Microwaves

Ok, so here’s a fairly serious question, does anybody actually use those “Smart” buttons on Microwaves? The one at work claims to be able to cook Mexican and Oriental meals with the push of a button. I’m fairly certain this wouldn’t work that great, there’s just too many different foods out there.

Then there’s the popcorn button. What the hell? I’ve never seen a bag of popcorn come out as pristine as when I manually enter a number. It either comes out barely popped or burnt. There’s also a button for “Frozen Dinners”. I can tell you that my frozen dinners take way different amount of time. Is this a possible appliation of RFID? Could the tag be embedded into the carton, and swiped past the microwave when you put it in? I often laugh at these “futuristic technologies”. There’s an article in a Wired magazine outside my office that claims that someday all our food will have RFID, and that there will me smart checkouts, and carts with displays on them. I say this will never happen. Vandalism to the carts, a way to disable/remove tags, etc will make for free food. That’s a huge cost right there, coupled with the cost of actually implementing (and maintaining such a system) would be equally huge.

For years they have toted at us these “great” and “wonderful” technologies. A lot of it is plausible, but I just don’t think will happen.

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