Open Source Business

I wrote this back in 2000 for a site that was called InfoApps.com. Chris Heuer founded it. His driving entrepreneurial spirit reminds me a little of Michael Robertson of mp3.com fame.

Within ten years, 98 percent of household appliances will be networked and controlled from remote locations. In other words, I’ll never have to worry about forgetting to turn off the coffee maker again. Can you imagine the money I’ll save by not having to buy replacement coffee pots once a month?

Not only that, but major changes are coming in the way we prepare and store food. I used to think it was a big deal that my microwave could “sense” how long it takes to cook a potato. That’s nothing! Now, even little kids will be able to cook up a primo filet, because now the oven is even smarter. All Junior has to do is put the meat into one of GE’s new voice-activated Advantium Ovens and tell it to “cook the filet.” And it doesn’t matter what part of the country Junior hails from–the special “VoiceSignal” technology included in the Advantium Oven understands no fewer than 250 regional accents and can even learn languages other than English. I wonder if the Advantium understands toddler-speak? I could get my three-year-old to make dinner while I finish up a few projects.

Big Brother Is a Refrigerator
Now, when you have leftovers, you can store them in a GE Web-enabled refrigerator that will allow you to access the Web and monitor all the other appliances and electronics in your home. On the down side, my husband will have even more reason to stand in front of the open refrigerator with a blank look on his face. If GE could just come up with a refrigerator that tells me when the cold cuts get that little fuzzy film on top so I wouldn’t have to open the drawer and find out for myself, life would be just about perfect.

The best thing about all this intelligence, says GE Appliances CEO Larry Johnston, is that your appliances will be able to track you down and remind you to take care of them. “Imagine getting to work, turning on your desktop computer, and getting a message from your home appliance network that you left an oven burner on. With these networked smart appliances, you can send a direct command from your office PC via the Web and turn it off.” Hey, that’s pretty cool. Can the washing machine call me at the grocery store and remind me to pick up fabric softener?

Almost Like Life
The other day I was reading about something called the IPAD. It’s a new OS from Be that will power an inexpensive PC for your kitchen, allowing you to do and see all kinds of things, right there next to the sink. No longer do I have to feel like a prisoner, chained to the dirty dishes. An IPAD device (currently, it’s installed in the iToaster from Microworkz) might just fool me into thinking I actually have a life. I’ll be able to watch a movie, monitor the video camera in the baby nursery (or the one I secretly installed in the dashboard of my husband’s car), check my email, have a videophone conversation, and listen to stereo music, all at once from my kitchen counter.

Just thinking about all that activity is making me tired. I think I’m going to go lie down now. But before I go to sleep, I’m going to call up the coffee maker and tell it to please fill itself up with water and coffee beans sometime between now and 7:00 a.m.