I like the idea of the machines being able to tell me if they are out of something and where the next closest place to get that item is but I don't know if I want them to track my purchase history. There's already to much of that done and in some ways eliminates my choice. They are already telling me what I should get and what I will like filtering out "what I won't like". I'd rather just choose for myself and while most days I might choose a particular item some days I might have that inkling for something else but with a machine putting that normal item front and center I'm less likely to ever deviate from it.
I do like the hot spots idea and if Coke or Pepsi etc were smart even if they didn't lease the wireless equipment in their machines to an outside provider they could hook into the Internet and provide wireless connection to users for a small fee across any geographic area they choose be it within a few blocks of the purchase area or even within a whole city.
The fact that the corporations have that info every time you use a system like debit or credit can be scary as well, but no one seems to worry about that. I mentioned this scenario just for it's cool factor. A more intelligent system will be "opt in", which I never considered originally. When I wrote it, the concepts of social networking and location tracking were very much pipe dreams in the geek community. And of course now we have robots from Willow Garage that can Tweet. This is one wild trip into the future!
I like the idea of the machines being able to tell me if they are out of something and where the next closest place to get that item is but I don't know if I want them to track my purchase history. There's already to much of that done and in some ways eliminates my choice. They are already telling me what I should get and what I will like filtering out "what I won't like". I'd rather just choose for myself and while most days I might choose a particular item some days I might have that inkling for something else but with a machine putting that normal item front and center I'm less likely to ever deviate from it.
ReplyDeleteI do like the hot spots idea and if Coke or Pepsi etc were smart even if they didn't lease the wireless equipment in their machines to an outside provider they could hook into the Internet and provide wireless connection to users for a small fee across any geographic area they choose be it within a few blocks of the purchase area or even within a whole city.
The fact that the corporations have that info every time you use a system like debit or credit can be scary as well, but no one seems to worry about that. I mentioned this scenario just for it's cool factor. A more intelligent system will be "opt in", which I never considered originally. When I wrote it, the concepts of social networking and location tracking were very much pipe dreams in the geek community. And of course now we have robots from Willow Garage that can Tweet. This is one wild trip into the future!
ReplyDelete