They already have that - its called shopping online. Anything more
constitutes laziness

-----Original Message-----
From: Ken Webster [mailto:Ken@WEBSTER.ORG]
Sent: Thursday, 17 February 2000 12:05
To: PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU
Subject: Re: Internet Toaster [OT]


>Your comment:  I can't think of a compelling reason why any simple
appliance
>would need to talk directly to anything on the Internet
>
>
>How about for appliance "enhancement" - say that your traditional
>Refrigerator/Stove/Microwave oven is now a "Food Preparation Appliance"
that
>manages the inventory in the pantry, that has online recipes, that can
>perform a series of food preparation tasks.  Be nice if you could command
it
>from the office to begin a food preparation task, have it communicate with
>the grocery store listing items needed and you can pick them up on the way
>home, and be able to update it recipes off the internet.  And, finally be
>able to download latest firmware :-)


That would be really cool!

Yet I still think it would be more practical to let a centralized controller
(i.e. your PC) do all the higher-level stuff (talking on the Internet,
coordinating the food preperation activities, developing alternate plans in
case of exceptions -- "Oops!  The store sent me washing powder instead of
cheese!")

The controllers embedded in the appliances could then be very cheap and
simple and focus only on controlling and monitoring the appliance itself.
Software (or firmware) upgrades would only be needed for the central
controller since it should be a simple matter to get an embedded appliance
controller to switch a burner on and off and report its temperature and
power consumption via CEBus.  The fridge's controller could simply switch
the compressor, fans, and defrosting heater on and off and monitor the power
consumption and temperatures at a few key points ... the central controller
could have a software module downloaded from the manufacturer which analyzes
this data to measure the health of the appliance and warn you when anything
is failing (or when the radiator becomes clogged with dust and you are
wasting energy because it can't vent heat efficiently).  The central
controller could use state-of-the-art technology allowing for much more
sophisticated control, data analysis, and data presentation than the average
consumer would be willing to pay for on a per-appliance basis.

More importantly, a centralized controller would be able to easily adapt to
changes in the system's configuration.  When you buy a new blender, for
instance, why should your Refrigerator/Stove/Microwave have to be updated or
reconfigured to accomodate it?  The central controller could simply detect
that a new appliance is present on the LAN and use an ID code or URI
supplied by it to contact the manufacturer to download an appropriate
control module.  The appliance control module would provide a software
interface that the food preperation module could recognize and communicate
with.

I suppose distributed control does have some advantages, too.  It would be
pretty cool to offload processing tasks to the doorbell and have all of your
appliances participate in SETI or distributed.net.  It would also be nice to
not have to revert to manual control of everything just because one computer
went down.  But if you can afford to pay for that much computing power for
your doorbell then you could certainly afford to buy a few extra PC's to put
on a LAN.

Ken