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Dig this: There’s a new Dyson vacuum cleaner that makes a phone call to the manufacturer when it needs spare parts. As the London Sun reports:
The gizmo alerts the user if it has broken down or needs a replacement part.
The owner then dials the number of the Dyson call centre and holds the telephone receiver to the vacuum cleaner.
The machine transmits a message telling engineers what’s wrong and orders any new part it needs.
I am literally beside myself with joy at the vision of thousands of housecleaners holding a phone up to their vacuum so it can transmit some mysterious parrot-modem-sqwauk-language to the mother ship. But quite apart from the silliness of it all, it’s a usefully concrete, physical metaphor for what much of our software already does.
Ever read the fine print on any of your software? Neither do I, mostly. But when I have, I’ve usually discovered that the company — Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, etc. — has reserved the right, at whatever point in the future they choose, to have the software communicate information back to them about what sort of machine I own, what other software I run, and precisely what I’ve been doing with their software. Since this is invisible — since we don’t have to actually hold the phone up so our software can speak — we mostly ignore these intrusions. (Unless, as I do, you use a firewall like Zone Alarm that reports any attempt by a piece of software to access the Internet.)
But the time will come, and come quickly, when an increasingly large number of household products — fridges, stoves, microwaves, phones, vacuums, hot-water systems — will be networked. They’ll be able to skip the hold-the-phone-for-me step, and simply tell their manufacturers what we’ve been doing with them. And you probably won’t be able to buy a household tool that doesn’t do that.
I’m not a hard-core privacy nut, but that prospect freaks me out a bit.
(Thanks to Engadget for this one!)
I'm Clive Thompson, a writer on science, technology, and culture. This blog collects bits of offbeat research I'm running into, and musings thereon.
Currently, I'm a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and a columnist for Wired magazine. I also write for Fast Company and Wired magazine's web site, among other places. Email or AOL IM me (pomeranian99) to say hi or send in something strange!
The “Milky Way Transit Authority” map
Should automobile software be open-sourced?
My Bookforum review of Jaron Lanier’s “You Are Not A Gadget”
Molecular secrets of the “iron-plated snail”
» visit the Collision Detection archives
January 31, 2010 » 07:29 PM
V. A. To me death seems to be an evil.
M. What, to those who are already dead? or to those who must die?
A. To both.
M. It is a misery, then, because an evil?
A. Certainly.
M. Then those who have already died, and those who have still got to die, are both miserable?
A. So it appears to me.
M. Then all are miserable?
A. Every one.
January 24, 2010 » 03:22 PM
One of the more interesting trends is family, which came in at number five. Specifically, discussion about family, moms, dads, daughters, etc. jumped during 2009. With Facebook users getting older, this isn’t a big surprise. However, the fact that the mention of “kids” jumped by a factor of five this year is rather dramatic. It’s tough to know what this means, though. (via Facebook Unveils Most-Mentioned Topics of 2009
)
January 15, 2010 » 01:36 PM
BEYOND AWESOME. They are announcing a recall of the Plush Uterus “due to a potential choking hazard for children”. To apply for it, “Please send an email to the address below with the subject line, ‘UTERUS OPT OUT’”.
January 14, 2010 » 10:04 PM
“To order, please TYPE “YES” IN CHECKBOX BELOW TO AGREE YOU UNDERSTAND THIS PLUSH MUST BE KEPT AWAY FROM KIDS (it is a sex organ, after all). If it is not checked, WE WILL NOT SEND THE UTERUS.” (via @ibogost)
January 11, 2010 » 01:45 PM
I watched Space: 1999 back in the day, but I swear to god I do not remember this scene.
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