In his book 23 Things They Don’t Tell You about Capitalism, Ha-Joon Chang, suggests that the invention of the washing machine has brought about major social change.  In the US,  it allowed women to enter the world of work much more easily, thus driving significant changes in the social structure. Clearly, the invention of the washing machine addressed an important problem. On the other hand, LG’s texting washing machine does not (Charles Arthur explained the problem very well, in last week’s Observer). The washing machine is just one of a number of objects that connect through LGs system, HomeChat.

At the recent Consumer Electronics Show the talk in the tech world lately has been around connecteds and wearables. The low cost of computing and ease of development is seeing a plethora of products from both major electronic companies and start-up businesses. CES was packed with them … as someone pointed out, there were more wearables than wrists available.

 ‘Who buys an internet fridge and doesn’t already own a tablet? Who goes “I’ve got an iPad but I’d rather listen to music on my fridge”?’
Tom Coates, Mind the Product 2012

The problem that many of these products have is that they don’t address any real problems, nor make my life better. Of course if the machine could dry, fold and put the clothes away, then that would be interesting to me. Or better still, invent self cleaning fabrics that required no washing and no water or power usage. CES has therefore demonstrated the problem with the next generation of computing (or the Internet of Things or Connecteds and Wearables, or whatever you’d like to call them). There are many possibilities for the technology, but very few uses. It looks like we’re in for a phase of slightly useless ‘enhancements’ that we just don’t need.

This Tumblr probably explains the problem best: http://fuckyeahinternetfridge.tumblr.com/