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The year is 2050 and your dingy old toaster has finally given up it's last crumbs. You hop onto Amazon in hopes of finding a suitable replacement as there's no
by burnt_toast 5y ago
The year is 2050 and your dingy old toaster has finally given up it's last crumbs. You hop onto Amazon in hopes of finding a suitable replacement as there's no longer any box stores you can travel to. Dumb appliances have been phased out and newer internet connected appliances have taken over. It's better for the consumer they claim.
Not wanting an overtly fancy contraption you pick a no frills unit that includes a touch screen along the side. A few hours later it arrives. Setting it up was almost as easy as your old one. Plug it in, enter your wi-fi password, and a credit card to start your free pro trial of the monthly subscription service that tweets at you when the toast is done. It says you can cancel at anytime but it requires a 5 day waiting period. It also requires access to your contacts.
Tired and just wanting your toast you agree. You insert two slices of white bread and press the big red GO button on the touch screen. An electrical motor whines from inside the toaster at it begins to retract the toast into itself. There's a few seconds of silence as the toaster slowly heat ups. While awkwardly standing there you notice the touch screen flickers and begins to display a buffering icon. An ad for I Can't Believe it's Not Butter begins to play. To make matters worse you can't even ignore it by looking away due to a small tinny sounding speaker playing the company's jingle.
This is your new morning routine.
Welcome to the future.
- clan 5y agoThey sure do not make them like they used to! The obligatory Technology Connections link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OfxlSG6q5Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OfxlSG6q5Y
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- alsobrsp 5y agoThis made me sad.
- apsurd 5y agoI enjoyed reading your story. All the while I couldn't help but want to share how good pan-fried/toasted bread is. It's the butter of course, just generously butter up a pan, spread the bread so it soaks up the butter. Takes a little longer, but you also get to feel like a cook. and no ads
- nixpulvis 5y agoStovetops haven't been a thing in most homes in over a decade. Everyone either heats up frozen meals or "cooks" separated ingredients in a special MealWave oven. True chefs are underrated for some reason that I still don't fully understand. Luckily the world is burning, so many people just cook on the sidewalks. The smart cooks learned that the solar panels get pretty damn hot, so they've been hijacking the roofs. Electricity prices now vary with meal timings (as well as everything else).
- fennecfoxen 5y agoYou forget the Amish. And Lehman’s Non-Electric Catalog is looking better than ever.
- Osiris 5y agoCitation? Every home I've ever seen has a cook top. Everyone has pots and pans. What am I missing?
- chris_wot 5y agoPretty much everything, sadly.
- bbarnett 5y agoThe future life and times of consumer us.
- uptown 5y agoI read the same exact thing here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27638473 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27638473
- coryrc 5y agoIt's a fictional story about the future, like the one starting this thread. Took me a second too.
- brailsafe 5y ago
- cardamomo 5y agoThis reminds me of Cory Doctorow's story "Radicalized." https://craphound.com/category/radicalized-full/ https://craphound.com/category/radicalized-full/
- readams 5y agoYou forgot the part where it refuses to toast your unlicensed bread.
- mixedmath 5y agoFor those unaware, this is exactly the main point of the story "Unauthorized Bread" by Cory Doctorow. I liked the story and would recommend it.
- dvtrn 5y agoA link to an exerpt: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-near-future-tale-of-refugees-and-sinister-iot-appliances/ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-...
- ptx 5y ago(The excerpt contains the story in its entirety. It's excerpted from a book that consists of multiple stories.)
- Freak_NL 5y agoRadicalized (2019). Four novellas, including the bread one. I just happened to have read it last week; it's a solid collection of stories. Model Minority from that collection is a good story as well.
- bobsmooth 5y agoThat was a great story. Thank you for linking it.
- andyjohnson0 5y agoSeconded. Well worth reading.
- disqard 5y agoThank you for sharing this!
- jchw 5y agoIt’s fiction like this that makes me less afraid of a reduced life span.
- mLuby 5y agoYou forgot the part where this toaster is free. Nobody except DIY hobbyists and tinfoil privacy weirdos actually pay for a toaster in 2050.
- biofox 5y agoThat's only the first iteration. Next, they'll only load individual packed proprietary toast-pods. Budget third-party pods will work, until the manufacturer rolls out a silent firmware update to brick your toaster, on the grounds of violating the EULA
- lifeformed 5y agoThe toaster is free, subsidized by burning advertisements into your toast.
- failwhaleshark 5y agoAnimated ads where the skip button doesn't work.
- lifeformed 5y agoUnless you apply Skippy™ Brand peanut butter to the toast.
- lemoncucumber 5y agoThe ads are all encoded as animated Jifs™.
- guywhocodes 5y agoIt won't be free, it will just be subsidized - the exact amount the unnecessary hardware cost.
- npteljes 5y agoNah, it's just a bit cheaper until non-ad supported toaster makers go out of business, and then you both pay, and watch ads. Like with cable television.
- jasonwatkinspdx 5y agoThe opening of the Philip K Dick story Ubiq has a scene very much like this.
- failwhaleshark 5y agoCool. It reminds me of one of the characters from Shooting Fish (1997) who has a penchant for "psychoanalyzing" mid-century electric appliances so he can repair them. And, Brazil with needless complexity everywhere.
- hedora 5y agoFact is probably worse than fiction here: Samsung fridges have machine vision systems to catalog their contents, then combine the data with data from samsung smart TVs. That way, they can be joined against your tv watching habits. This is all to better target ads. If you disable it, then it breaks the demand response function on the fridge, indirectly killing polar bears and other living things. They cost as much (or more) than non-connected versions.
- 3np 5y agoGot a source for this? A quick search didn’t turn up anything for me. They’re really years ahead of the pack in this villainy, so I don’t doubt that it’s true.
- Stratoscope 5y agoYou would have to ask the polar bears. Except they all got killed by people who tampered with the safety features in their refrigerators.
- Someone 5y agohttps://venturebeat.com/2019/01/11/samsung-is-using-computer-vision-to-tell-you-whats-in-your-fridge/ https://venturebeat.com/2019/01/11/samsung-is-using-computer... says ”There is no planned release date for Bixby Vision for refrigerators, a company spokesperson told VentureBeat. It’s more of a concept than a feature today” On the other hand, that’s from over 2 years ago, and https://www.samsung.com/us/support/answer/ANS00062803/ https://www.samsung.com/us/support/answer/ANS00062803/ says “Did you ever think the day would come when you could talk to your refrigerator, and it would actually listen? With Bixby on Family Hub, you can ask to see the contents of your fridge or even start playing music without lifting a finger.” So, the camera is there. Whether it has machine learning to detect contents and connects that with you tv, I wouldn’t know.
- tedd4u 5y agoThe picture in the article is so laughable. 6 plates each with one perfect item, left uncovered for the camera. My fridge is absolutely crammed with items, almost all of which are in a Tupperware or plastic bag, or shoved into the crisper drawer. Leftovers, chopped veg, etc. But it's okay that this is a hard CV challenge … there is no useful feature to be created here anyways.
- enchiridion 5y agoA 3 year old account that's been waiting for this moment.
- bcrosby95 5y ago2 years later, Amazon discontinues updates on the toaster. No one notices, but it still toasts. 8 years later, people hack them and cause them to burn down some houses. Of course, it was the owner's fault - they were running a discontinued toaster that wasn't receiving software updates anymore.
- TheSpiceIsLife 5y agoThankfully my seven year old iToaster hasn’t succumbed to the same fate. Yet.
- failwhaleshark 5y agoThe iTailer will shutdown all servers for that model on Jan 10, 2021, rendering it a glorified paperweight. Sorry. They said the next newer model of that will no longer receive updates at the same time.
- nroets 5y agoJan 10, 2021 - back in the good old days when see-through glass was still the norm.
- whoisburbansky 5y agoThis sounds eerily like the WD hard drive debacle going on right now.
- Someone 5y agoYeah, and the fault clearly is that, after discontinuing updates, they still supported the device in their cloud. They should have bricked the devices, removing write support ;-) I’m not sure whether to add that smiley here. That would have been a big middle finger to their customers, but the alternative they chose turned out to be worse for many customers. Maybe, the rule should be “if a product requires a subscription, the product should be free”? In WD’s case, it surprised me their cloud still supported a device they stopped supporting in 2015.
- akomtu 5y agoBy 2050, the out of control inflation has made bread too expensive for everyone except the top 1%. Toasters sold to normal folks scan barcodes on bread slices to check if the bakery is part of their bread insurance network. After playing the 5 minute ad, your toaster happily announces that your bakery is no longer covered, and asks if you want to make a $350 co-pay, with "Sign Up" and "More Details" buttons.
- jasonhansel 5y agoLater, when it's discovered that the toaster occasionally catches on fire, users are encouraged to pay $9.99 per month for "Toaster Plus," which causes an alarm to play before the fire starts, so that you know to get the extinguisher. Then they let you customize the alarm noise, so that you can choose how to be alerted of the future house fire. Soon, companies get rich selling $3 "toaster fire ringtones." Eventually, even after fire-less toasters are "invented," people prefer the old, "still catching on fire" ones, since "toasters have always worked that way."
- state_less 5y agoToaster plus is 5.99 if you subject yourself to an add prior to toasting.
- j4yav 5y agoNote that our Face Detection technology will be ensuring that you pay attention during the full duration of the ad.
- MereInterest 5y ago"A watched pot never boils, but watched toast finishes faster." Black box testing has found that the toaster's heating coils are throttled when eye tracking doesn't find anybody watching the ad.
- ljm 5y agoIt's like the Xbox Verification Can story.
- kyleee 5y agoThis was also after a massive recall due to an incident with a high end Peloton toaster and a small child. All of the $9,000 FedBucks™ units were recalled and the "Just Toast" feature removed
- Mountain_Skies 5y agoToaster Plus sounds a bit like Xerox's "Scorch Eliminator" from the 1950s, which was a small fire extinguisher for when the photocopier overheated.
- failwhaleshark 5y agoI don't want an ESP32 or an ARM in my toaster. I don't want bluetooth in my toaster. That shit is hard to clean. I don't want a flashing OLED emoji on my toaster judging my diet. I do plenty of that myself: flashing emoji. I don't want a toaster with a "personality." I want it to toast, only toast, and nothing but the toast, so help its electronic soul. Sunbeam Radiant Control: ride or die. Anything made after the 60's is junk by definition.
- 3np 5y agoWiFi password? Even by 2035ish it’d come with integrated mobile data so the user won’t have to worry about ensuring it has consistent network access to the mothership.
- fy20 5y agoOf course! It'll come preconfigured with your Amazon account, so it'll automatically integrate with other Amazon Home appliances that you have. Except the bread bin your mother gifted you for Christmas is a Google device, and the two do not work together. As such your toaster is always adding a reminder to buy bread onto your Amazon Fresh grocery list. Your fridge is constantly reminding you about this, whenever you are more than 2m away, and it is in "suggested products" mode. Compared to the adverts you saw before - often for processed junk food even though you are trying really hard to be on a diet - you actually find the bread adverts a relief and less distracting.
- jbay808 5y agoSo I noticed this week that my Canon printer was able to connect to my "secure" Wi-Fi during its initial setup without at any point prompting for a password. How worried should I be? Did it steal the keys from my computer?
- 3np 5y agoThat... sounds really really odd. Are you sure you (or someone else in your household) didn’t put in the key at some point? How did you notice that it connected? Which model number? What kind of WiFi security?
- jbay808 5y agoI'm sure, because I took it out of the box and did the first time setup. WiFi is standard WPA2. Printer is a Canon Pixma TR4527. Here's the process, for those interested. And I did work hard to see if there's any other way. 1. You download the printer "install software" from Canon's website. 2. Run the installer. It makes you read a long legal agreement, including that you won't use the printer for any antisocial purposes. 3. And then asks for your permission to install monitoring software to collect data from your printer. Probably including whatever confidential documents you print? Apparently in China all this stuff gets sent automatically to a "research firm". Oh yeah, and if you don't agree, it installs the software anyway but they say they won't use it. 4. The printer initially acts as its own WiFi access point. Your PC disconnects from its router and connects to the printer. What if your neighbour has the same printer? Who knows. Maybe you'd connect to that too. 5. The PC then connects back to the router's WiFi network... And the printer does 's too. Somehow. Never gave it the WiFi password. But I'm guessing it just asked my PC very politely. Scary stuff.
- hkmurakami 5y agoBut can I cancel my pro subscription without calling a support number? If so I may accept my dispotian fate with Grace and resignation.
- failwhaleshark 5y agoYou will be billed only 19.99/month for life and continue receiving the complementary Modern Strokers' catalog at no additional charge. Edit: or you can switch to The Daily Cannibal. The freedom of choice is yours to enjoy.
- weird-eye-issue 5y agoThe most unrealistic part is saying it took a few hours for it to arrive. I think delivery will be much faster by then.
- bellyfullofbac 5y agoThe Oculus VR goggles (who has a TV anymore?) serving you Facebook ads also has attention sensors (hey it's already on your head, so it was easy to add that 5 cent brain-wave sensor!), and if your brain ever thinks "Hey, that looks interesting", they'd just tell the poor Deliveroo "contractor" to drop off the device at your house, for a "Free 7 day trial. Throw it in trash if you're not interested!".
- yumraj 5y agoDon’t give ideas - someone will actually start a startup and we’ll all suffer. Your 2050 will become 2025.
- ekianjo 5y agono camera on the toaster? no dystopian enough.
- rapind 5y agoI use to be so enthusiastic about technology. Now I almost dread the next innovation for how it will inevitably find it’s major use case in advertising. I swear I’m turning Luddite.
- vagrantJin 5y agoYou're not alone. As a 28 year old in tech for the last 7 years, I am definitely a Luddite. Its heartbreaking some of the most talented minds in software engineering are just making ads appear. The internet is an ad network with content at this point.
- amelius 5y agoSmart people have failed to outsmart business people.
- npteljes 5y agoWhat solidified this in me was when Microsoft announced Trusted Computing, some 15 years ago[0]. I was scarred with the fact that technology enables so much abuse and that the companies will spin it until it sounds like a plus for the customer. And later, it basically became the Zeitgeist. We kind of returned to remotely managed thin clients, instead of Computing really being Personal. [0] https://www.mcpressonline.com/programming-other/microsoft/microsoft-computing-trusted-computing https://www.mcpressonline.com/programming-other/microsoft/mi...
- abakker 5y agoEver read Ubik? I think the only thing missing is that it should charge your for each piece of toast you make and remit the payment to either the manufacturer or your landlord. If you are behind on rent, you can’t make toast.
- wruza 5y agoWhy can’t you just crumple some wires and make a toaster yourself? (Because outlets require certified chips with power-certificate-chain validation on both sides of a power cord, if you ever get your hands on such an old-fashioned hardware.)
- rbobby 5y agoAI enabled toaster: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRq_SAuQDec https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRq_SAuQDec (from Red Dwarf)
- rebuilder 5y agoNot to worry, we'll be in WW3 by then, as states try to respond to mass upheavals caused by our failure to stop catastrophic climate change. Toast will not be a primary concern.
- tonyedgecombe 5y agoToast will not be a primary concern. Bread will be though.
- Yoric 5y ago...let them eat toast!
- guywhocodes 5y agoThank you, it's the most depressing thing I've read in a week . However, I find it wildly optimistic this won't be our world before the 30s are over.
- smackay 5y agoThis is perhaps the existential crisis that engineering in all its forms has to deal with. Much of the Western ethos and certainly engineering culture in general is about making life better. Instead, our only task now is making it more profitable.
- npteljes 5y agoI'll put this up in my favorite short stories section, along with the Verification Can and the Libertarian Police Department[0]. [0] https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/l-p-d-libertarian-police-department https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/l-p-d-libertari...
- easrng 5y agoAvoid the loginwall at https://archive.is/j65k3 https://archive.is/j65k3
- oort-cloud9 5y agoSeriously though, I love my smart lights so far. I tell Google to turn them on /off, and it does almost without a hitch.
- arvinsim 5y agoThis sounds like one of Cory Doctorow’s short stories in his Radicalized book.
- loughnane 5y agoThe is reminds me of the centrifugal bumblepuppy in brave new world. It’s a contraption that exists because there a rule that each new version of a thing must consume more resources than what can before. You know, for the economy.
- biermic 5y agoSo I just hit up Amazon and found this: https://www.amazon.com/Revolution-Cooking-R180-High-Speed-Stainless/dp/B086H69SJ2 https://www.amazon.com/Revolution-Cooking-R180-High-Speed-St... Not sure if we have to wait until 2050
- swiley 5y agoMan at that point I'd just make my own and keep a fire extinguisher handy. Making stuff hot with electricity isn't exactly rocket science.
- asyrafql 5y agoThis is suck
- asddubs 5y agocome on now, it wouldn't be a red "Go" button, it would be "slide finger downwards to start toasting"
- brewdad 5y agoA series of photos of ever darkening toast. Swipe right when you find one that looks appetizing.
- DoreenMichele 5y agoAnd then you have to get to know the quirks of your particular toaster to know in which direction you need to adjust by two shades to get what you actually want.
- jraph 5y agoRelevant username. (thanks for your dystopia, they sometimes show up on HN and I love them. This one is very well written)
- ASalazarMX 5y agoLate to comment, but couldn't resist the comparison with Ubik. The door that refuses to open until the protagonist deposits a coin, and threatens him when he begins to bypass it, could well be the AI toaster that berates you for not using approved bread.