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Silicon Valley Nation: Techs you won't see at CES
Brian Fuller
1/8/2013 12:01 AM EST
SAN FRANCISCO -- I'm not in Las Vegas this week covering CES, and I'm just fine with that. I'm a guy who's comfortable in his own skin, especially when that skin's not exposed to Vegas.
Instead, I'm enjoying reading dispatches from Junko Yoshida and Sylvie Barak about the newest gadgets swept up in the hype swirl in the desert.
A lot of these gadgets are amusing at best, and that's OK, because they represent how electronics design makes even the dumbest ideas possible.
Here are three technologies I'd like to see but likely will never see at Consumer Electronics Show:
- A gas detector that would prevent people (for instance, my college-age son) from consuming certain foods/beverages that will have an adverse affect on those around them, if you get my drift. Yeah, that's right, I started off with a flatulence joke...Happy New Year! But tell me you don't think that this a hugely practical. We're great at detection; not so great at prevention. Your smartphone would detect and analyze what you're about to consume and politely warn you about the social consequences. If you continue, it would apply a current to some portion of your body to reinforce the message.
- A productivity estimator bolt-on to corporate e-mail systems. This clever piece of software would analyze users' keystrokes, subject matter and the number of potential and e-mail recipients and spit back an estimate of the potential lost productivity that e-mail distribution will have on the group. Users who consistently send e-mails in the lost-productivity "red zone" would be flagged to IT and HR.
- Sensor software built into all new cars sold in the city and county of San Francisco (or New York/Boston/Chicago/London, for that matter). The add-on to the parking-assist sensor prevent drivers from taking up too much free space in a residential street parking area. (Some drivers, I've observed, will park and take up space that could accommodate two cars. This seems to occur because the driver is, um, stupid and selfish. And in cities where street parking is at a premium, stupidity and selfishness should be prevented at all costs.
OK, so two of these are reasonable.
I'm more interested in hearing about technologies fermenting in your heads that you'd like to see brought to light, no matter how limited or pedestrian their application. What are they?
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daleste
1/8/2013 7:46 PM EST
Seems to me that all three of these are devices to prevent someone from doing something that you find objectionable. I don't see how you would get them to want it. I would like to see something come out of the smart electric meter. They came and put one of these on my house, but as far as I can see, it only makes it easier for them to read it (every 15 mins). If it helped me save money, then I could see it being useful.
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Thomas Chongruk
1/9/2013 2:26 AM EST
The smart meters are for their benefit, not yours. Some may see things like potential monetary benefit to he customer, but those are currently coming at obvious cost ... like shutting off my electricity at peak times, or cycling down the power output, etc. Maybe there can be a push into Big Data by producing and allowing end user analysis and utilization, but the market has dictated it's not yet viable ...
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iniewski
1/9/2013 10:00 PM EST
Smart meters are for benefit of utilities not a consumer...it is done and over so let's move on...bring on gas sensors and other smell devices! we take pictures of everything, watch movies, games etc and listen to music/sports/news all the time...why not work on smell? collect smells, email them to your friends, share on Facebook, plot maps of smells in various cities, design new smell apps..so many biz opps!
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