大象传媒

Clearly too good an opportunity to miss, LOL.

"By the time Skynet became self-aware it had spread into millions of computer servers across the planet. Ordinary computers in office buildings, dorm rooms; everywhere. It was software; in cyberspace. There was no system core; it could not be shutdown. . . Shortly after achieving sentience, Skynet determines all of humanity to be a threat to its existence and begins the systematic extermination of mankind."

^^^

Beat me to it, i was reading through this and im thinking, ive heard this all before, then i get to the end and Skynet just screams out at me, good blog Rory, although i would like my bath to turn itself off when its to the right level and at the right temperature and send a message to my iPhone when it's done.

There is one fatal flaw with the Skynet scenario:

Machines need power. Most of that power comes from non-renewables (i.e. has to be shipped into the power plant from elsewhere). So until Skynet gains control of (a) the mining operations, and (b) the trucks that ship the coal / oil / gas to power stations, it wouldn't get very far without humans.

Having said that, here are a few possible scenarios:
a) Burglar alarms - PIR linked to CCTV webcams, which only start recording when movement is detected. Stick a UPS on the household server and a 3G card, so even if the thief is organised enough to slice through the power and telephone cables (and stay alive!), what he gets up to will be recorded in HD video from several different angles, uploaded to the internet, and an email sent to the local plod (who'll probably pick it up 14 days later, by which time the criminal will be sunning himself in the Bahamas...)

b) Fridge with built-in scales and barcode scanner. Scan items as you take them in/out of the fridge, and the weight reduction / gain on the whole fridge assembly will be taken. It will work out your average rate of consumption of each foodstuff, and either [a] automatically print out your shopping list (if you prefer to do it the manual way) or [b] log onto your supermarket's website and buy your shopping itself (it already knows when you're in, so it can book an appropriate delivery slot).

c) The ultimate in effortless micro-blogging. The house uses CCTV / PIR to detect where you are and what you're doing, and tweets your activities. Although unless combined with (a), it's probably not a good idea to work away from home or go on holiday, as the sudden drop in tweet frequency will alert potential burglars as to when your house is unoccupied.

d) Workable lawn care system. You'd need moisture sensors under the lawn, a few cameras in the borders (to measure grass growth), an underground watering system (more efficient than surface spray), an electronic water valve (tap replacement), plus a robotic lawnmower (with an optional feed/weed hopper attachment).

e) Christmas lights that play a tune you like. Automated Christmas light extravaganzas are not too rare in the US, but couple that with a music playlist analyser service and the lights controller could ask visitors radios/mp3 players/computers what kinds of Christmas music they like listening to (and which they avoid), so it can select an appropriate track to play.

It's all very well but how much does the always-on GPRS data connection cost?

There's also Crondall Westher @crondallweather - - that emits weather data every hour.

I have been toying with a not dissimilar idea.

If I could get my "stuff" to follow me in Twitter it could react to my status, perhaps turning the heating on when I announce to a breathless world that I am on my way home.

#3 Machines need power.
Given it's set in the future Skynet will be using solar power and when that is cut off grow people in pods to harvest their bioelectrical energy. Oh nooo, different movie.

UM, let's assume Skynet also is in solar powered satellites and it seizes control of nuclear power stations. The T800s can take care of maintenance.

BTW. A 1970 movie The Forbin Project had much the same idea of a global defence system becoming sentient; it decides that humans cannot be trusted to run their own affairs and declares that it will take command of govt. in order to abolish war, famine etc.

Thinking about it, the idea of a fully automated (machine readable) world is more like that in Asimov's 'I Robot' stories or humanities last refuge in Arthur C Clarks 'The City and the Stars'. All we need are droids to water the lawns, serve the meals etc; and the Japanese seem to be working on those.

Would a machine readable web create unemployment - or jobs?

@7: Skynet's raison d'etre is to destroy humanity. Terminators are generally inorganic beings (so presumably not that susceptible to radiation). If they were put in charge of nuclear power plants, surely it would be advantageous to not maintain them?

-oOo-

Meanwhile, @LRO_NASA and @LCROSS_NASA appear to be tweeting their progress - although it's probably Mission Control ghostwriting their tweets.

Oh, and the ESA are up to the same tricks with @Planck - but @ESAHerschel 's tweets are definitely from the team's POV rather than the object's.

Ah yes, Twitter. That's technology, alright. As well as the millions of other things more relevant, interesting or technologically inspiring.

With this blog, and society's implicit consent to total electronic interference that the blog reflects, I feel the need to conscribe to a less-than-audible group of people who feel their lives are not some blank template to fill with little electronic gizmos and nifty gadgets.

If every possession in your house feeds you information, status updates and instant messages, we will learn it is no longer necessary to store such information within our own highly capable minds. Humanity's capacity to think for themselves, to assess, deduce and plan a course of action based on their surroundings will gradually decay. We will cease being the highly perceptive, highly intelligent animals that we are. We will lose our instinctual advantages, both in society and in nature, and become little more than highly pampered, defenceless blind kittens, protected and kept happy by our funky digital companions.

Which, by the way, were a hoot to invent. And that's all that matters really. Human dignity certainly doesn't.

Thats so cool - I can't believe my boxer shorts might be tweeting that they need a clean in a few years time!

Monitoring Energy (electric) usage is fairly easily now with a Wattson Smart Meter from DIY Kyoto, PDA and twitter (follow energyvampire for 30 min updates). Checkout my blog andysworld.org.uk for real-time energy consumption example, using software from myenergyusage.org.uk to integrate into web pages, and use a PDA with 3G, GRPS to monitor electric consumption remotely.