Mixed Signals
Any sufficiently advanced information is indistinguishable from noise
Friday 27 April 2001, 5:51 PM
Rupert Goodwins' Diary
Thursday
26/04/01
What does the word Screenfridge suggest to you? A cinema club in Brixton? A Bond villain? A rather nasty virus that freezes your computer? It's actually the name of a household appliance that - yes! - combines the functions of a refrigerator with an Internet access appliance. As it used always-on DSL technology, the fifty households who had the unit on test rather unsurprisingly said it was a good thing. No sign whether the researchers from companies Ericsson and TeleDanmark asked them whether they'd prefer their Internet access not stuck to a large lump of metal in the kitchen: hell, if it was DSL-to-the-toilet-bowl or nothing at all, I'd go for Net Armitage Shanks every time. But seeing as the companies concerned seem to have convinced themselves that people will be happy to pay many hundreds of quid extra on the price of the fridge and £63 a month thereafter, I think there's something stronger than mineral water in their icebox...
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