[ExI] household organizer

[Ben Zaiboc]

Nice idea, Spike.  If that could be done, and shown to be practical and useful, I'd love to see the same idea extended (or, rather in-troduced) to the body itself.  Each organ or maybe every few cubic ccs of the body would have a processor and suite of sensors, and be able to talk to each other and to the brain.  Would be a great start to a gradual upload path, while giving some very real benefits in the meanwhile.


> something analogous to Java

Seems to me that Java would be fine for this.  It's free and open-source, you'd just need to build some "household organizer" libraries for it.


> I don't even yet know what that can be used for

Read "Makers" by Cory Doctorow, if you haven't already.  There's a neat idea for rfids that fits right in with this.  And I'm sure people would be brimming with ideas once they get the concept.


> I want that capability in every
> home appliance that has any processors.
...
> I want my bed to be able to detect ..


You already have a processor in your bed? ... I won't ask what that's for! ;>



Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:

> That exists today - in appliances that have implemented it.  
> Almost none do.
> The problem is, having a refrigerator that can display images 
> on its touch
> screen front, can receive image files from other devices (say, via 
> Bluetooth or
> USB), and support a standard Web browsing experience is of 
> practically no
> extra value beyond just having a refrigerator.

I imagine most people might not be so enthused about the above rfid idea, as most people are actually capable of finding their socks in the morning, but maybe tying entertainment devices into a household network would be appealing.  

Busy mothers could turn doing the washing and vacuuming into a game for small children, and maybe at last it would be practical and easy to get your computer to tell your tv what to record in a more controlled way than the built-in schedulers, and intelligently allocate storage space as needed.  Of course, you'd have to convince the manufacturers to allow a suitable interface to their closed-source software.  So that's probably a non-starter.

Give your house your list of things needed for going on holiday, so it can realise that you left your passport in your bedroom before you leave the house (come on, I can't be the only one to have done this).

Countless medical and care-of-the-elderly applications, of course.

As Spike indicated, home security could be much more adaptable and useful (and potentially, unpredictable for the intruders, which is not to be underestimated).

I'm sure it would even be possible to have your valuable hardware shouting for help all the way to the villain's lair, on various wireless bands, and other people's houses co-operate in tracking it.  A kind of machine 'neighbourhood watch' scheme.  This could extend to cars, of course.  Oh, yes, how about a nice warmed-up car on winter mornings, all ready to go, because it started itself while you were having breakfast, detected that there was frost on the windscreen and put the demister on?

Feeding the pets while you're away would be easy too.

I'd better stop now, but there are dozens, maybe even hundreds, of applications for a system like this.

Ben Zaiboc