I have noticed, working in the toy industry, that the thing that keeps neat technology items out of the hands of consumers more often than not is not that it is expensive, or rare. the thing that keeps these 'innovations' from reaching us is product liability. companies will not put out a product they think has the potential to be dangerous to the consumer. a voice activated stove is all well and good.. but what if some 6 year old accidentally turns it on and burns the house down. I think this is why the web has developed so fast. A company can put whatever they want there and it can't really cause physical harm. No one ever broke a leg because a web page crashed, and it is hard to sue over offensive web-content, although it ahs been done. I spend several hours every week sitting in the confrence area, discussing what we ( the design staff) think would be fun, and then having the ideas shot down, one after another, with the words " Product Liability".
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I have noticed, working in the toy industry, that the thing that keeps neat technology items out of the hands of consumers more often than not is not that it is expensive, or rare. the thing that keeps these 'innovations' from reaching us is product liability. companies will not put out a product they think has the potential to be dangerous to the consumer. a voice activated stove is all well and good.. but what if some 6 year old accidentally turns it on and burns the house down. I think this is why the web has developed so fast. A company can put whatever they want there and it can't really cause physical harm. No one ever broke a leg because a web page crashed, and it is hard to sue over offensive web-content, although it ahs been done. I spend several hours every week sitting in the confrence area, discussing what we ( the design staff) think would be fun, and then having the ideas shot down, one after another, with the words " Product Liability".