someone (preferably not Microsoft) actually write some simple open music appliance protocol spec (how about calling it Simple Music Appliance Protocol, or SMAP /g/). It's probably no more complex than a directory service that can access multiple reporitories (both in the home and outside). Maybe something like napster.
  • You see, this rant about people not able to find water and stuff doesn't sound like a good argument, especially when you mention camping. Here are a few questions you should ask yourself before starting out on one of these "back to nature" campaigns. Supposedly you can find water without buying a bottle, but can you, for example, find meat? Actually shoot, skin and cook an animal? Make fire without matches or lighter? Make bow and arrows or a sling to shoot without tools? Make a stone knife to skin? Can you make a shelter for a night without tools? Come on, people have been doing these things for thousands of years without even knowing what iron is! :) Yes, in a little while ( my guess 20-50 years ) there will be people who do not know how to write by hand, since they never needed to. Paper industry may decline. Basicaly any kind of manual labor may become a hobby. I am not scared of these things and neither should be you. We always gain something at the expense of loosing something else.
  • That's ok, core dump goes through the named pipe to the garbage collector. But what if your microwave oven freezes. Now that's a scary thought :)
  • I seem to remember that one of the IBM chairmen said "I do not see any reason for anybody to have a computer in their home" somewhere in mid-60s and at the beginning of the century another one of the BM top-hats said the his company will not be building any ridiculous electronic thinking machines :)
  • Yes! Yes! Yes! Emergency escort service button in the bedroom and emergency porno-serfer in the bathroom!

  • I hope that security is important (Score:4)

    by octover ( 22078 ) on Friday March 24, 2000 @02:52PM (#1174482) Homepage
    Just think what a stalker could find out about you if they could easily hack your house. It would be bad if someone could turn your stove on high, disable your fire alarms remotely (or even from the side of the house). The possibilities are endless. I am reminded of the adage "Whenever there is power to do great good, it can also be used for great evil."
  • Ow goodie.

    Now I'll be able to use my WAP-enabled mobile phone to connect to my microwave's built-in website through a WAP-gateway and select the channel I want my sattelite-driven personal digital decoder to show on my TV. Now isn't that much better than just zapping (using that icky infra red non-tcp/ip remote) until you hit a re-run of Friends?


    --

  • I seem to remember that around 1980 give or take a few years, when personal computers were starting to become affordable, a lot of people used to say things like "You could use it to store your recipes."

    It sounds quaint now, in fact, it seems to be a running joke. However, it reflects two things:

    One, people really _didn't_ know what personal computers would be useful for back then (except for the technophiles, and those of us who were writing games in Apple II BASIC).

    Two, people were predicting a use that never came to be. I might have downloaded a recipe or two over the years, but I (nor anyone else, I imagine) would never store recipes in a computer. It doesn't make sense. It would be too hard to input all that data, and impractical to have to print one out in order to use it (unless you are one of those lucky sods with an iOpener XWindows terminal on your kitchen counter).

    The point is the technology exists to easily connect any piece of electronics to the Internet, but no one has figured out why anyone would ever want to do it, and it's obvious because the marketing hype is just plain stupid.

    Maybe someday, someone will figure out a killer appliation for having a refrigerator connected to the Internet (much like someone eventually wrote Electric Pencil, 1-2-3 and dBase for the PC). Until then sit back and enjoy the stupid hype of a technology in search of a non-pointless use and another example of good old American run-away consumerism at its best.

  • Toilet would probably be humanist (Score:3)

    by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Friday March 24, 2000 @07:25PM (#1174485)
    I trained my cat to use the toilet - I wonder what sort of groceries and/or medical treatments this "smart toilet" would try and put me on based on cat feces?

    And how would a toilet know who was the owner vs. a guest for proper response? I wouldn't want my doctor notified I had something nasty if it was really a friend who had dropped by...
  • You should talk to this guy [icepick.com] (be sure to visit the toilet).

    --
  • >>>>Geeks with Guns march on congress over DMCA act
    ]try as i may, i cannot find ANY thing funny in the last one

    hmm, did you see Homer's remake of Mel Gibson's remake of Mr Smith Goes to Washington? [imdb.com]

    Now THAT was funny.

    --
  • Personally, I just can't wait for the first "Poltergeist" virus to appear. :)
  • The point here is not that these appliances will be internet controlled, but internet/network enhanced. A fridge has no real controllable features anyways, except maybe the humidity control, which you'll set once and leave forever. However, having a barcode scanner built into the door so you can scan products as you put them in the fridge and throw them out can keep an active inventory, and this inventory can be used in a variety of ways. You can cross reference the inventory against a database of recipies to determine what you would be able to cook for dinner tonight without buying anything extra. You could have a computer automatically re-order generic consumables as you are running low from one of these web-based grocery stores.

    Of course, if you wish to escape the technology, that is, of course, your peragative. There will always be the less expensive versions available without these features for quite some time yet.

    -Restil

  • Seriously, is there anyone who gives a rat's ass about this stuff, except for the companies who (will) make it? I don't want a 'web-enabled' fridge, I don't want a 'web-enabled' toaster, and I sure as hell don't want a 'web-enabled' coffee maker!

    I'm with you here!

    However, I am a bit torn: When Amazon came out in mid '95, I believe, I thought, 'Who the hell would want to buy books on the internet?' Their website was truly lousy back then.

    In the meantime much has changed, of course, and I am buying more books from Amazon than from meat space book stores. Will we find good uses for some internet-enabled appliances eventually?

    The current announcements certainly sound ridiculous, but there might be a true winner lurking somewhere. Still, I'm gonna hold out until the nonsense has been separated from the good stuff.

  • Anyone remember the Monsanto House of the Future at Disneyland, about 40 years ago? I'm still waiting for that one.
  • Funny, they left out the part where Whirlpool says the fridge will be too expensive to compete, so they will have to sell advertising on the screen to lower the price.
  • I personally am not looking forward to any of these devices. Not only do I find them frivolous, but, as you mentioned, "Just think what a stalker could find out about you if they could easily hack your house."

    I find these devices more inconvenient to use, because it would involve me making myself give up doing things that I normally and naturally do myself. I don't want some gadget to tell me what to eat or how to cook it. Some people may, however. Another thing I figure is that set up of all of this stuff would be an annoyance, if I'm to transfer my recipes, etc. to that fridge gizmo, etc, etc.

    Show me a valid reason why these things are necessary, and I'll shut up. Til then, I'm going to keep bashing these things as making/inticing people to be lazy, wreaking havoc, hampering the security of homes, and generally wasting the money of those who buy them.

    But I guess that's just me.
  • Don't want your doctor getting email about your crap? Unplug it from the network hub.

    I can't wait to get the ScreenFridge or something like it. We already use the fridge as the ultimate message machine (we even keep a log on it as to when the dog was last taken out and what he "did"), so why not make it digital? You could have recipes on it or just leave notes. It could have cool screensavers like "Magnetic Poetry." And once the gradeschools get up to speed, you could post your kid's "e-test" that got an "A"

    There are a lot of other apps, too. Think of a bed that knew on which side you were sleeping and on which side your significant other was and then adjusted the comfort to suit your wants (or medical needs).

    Don't forget about the fact that all this internetting of appliances will need bandwidth. With the bandwidth needed and since this stuff will be sufficiently far in the future, we will finally have almost enough bandwidth for the best thing I can possibly imagine (besides mind controlled computers that don't need keyboards or mice):
    Movies on Demand
    I would totally love to tell my television to start playing any movie I want whenever I want.

    This stuff will be cool.

  • The idea of a no-hands free bathroom phone for the bathtub only is a good one. Visions of Doris Day dance through my mind when I think of a web cam ... maybe bubbles will come back into fashion. But I'd like the Home of Tomorrow to realize I am not available when I'm in the toilet area. The phone shouldn't even ring, it should just bounce to voice mail, and notify me after I'm done.

    My stove already stores recipes. It's a microwave. Why is this good? It would be nice if it had a scale to measure quantities though.

    I think a music playing toaster is cool. I want it to have a 70s-style mod screen saver and play Swing Music, with any NPR stories that aren't boring. As in, stuff I already heard.

  • Just finished reading the article. As with the house that routes all calls to voice mail when you're in the toilet area, there should be a privacy switch in the bedroom. For those times when you don't want the phone to ring, for any reason. It should be a light plate, light green for OK To Bug Me, light amber for Only For Urgent Calls (e.g. certain preprogrammed numbers or parents in same house), and light red for No, Not Even Urgent Calls (be nice if the door could lock if you had kids).

    And when Urgent Calls do come through, the picture phone should be sound only at that point.

  • Dear god help us (Score:3)

    by MattTC ( 45020 ) on Friday March 24, 2000 @02:50PM (#1174497) Homepage
    Next thing you know, Doubleclick will be sending you ads for metamucil and high-fiber foods, based on data collected from your toilet and your refridgerator.
  • Minor linux kernel update gets press, major freebsd doesn't.. causes daemon-mongering

    You mean THIS ANNOUNCEMENT [slashdot.org]?
  • I want my friends to buy net-enabled fridges that I can hack into.

    "Hmm, I feel like having a couple of brews tonight, lets see who I should go visit. Jim? Nope, all he's got is a half-six of Budweiser. Dave? Well, he does have a few Heinekens... What about Sean? Jackpot! He just put in a case of Guinness this afternoon!"

  • And how would a toilet know who was the owner vs. a guest for proper response? I wouldn't want my doctor notified I had something nasty if it was really a friend who had dropped by...

    Actually, your friend might have the larger complaint. I would not want to have someone else notified of my medical conditions because I used their toilet while visiting...
  • Oh, yeah, I can see it now. Someone starts hacking famous people's toilets to send emails.

    On the Ricky Martin fan page....

    Ricky has flushed his toilet 12 times today. 5 times for urine only, 3 times for feces (One re-flush to clear a really big log), 3 times for no apparent reason, and 1 time for a dead fish.

  • Nah, I'm not a luddite, but spare me the day when I let a machine tell me that I need to go to the doctor, and make sure I pick up some milk on the way home... even if it looks like Claire Danes.

    Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't girlfriends and wives already provide this functionality to the masses? =)

    Daniel

    ---

  • I remember a movie, I believe called The Colony, that was about a neighborhood filled with smart houses. In this case, however, the development company was really evil, spied on the people in the houses, and brainwashed the children in the private school.

    Now that I think about it, this post wasn't very relevent. =)

    Daniel

    ---

  • Indeed. I'm of the (ill-informed, naturally) opinion that this degree of home automation is great, but only if the persons occupying said home built/set up everything in the house themselves. Buying a house where you have no idea how everything works is a stunningly bad idea. This sort of thing's great if you know what it's doing, but if you don't it just seems random and arbitrary.

    Oh, and that toilet thing's just dumb.
    --
    "HORSE."

  • Setting up a barcode reader for all things from the grocery EX-use a hacked i-opener to display say tomato soup recipies if you scan a can of tomato soup, have it print out a grocery list at the end of the week depending on what you have used/scanned in your kitchen. All my lights are controled by X10 and cron jobs for outside lights, I am waiting right now for this product

    http://www.homs-smarthome.com/1275.html [homs-smarthome.com]

    Check that main page too and these links:

    href=http://search.yahoo.com/bin /search?p=home+automation [yahoo.com]

    You can also set up your house as a domain for future compliance:

    href=http://www.isi.edu/in-notes/ us-domain-delegated.txt [isi.edu]

    Send those people an email and set DNS to 1313mockingbirdlane.yourtown.MA.US

    -Kris

  • Peta. Ignore the person who says it's pica.

    Starting from 10^3 and going up: kilo mega giga tera peta exa zetta yotta (then grouchi and harpi, if you believe the Jargon File)


    --
  • The companies never find cures for anything anymore.
    Know why, theres more money in treating the diseases.

    I swear, ten years from now we'll be calling our co-worker at home asking them "Where were you today?" and they'll be like "My AIDS is acting up again." I'm sure Robitussin will have a treatment for that in the formula sometime in the future also.

    As far as electronic toilets go...not many people know this, but when Kruschev visited (forget what year it was) the CIA had his sewage pumped down to thier lab for analysis. Know what they discovered? Kruschev needed more fiber in his diet.
  • Can you make a beowolf neighborehood out of these? Or maybe more importantly, do they use the bazaar or cathederal type artitecture?

  • Am I the only one worried that these machines will open us to remote surveillance? Yes, things will be more convenient, but do you really want your toaster to turn on by itself as a result of a combination of shoddy vender programming and a malicious script kiddie?

  • FYI, Matsushita Electronics (named after Mr. Matsushita, of course), is the parent company of Panasonic. I think they're branded "National" in Japan, though *shrug*.
  • For my final year project (Bachelor in Electronic Engineering at Auckland University) I am constructing a microprocessor based webserver for exactly this sort of application. The remote control of home apliances etc...

    One of the main goals of this project is the implementation of security - the system has to be accessed remotely from cell-phones and/or laptops over wireless internet links so that is why I chose the native java TINI [ibutton.com] micro from Dallas Semi.
    The java lets us specify some pretty strong security at the server level - and since it is server side and the processor is native java it isn't even too slow =)

    As an aside - the java also makes the implementation of basic webpages that are readible by cellphones/pda's using WML, WAP or HDML quite easy to do. This is another goal for the project - so the yuppies *grin* that can afford to fit out their house with this system can access it in the Mercedes over their cellphone and open the door/turn off the alarm etc...

  • As Dave Barry [herald.com] said...

    Do you want appliances that are smarter than you? Of course not. Your appliances should be DUMBER than you, just like your furniture, your pets and your representatives in Congress.

    I love technology and gadgets and machines that if they don't make life easier, are at least fun to use. But I also love camping without all those gadgets and machines, because it reminds me that humans have gotten along just fine for millenia without all that crap. So whenever I hear these stories about the wonderful new machines that will be making our lives better, my question is "things weren't good enough already?"

    Sure, computers, touch-tone phones, cable television, programmable climate control, quartz watches... all wonderful and useful inventions that have, for the most part, been beneficial to our lives. But how many people in the world would be able to live without these? How many people know how to find clean water without it being in a plastic bottle with a Safe-T-Seal to guarantee freshness? Or cook a meal that hasn't been freeze-dried? Because those are the kinds of things you need to be able to do when you don't have the benefit of all those toys. And in the end, all they are are toys, and toys can (and will) break.

    So to answer the previous question, "So what? They could be better!" There's no reason to halt the march of progress just 'cause a bunch of corporate types are throwing useless techno-hype in our faces. But we should be sure that we don't become too dependant on all these gadgets. Or else we'll end up like the Roman citizens who, having been bathed in luxury all their lives, were lost when all the comforts of society were gone.

    Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to microwave my dinner, and I'm afraid I lost the remote...

  • Popular Mechanics is doing something similar to this. Here's an article called "Miracles of the next 50 years" This is really cool.. the article seems pretty level headed too, like it doesn't go into detail about "flying cars" or teleportation. Think reality, guys :) Click here [popularmechanics.com]
  • Plus there is one little problem with this. You can't burn down a house just by getting the stove on. Let's just say I leave my house and don't happen to have anything on the stove. Now most stoves that I have seen are based on the concept of an automatic pilot or atomatic spark. You have a piece of material that conducts static electricity and emits a spark to light natural gas and create flame. Now from what I have seen there are also preset physical limits on how much gas can be released at any given time. The only case where this can really do anything is if I have a manual stove (like me). You have to turn the gas on manually and then get a stick match and light said stove. If an arsonist wanted to burn down your house or even blow it to kingdom come all they have to do is get a device that just does a delay timer or remote operation spark and let the gas run, get in their car and be driving down the road when they hit the switch.
    Note the above dosn't apply if you have an electric or use microwaves.

  • but mr. toilet is evil, and i warn all you against upgrading your toilets...

    Damn right! Like I need my loo nagging me about my weight...

  • This all reminds me of that movie on UPN a while back called "Dream House". All of these appliances would most likely be attatched to some central point. First, the toaster burns your toast, you get mad, it tells the server. Next thing you know, doors won't open, knives start flying around the kitchen, all of your food spoils, the toilet won't flush, etc. At least this didn't happen any sooner. Then everyone would be scared of the Y2K bug really doing some damage :-)
  • Soon, no room will be safe from cyberspace. Matsushita, the Japanese parent company of Panasonic, recently demonstrated a toilet that analyzes your health status based on weight, body fat, and other personal characteristics we don't care to mention. From there, the toilet may ... instantly send a note to your doctor

    6:54 am

    "Boy that felt good!" FLUSH...

    7:13 am

    (answering phone) "Hello"

    "Hi Otis, this is Doctor Hibbert. I wanted to call and check on you on account of that herculean, bloody dump you just took a few minutes ago..."

  • Man, with all our concerns about privacy being eroded daily, I'm not so sure I want my john chatting up myh MD's office with instant messages that are sure to be slanged as "craptions"...
    Now, my fridge could always tell me when my favorite liquor store has Mackeson in stock. THAT would be useful!

    -Jake
  • As these companies need low-cost solutions for the hardware in each of their netappliances, they are oging to need a chip with embedded linux! This goes along well with the company named Atmel that we had an article on earlier. They're expecting this market to multiply 150x. I bought my stock :)


    Mike Roberto (roberto@soul.apk.net [mailto]) - AOL IM: MicroBerto

  • You can of course store recipes on your computer, but how do you access that information? From your "desktop" computer?

    Is your desktop computer in the area where you need to access the information? Probably not. How does the user/consumer get the recipe to the area (the kitchen) where they are doing there work? Print it? Write it down?

    We need to get away from "desktop" computers and move towards "information terminals". To me PDA's are more like "information terminals", putting a device in a main room like the kitchen that allows access to sending and recieving information seems like a good idea to me. The recipe is there at your finger tips, perhaps you would like to modify the recipe as your cooking.

    Add touch screen technology, networking and PDA type devices to a refrigerator and you have a nice "information center" in the kitchen. Browse slashdot while cooking up some eggs instead of burning them because you relocated to your "desktop" computer.
    --
  • You discover that a window was either opened or broken at 3:00 AM the night before and are presented with the option of emailing your local police station to go check it out.

    Isn't this what current home security systems are for? Why go the extra step of waiting for you to check in to call the cops? Granted, most current systems can't tell a housecat from a burglar and don't record times. But really, if it can do those things, then I want the security system to call the cops and me, not the other way around.

    Or even better, I want it to lock the bastard in the bathroom. With an intercom. "Hi buddy! I'm in Cabo! Do you want the cops to come rescue you, or do you want to live on tap water and shampoo until I get back in a week? Your choice!"

  • My house isn't what's dumb... (Score:3)

    by erinlee ( 98502 ) on Friday March 24, 2000 @10:30PM (#1174522)

    Doesn't it seem odd that all the innovations they mention are clearly flawed concepts from the start?

    People have been working on "smart homes" for 20 years now and there are always glaring blind spots in theor ideas. These "smart home" technologies are consistently designed as if the engineers had never maintained a household in their lives. They solve problems that nobody has, and don't address the common household drudgeries we all want rid of. No wonder "smart homes" haven't taken off.

    F'rinstance, why would you want to turn your fridge surface into an electronic screen as an "improvement" over paper and magnets? You wouldn't be able to post the kids' drawings and good schoolwork unless you scanned them. And you couldn't grab the grocery list and stuff it manually into your pocket on your way out the door. Do you want to forfeit control over your food expenses to your household appliances?

    Why would you want recipes from the internet via your microwave? You usually have to shop for ingredients before trying a new recipe. And besides, how are you supposed to see what the finished product looks like (without turning the micro into another, less versatile, web browser)? I'll stick to cookbooks, thanks.

    And forget Aibo, why hasn't anyone come up with a robotic vacuum with AI so it figures out not to suck up Legos, pocket change or notes with phone numbers on them?

    I don't want something that "checks" my laundry (i.e. hassles me to take my clothes out of the dryer) or makes my coffee for me (doesn't that mean I have to grind the beans and put in the filters the previous night?) or tells me that I've eaten too many Christmas cookies and need to lose weight (don't even get me started there...).

    I don't want something that helps you or me be a good housewife, I want it to BE the housewife.

  • Officer John Bigboote visited your home at approximately 11:33 last night. Officer Bigboote was responding to several complaints concerning the loud rock music coming from your home. By the large amounts of alcohol passing through your refrigerator and your blender operating virtually non-stop, we deduced that you were throwing a party. At approximately 11:34, large amounts of marijuana were flushed down your toliet. Please report to the 13th precint station house at your earliest convenience to discuss the situation.
  • Testify, brother! After (only) 6 or so hours of mud, I often have to pause for a few seconds trying to remember whether the bathroom is to the north or east of my bedroom.
  • How could you forget Viagra?
  • Even without free will, there are still fundamental command-and-control issues that cannot easily be resolved. For example, your intelligent stove may want you to add more garlic to your spaghetti sauce, but your perceptive toilet may remember from last week that it really wasn't such a good idea.
  • I've been working with folks in the Reality Sculptors Project [sculptors.com] for a few years to hash out the details and designs for a fully autonomous, portable and self-contained house [sculptors.com] that will work anywhere on the planet. Obviously, it's going to need some wireless networking capabilities, and I'd like to have it use Bluetooth [bluetooth.com] to communicate with various automagic thingies around the house, such as doors, sound system, security, communications systems, automatic greenhouses, etc. (Not necessarily the toilet. :-) )

    We've got a bunch of mailing lists, and can start a bunch more for specific projects such as code development, etc. If you're interested in helping us hash out an opensource OS or are just interested in finding out more about these projects, please join us.

    Patrick Salsbury

  • I don't know if anybody has said this yet, but one possible application i can think of is home security.

    Imagine you're on vacation and you want to know how your house is doing, so you sign on with your laptop from the hotel room and log into your home computer(which obviously has a static IP, its the 21st century you know). At this point you run a program to analyse the log files your computer has been making on the status of your home(such as doors opening or closing, windows breaking, motion sensor lights being activated, etc. all with timestamps). You discover that a window was either opened or broken at 3:00 AM the night before and are presented with the option of emailing your local police station to go check it out.

    I don't think computers will be given the ability to remotely unlock doors or open windows because of security risks, at least not until technology of the sort matures to the point where it can be safely done. I think that at first it will mostly be used to moniter and log access to a home.

    As far as being able to turn appliances on(especially kitchen appliances) remotely, I can only say that people who seriously think it will happen must be smoking crack.

    Anyways nobody can say for sure what the future will be like. Take the movie 'Omega Man' for example. I saw some of the weirdest lighting fixtures in that movie because people thought they were actually going to look something like that in the future.

    Ultimately I think technology involving networked appliances will revolve more around practicality than hype.

    I apologize for any grammar or spelling errors I may have made.

  • I can see it now, Poopster. a non-centralized internet based form of waste removal and recording. If you search it, you can get samples of celebrities poop. Of course, the WIAA (waste industry association of america) is fighting poopster on the grounds that it violates the copyright they hold on everything deposited in the toilets.

  • That, and being able to set my thermostat to go on in the morning based on the time my alarm's going to go off.

    One thing I've always wanted would be to hook up a dimmer switch to my alarm clock, so that my bedroom gradually gets brighter over a 15 minute period before I'm set to wake up. Especially in winter when I get up in the morning before the sun rises. It's so much easier to get up when it's light, but going to sleep with the light on is a pain and wastes electricity.

    K.
  • Now if I could just find an office that does my work for me, I'll be set.

  • Realistically, if this information was available through the net from the devices, wouldn't that make an interesting source of information? For example, if an insurance co. wanted to check on you, they could get an idea what was eaten in the household and modify ratings based on how well you eat, what food you buy, when you have your morning coffee, etc? I can just see targeted marketing based on the brand of milk that you're fridge reported it contained.
  • There's always talk about what some expert thinks will everyone will want to have in the future. Here [home-automation.org] is a place to check out if you're wondering what's available right now. There's no info on that site, but it has links to every home automation and home networking site that exists (pretty much). There's a whole home automation community thriving out there right now.
  • Oh, and there's a Linux/BSD/UNIX-flavor category in the software section. Most of it is X-10 related, but its worth looking at.

  • I second that thought.

    I can understand wanting to be able to automate certain features of a home, but some things are a little out of hand and can be just RIDICULOUS!!!

    I am still concerned with having a computer gaming box that runs an OS that can access the net, where people MAY recognize there could be a problem. But what happens when someone hacks into your house and reprograms your appliances and destroys your groceries while you're away, turns the heat up for a month while you're on vacation and causes your bills to sky rocket.

    I don't even want to think about the medical/biological problems that could come up.

    Let's just take it a step at a time. Get rid of non open source and let's be REAL about research and development.

  • I'm not into MUD, but after playing with Linux for a few hours, and when trying to find something I've misplaced in real life, I have this urge to "locate sneakers" or "whereis hairbrush".

  • I think a codpiece mounted HERF gun would be the ideal high tech utility.
  • You're missing (I think) one of my points.

    You WILL spend $100-500 dollars extra on these things. Why? Because that's all that will be around. There will not be any option, once they take off, because taking the older (cheaper) items off the market is one way that companies make money.

    The other option is to rebuild the compressor in your old fashioned fridge every ten years or so.

  • Call me a luddite, but... (Score:4)

    by swordgeek ( 112599 ) on Friday March 24, 2000 @03:00PM (#1174539) Journal
    I don't like it. Not one little bit!

    Seriously, is there anyone who gives a rat's ass about this stuff, except for the companies who (will) make it? I don't want a 'web-enabled' fridge, I don't want a 'web-enabled' toaster, and I sure as hell don't want a 'web-enabled' coffee maker!

    And yet, make no mistake--in five years, whether we want it or not, we'll not be able to buy a non-net appliance. Utility doesn't matter. Customer wants don't matter. Safety doesn't matter, as long as the government doesn't complain. Profit matters, and these things will make tons of profit for Sunbeam et al, on the backs of the consumer, at the expense of utility, desire, and safety.

    It's stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid; and I won't have any part in promoting it. I hope most other people won't either, but that's not how the world tends to go.

    To be fair, I spend most of my day living and breathing computers, and thoroughly enjoy getting _away_ from them in the kitchen. Maybe it just feels like an invasion of my 'low-tech' space, amongst the knives and pots and pans.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • I don't know what's new about this... I know all my appliances already talk to me... my fridge has been my best friend since the sixth grade. but mr. toilet is evil, and i warn all you against upgrading your toilets, stay with old and shabby, it's better than new and evil... -dennis the appliance man

  • Computerization of the house (Score:3)

    by baffo ( 126216 ) on Friday March 24, 2000 @02:54PM (#1174544) Homepage
    Notice that we are talking about a planet where a vastmajority of people has difficulties programming a VCR, or where trains are missed because the alarm clock either went 12:00 or thought that it was PM while it was AM - or viceversa.

    A planet were auto-defrosting refrigerators occasionally will decide that they want to defrost no matter what.

    A planet, ultimately, where systems whith the level of complexity and interrelation that the article implies (like, a cluster of servers) require personnel totally dedicated to administration.

    Will your ma turn sysop ? Mine sure will not ...

  • I view the net fridge (or net almost anything) as rather useless, and I think it's hilarious to see the recipe thing come up again -- isn't that what our PCs were supposed to do way back in '82 or so?

    What I think is *really* valuable about this is that it ports functionality from hardware to software. Almost all the things I've loved in products have been fundamentally software. My VCR has a neat feature where pressing the record button repeatedly will make it record for 30 minutes, 1 hour, 1:30, etc. I love microwaves with a +30 seconds button, or ones that will start cooking immediately if you press a numbered button without selecting a specific cooking mode.

    What "smart" appliances allow is for you to keep the features you like when the underlying hardware changes. Now *that* I'll pay for.

    That, and being able to set my thermostat to go on in the morning based on the time my alarm's going to go off.
  • (What's the next prefix after tera?). pica.

    Make Seven
  • There was an IBM ad not long ago where a technician comes to a house to fix a refrigerator. But the family is convinced the refrigerator isn't broken. They tell the man that they don't need a repairman because it isn't broken. He responds that he knows it isn't broken - yet. The caption then reads something to the effect of, "Appliances that call for their own help. Who'd have thought?"

    However, when you think about it, this wouldn't be as great as it sounds. First of all, who wants to have a stranger come to their door unexpected? A con-man could tell you that your refrigerator called him, and you'd be none the wiser. But, even if the appliance tells you it called for help (It didn't in the ad.), who knows who else got that message. Maybe it wasn't just your doctor...

  • MUD house (Score:3)

    by karzan ( 132637 ) on Friday March 24, 2000 @03:00PM (#1174548)
    Many times when I've spent over 36 hours mudding without sleep, I have a natural inclination to type "open door" when I want to open a door, "eat cheese" when I want to eat a cheese, etc. When are these homes going to be smart enough to do that?
  • Remember when it really urked you when you got a phone call from someone in the bathroom. Does the same hold true if they're emailing you from the bathroom. And what if the netcam hooked up to the sink showed too much of the shower. Personally I see anything new brought into the bathroom becoming a social taboo.

    Okay so lets look at this practically ... A stove that stores receipes. That doesn't mean you'll cook it right or that you'll have all the ingredients you need. And who really wants to surf the net while washing dishes.

    Okay what will make the net will be set standards of audio and video. Instead of having to compete with real media, ms media, mpeg, or any other type of media. Once an open set standard is made you'll be able to listen to the toaster play www.Ihearlotsofstandardizedmusicandevenmoreads.com while you're waiting for your eggo or poptart.

    So now we've got set standards for video and audio ... wonderful ... now we have to battle for platforms. GREAT ... there's the linux toaster the MS toaster and even better the toaster toaster ... but open source fans will like the linux toaster no matter what ... even if toaster toaster releases the source. Everyone else will love MS toaster for it's ease of use and prettiness.

    So do we really need new toasters ... because I'm happy with my poptart right now like it is...

  • Wow, I'm glad they finally developed this technology. I've been trying for years to find a way to automatically tell the world my bathroom habits. And it really sucked not having a stove connected to the internet. After all, the 6 extremely simplistic dials that make up the average oven would be much better controlled via FTP commands originating in Madagascar. And opening my fridge would be made much easier if it had a T1 connection. If neccessary, I might be able to open my fridge when I'm not there! (wow) This would be extremely useful, since I sometimes get hungry while at school. This way, I could just dowload some cheese and milk and eat at the library computer. Oh, wait. This is the stupidest thing EVER. Whoever thought of this is clearly on crack.

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