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Technology Stocks : EMC How high can it go?
EMC 29.050.0%Sep 15 5:00 PM EST
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To: jhg_in_kc who wrote (10205)5/13/2000 12:56:00 AM
From: Bill Fischofer  Read Replies (4) of 17183
 
OT: Smart homes

Just because something can be done doesn't mean that it serves any real economic purpose or somehow adds value. Successful products are those which fill the real needs of real people rather than serve as technological demonstration pieces. I've read countless articles extolling the wondrous future in which everything from hairdryers to microwave ovens would be "smart" and "net aware" and have grave doubts about the utility (let alone marketability) of such "improved" products. The companies proposing these schemes seem blissfully removed from reality. For example, I'm told that the reason I should want my washing machine to be on the net is so that it could "automatically download new washing programs", as if I should be ashamed to show my face in public if it were known that my clothes were washed using last month's program. Or, my microwave oven would get its cooking instructions from the net, as if weekly breakthroughs in how to best heat my coffee demand constant updating.

Such techno-silliness shows both a lack of imagination as well as a profound misunderstanding of human need and behavior. People really don't want to live in the equivalent of an electronic fishbowl in which hypochondriacal refrigerators summon repairmen behind their owners' backs, bathtubs start filling themselves for no apparent reason, and bathroom scales quickly tattle to their doctors about the effects of last night's celebration. I've no doubt the net will permeate our lives in many wondrous ways in the years ahead, but I doubt if it will look anything like the "smart home" that so many technologists are promoting today.
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