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Your Washer is Calling and the Dryer is on IM
netbuzz writes "Laundry Time, an eight-week pilot program from the Internet Home Alliance, begins next week with three Atlanta families and the technology and services of Microsoft, HP, Panasonic, Proctor & Gamble and Whirlpool. The idea is to allow family members to receive alerts and control certain laundry functions from their PCs, cell phones and TV sets, presumably so they can spend more time with their PCs, cell phones and TV sets." I am all for tech for the sake of tech, but I'm pretty sure this is one of the signs of the Apocalypse Nostradamus prognosticated.
All that user intervention is silly. What you want is a combination washer/dryer. These were first offered in 1958, and they're still around. No need to move the clothes from the washer to the dryer. The latest models even dispose of the lint down the drain.
This is way ahead of having to communicate with the thing remotely.
Another idea that seems to have disappeared from washing machines is a soap tank. You just fill one tank with Liquid Tide, another tank with fabric softener, and it does the rest. That was tried in the 1960s.
Some of the more advanced machines, like the Maytag Neptune, sense the dirt content of the drain water and the water content of the dryer exhaust air to decide automatically how much washing and drying is needed. The Neptune can deal with an out-of-balance condition by itself, too.
Another useful facility would be to have the dryer do an extra few turns every few minutes after it is done, to prevent wrinkling.