Internet Appliances

I've seen a few items on the net this week about networked appliances. One guy modified his washing machine to text his cell phone when a load is finished. Another article from Australia talks about refrigerators being connected to a peer-to-peer network (think BitTorrent) in order to manage power consumption on a large grid.

Computers being networked is no new thing, but it's interesting to think what can be accomplished by linking appliances together. You could preheat your oven from your mobile phone on the drive home so that you can pop dinner in and save time. Your refrigerator could send you text messages reminding you what you're low on so you can pick up whatever it is on the way home. You could even have your heating and cooling systems track the weather forecasts so that they could more accurately keep your house at optimal temperature. This isn't re-inventing any of these convenient, time saving inventions, but it is allowing them to be even more convenient and time saving by granting them access to lots and lots of available data.