Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft and Miele Team Collaborate To Cook Up an IoT Revolution
Mark Wilson writes When people talk about the Internet of Things, there are often semi-joking references to fridges that know when you've run out of milk and ovens that know how to cook whatever you put in them. Forget the jokes; this is now a reality. We've already seen a generation of smart appliances, and Microsoft wants to be part of what happens next. At Hannover Messe today, Miele — of oven, vacuum cleaner and washing machine fame — announces it is working on a new breed of appliances based on Microsoft Azure Internet of Things (IoT) services What does this mean? Ultimately it means you'll be able to find a recipe online, have the ingredient list and preparation instructions sent to your mobile device, and your smart oven will be automatically configured with the correct settings.
Ultimately it means you'll be able to find a recipe online, have the ingredient list and preparation instructions sent to your mobile device, and your smart oven will be automatically configured with the correct settings.
I fail to see where any of this is saving me much time or effort compared to what I can do today. We already keep our grocery list in a Dropbox file. One might argue that knowing you're out of something is an advantage; but in practice it's too late at that point - and "running low" is dependent on what you're planning to eat over the next several days.
Having a recipe displayed on my phone or iPad is certainly handy - but I can do that now, with no more effort than is described above ("find a recipe" is the only effort involved - and you have to do that either way).
Configuring the correct settings on my smart oven? That's like 5 seconds - tops - on my current oven. And my current oven is at least 25 years old! I have to turn a dial to set the temperature... oh, the humanity!
Seriously, as far as I can tell the only "advantage" this particular corner of the Internet of Things offers is either to 1) advertisers hoping to sell me stuff; or 2) other various parasites.
#DeleteChrome
As if the current one wasn't... but this will be a completely new beast.
You will have not only a customer base who doesn't know jack about the internet (and who might not even care about it, let alone consider their fridge, toaster or dishwasher being even remotely connected to the internet), you will have MS with its record of treating security as an afterthought, leading to half-baked tacked-on solutions that may or may not finally work more or less correctly after half a dozen iterations or so.
And now let's ponder why this might be a problem with appliances that might be a bit hard to "field-upgrade", simply due to their nature of not having a sensible user input interface. Let alone having users that often neither know nor care about their ability to be upgraded.
But, and that's the important bit here, this isn't just some "toy", like what a computer is to many people out there. A computer is something they use for their pastime. To play, to collect pictures, to surf the 'web, to have fun. If it doesn't work, well, that's a pity but nothing that would make the world stop. But with the IoT we're talking about the machines that store and prepare their food, the machines that clean their clothes and dishes, stuff that does matter to many people more than their "toy" computer.
And don't think that after a while of crappy, insecure appliances with embarrassing hacks we'll get better secured appliances. Remember who the companies are that you're dealing here. It ain't MS and Nintendo. We're talking the likes of GE here. They don't make their stuff more secure. They simply have finding security holes outlawed. It's cheaper. And they already bought the politicians anyway, so they can as well let them get to work. And of course the idiots will cheer that their fridge will no longer cook their cheese now that they're secure from the evil hackers.
I predict a lot of rather interesting times coming our way.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Smart homes and appliances have been the promise of the future for decades. And, for the past fifteen years or so, we've had all the technology that we need in order to achieve this. The problem is that the big players all want to own the workflow. You'll have to have a separate flipping app for everything you want to control. For the oven manufacturer, these features will be less about you having a more useful cooking tool, and more about a marketing deal with the software company that requires you operate the features through their walled garden. Sure, we'll have pockets of innovation, and even a few outliers that get it right, but I don't see it becoming anything more than a hodge podge of spotty functionality.. At least for the next decade or so.
The solution will likely come from AI that can control those devices intelligently the way humans do, without waiting around for a standard protocol / interface.
You have to pay MS taxes also for kitchen machines.