This article, found from Smart Mobs, is about how we're all going to start talking to our kettles in the morning. Or at least how our kettle type gadget will know to make us a very strong cup of coffee in the morning based on how many beers we took out of the fridge the night before.
Objects will start to have the capacity to do "magic" things like know we've got a hangover - I'm streching the point with the kettles and the hangovers a bit - and in return we'll start to think of gizmos and gadgets as little imps doing our bidding, complete with their own characters.
At the end the writer asks "How will object intelligence play in terms of the desirability of objects? Industrial design has been very busy the last couple of years giving everyday objects “personality” through appearance. What happens when they can actually mimic personality itself? Where is the line between cute and cloying."
If your fridge knows about you and has a personality (in the Disney film "The Magic House" the fridge would be a bit dull but get a song about how there was always a light on inside) think about how your phone should behave - it knows more about you than your diary, your weblog, and possibly your partner.
One of the things I've got planned for the next week or so is to work out what my phone knows about me, what it knows it knows, what it might learn to do without being asked, and, bearing in mind the cute/cloying distinction, how I want it to offer me the fruits of its learning.
Arthur C Clarke summed it up...
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
Posted by: smartypants | March 22, 2004 at 17:04