04/16/2008 06:16:35 AM 
(2) 
(2) A group that represents the elderly in Australia is looking at some technology that can send a message from a kettle.
The thought being that every time the elderly person makes a cup of tea a message is sent to their children, letting them know that they are OK.
I think the idea of thinking laterally about how information generated by a product can have additional uses is really smart.
Then there's the thought of our products telling us when they need things; cars needing servicing is something we have already, refrigerators needing replenishing is something that's often talked about.
As chip technology gets ever smaller and cheaper, it's possible that most things will have the ability to share information with their owners. Even something as simple as deodorant bottle could send you a "money off next purchase" message when it's running low.
Hopefully, not applications will be as crass and promotional and its worth thinking about what a product might say to its owner if it could talk and how some of those things might be useful.
This might lead to a whole new world for Twitter.
Posted by Ed Cotton
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I've just become aware of a virtual house updating its status to Twitter: http://twitter.com/andy_house (which now reminds me of vCrib, about which I wrote quite a while back: http://blog.rebang.com/?p=953 )
Posted by csven on 04/22/2008 06:46 PM
I've just become aware of a virtual house updating its status to Twitter: http://twitter.com/andy_house (which now reminds me of vCrib, about which I wrote quite a while back: http://blog.rebang.com/?p=953 )
Posted by csven on 04/22/2008 06:46 PM
It appears you don't have Flash installed.
This is an idea that's been floating around for while; mostly as part of the whole "blogject" meme, but earlier as well during the Smart Appliances hype of the 90's. The same thinking went into a civil defence concept I generated back in 2004 (http://blog.rebang.com/?p=146). I've considered updating the concept to take advantage of social networking and tools like Twitter. Additionally, virtual products in Second Life are often coded to do things like send emails and IM's. I'd expect some people already have virtual objects Twittering, since there are ways to connect SL with Twitter. Worth a look.