Smart Appliances

Smart
Appliances

With plans in full swing for the appliances
of tomorrow–from
networked water heaters to refrigerators that order groceries–
we consumers must prepare for the inevitability of these sci-fi
devices in our everyday lives.

But smart appliances may do more than save time. Our top ten
reasons to dread them:

1. Over the limit: The bathroom scale keeps telling the fridge
to stop ordering food.

2. Tattle snooze: Your smart pillow talks to your PC, which
emails your boss with a message that, yep, you’ve overslept
again.

3. Brand name: Not only does your stovetop grill know when
steak is cooked to your exact specifications, but it sears a
nice flying Windows logo onto each side.

4. Buying on spec: Sunglasses combine UV protection with real-
time stock quotes, but laugh maniacally when you approach
margin calls.

5. Car talk: Your dashboard computer insists on making blonde
jokes about your driving.

6. Rotten sense of humor: The perky “kitchen assistant,” an
animated onscreen spatula, keeps calling your mobile phone
and asking, “Is your refrigerator running?”

7. Lack of privacy: Your mailbox keeps asking why you get so
many plain brown packages.

8. No dim bulbs: Your lamps are so full of bright ideas you
have to pay for their MENSA memberships.

9. High maintenance: Your appliances secretly open a joint bank
account for repairman kickbacks.

10. Anticompetitive practices: Your Microsoft coffeemaker
monopolizes the countertop.

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