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Ars readers react to Smart fridges and the sketchy geography of “normals”

They also get a kick out of John Legere's wild stage presence.

Car day at CES included a quick look at this interesting concept from Toyota.
Jason Inofuentes

Everybody seems to want to sell us a "smart home" these days, but is the all-connected life worth living? Peter Bright answered "no"—at least not when it comes to the kinds of smart home appliances that tech companies are selling nowadays. In his op-ed, Smart TVs, smart fridges, smart washing machines? Disaster waiting to happen, Peter argued that many of the companies proposing these connected machines have a decent track record in producing hardware, but a miserable one producing (and updating) software. A lot of our readers agreed.

Ryoshi wrote, "Why would anyone even remotely familiar with computers and embedded systems think 'gosh, you know what my kitchen needs? MORE SOFTWARE.' I mean, shit, my fridge already has plenty of mechanical possible failure points, I see no reason at all to add viruses and software crashes to the list of things that could go catastrophically wrong. Ditto for literally every other appliance I own." wjousts concurred, "Agree 100 percent. Appliance manufacturers have been trying to sell the 'smart' fridge / dishwasher / oven / clothes washer for a least a decade but it's largely a solution in search of a problem. Who actually needs their fridge to tell them it's empty? You just open the door and look which is probably something you do every morning anyway. Add in built in obsolescence and it's hard to see why anybody would want to pay a premium for it?"

AaronLeeR wasn't so quick to dismiss the idea though:

I must be one of those rare people who actually wants a smart home. For decades smart homes were promised to us in various tech mags and whatnot, but the reality usually included a prohibitively expensive centralized computer and wiring setup, and even still none of that included a convenient way to access those functions while away from your home. That is, until now. I don't want to tweet from my fridge. What I do want, is the ability to check what's in my fridge from my phone while I'm out in the grocery store to see if there's something I need.

I do agree that security is a huge, huge issue, and one that needs to be addressed. But I really don't see how resisting the "Internet of things" is the longterm solution. The way technology seems to be trending, this is an inevitability, not a could be.

So instead of resisting, how do we force these companies to take security and privacy seriously?

But kinisonkhan believes that there is a limit to how much smart stuff is practical. "Smart TVs? Sure, I can see people buying that. But smart refrigerators? Ovens? Dumb dumb dumb. Why? Because those appliances are meant to last 20-30 years. Which after just 10 years, the "Smart" feature on it become incredibly outdated and dumb by whatever existing standard people use. Something new will come around and make whatever wireless transmitter is on that incredibly useless. Imagine getting a smart fridge 10 years ago that transmits at 802.11b? Its like, damn I need a dual band router or go digging through a PC Recycle Store for an old router to place on my network, just so it can talk to my server/PC/whatever. The older the appliance is, the more useless the smart features become."

CES Circus

This week, several Ars writers were goaded from their dark, musty lairs around the country to make the annual journey to the blinding city of Las Vegas, NV for the Consumer Electronics Show. They took lots of pictures so that those of us at home would be able to follow along. You can check out some of those photos in the gallery CES opening day: Games, guns, and 3D printers.

One photo featured a new version of the TrackingPoint Precision Guided Firearm built on an AR platform. We wrote about it several times in 2013, and charleski commented on the latest weapon, which moves the battery into the buttstock: "Hah! I remember suggesting something like this in comments to one of the first Ars stories on this gun and getting heavily downvoted for some reason :p. Shifting the center of gravity down can only improve stability, which is still important even with computer-assisted triggering." And flashback_rtk couldn't resist pointing out "The rifle looks a bit overkill for a computing device." (We're collectively groaning over here.)

teknik was skeptical about some of Toyota's concept cars. "The reverse Toyota trike looks like a piaggo mp3 with a cabin built around the front seat. I don't get the idea of putting a cabin on a motorcycle/scooter, the idea of missing the face full of wind is kind of sad but at least it still tilts to turn I suppose."

And gullible skeptic had a laugh at a slide from Yahoo's keynote, in which the company called out "ArsTechnica" (we have a space between the "Ars" and the "Technica" thankyouverymuch) and a host of other tech news sites as not being for "normals."

"I don't believe that map of Yahoo's that shows the Canadian 'normals' holding everything from New England to Minnesota," skeptic wrote. "Edit: Not to mention they apparently sunk Alaska."

KT421 replied, "The Canadian invasion has begun! :flail:" (We've been stockpiling canned food and bottled water in preparation for this day.)

And Wheels of Confusion clarified the situation with Alaska: "Neither gearheads nor normals hold that territory. 'Tis a different breed of mankind which seeks out the frozen wilderlands, with its rugged individualist landscape and the massive federal subsidies to keep their tax rate artificially low."

Starting to care about the Un-carrier

Finally, T-Mobile's CEO JOhn Legere took the stage with some wild things to say about his competition. In Jon Brodkin's story, T-Mobile CEO: “This industry blows,” biggest carriers offer “horsesh**”, we got a piece of Legere's mind, and heard about T-Mobile's new plan to pay the difference on new customers' early termination fees if they switch from a major carrier. 

For some, this was all they needed to get their attention. "If this guy ever leaves T-Mobile for some reason, I really hope he goes to a cable provider or ISP and shakes things up there like he's doing for cellular service," wrote Arlondiluthel. Panacea thought the press conference was great fun to watch, "It reminded me of nothing so much as a ~1999 or ~2000 Apple MacWorld keynote by Steve Jobs. Jobs never cursed on stage but he had a similar attitude: sure we've sucked in the past, but we're going to blow you away now."

Thordane wasn't impressed by the over-the-top performance, though. "Looks like Legere wants to be the next teen celebrity CEO."

But for quakerotis, it's all talk until T-Mobile can deliver the goods. "All the PR aside, it's all about the coverage. T-Mobile, after 10 years in my market, still doesn't have sufficient coverage in my area to even consider them. Too bad."

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